Top of the Flops : 10. The Alan Bown

[Adrian Gregg]

Lance how did you think it was open reel VT?!? you should have a look at some ;->
yeah Super8 I good cond too. I have loads of it. nothing missing on it though ;-< but each time the guy who made my stuff pressed the trigger you would get diffrant "moving bars" type probs each "shot" the problem is the "refresh" rate of the Tube TV being widley diffrant to the shutter of the super8. I have mags from the 60's that advertise a device that could speed up the super 8 (providing you had the same camera) or slow down the shutter rate to match EXACTLY the rate of the tube 50hz or 50 interlaced fields per sec. the common thing to do was to slow the camera down to about 12.5 FPS. (which was not that far from what the 8mm would be anyway) and some of the reels I've seen used with such an aparatus look pretty bloody good.
and in my 25 year reserch of sound film and video recording process and aplications. which Ive read and own a few 100 thousand magazines from 80 odd years on the topic. and super 8 with sound. was 1 very expensive 2. you needed either a Magnetic capible Projector or a standard Optical ST projector. having both at the time was relegated to rich people "usally" who would probaly never tape TOTP anyway!!! and in the 1000's or suoer standard and 16mm hove movies i have very very very few of em have sound

[William Martin]

Jul 21, 2008 16:18:47 GMT Peter Elliott said:

Jul 21, 2008 16:12:35 GMT William Martin said:

are we sure it was S8 and not Std8 or even single8, I ask because S8 has a slightly larger frame size than Std8 and is therefore able to catch a slightly higher def picture, also does anyone have the sound to this ep as an off air audio or was it from the record?

The sound was dubbed from the record. Maybe somebody out there may have an off-air recording of the show or parts of it but whoever filmed this clip didn't seem to have sound recording set up. It's very likely the vocals were "live" on the transmission but a dub of the record is good enough to allow us to see a rare clip like this.

it matches pretty well (although not without a gret deal of hard work I suspect) I would quite like to see the start and end of the reel perhaps there's a bit more. It would be good to collect all these of air home movie clips, there must have been quite a lot done at the time.

[Peter Elliott]

Jul 23, 2008 14:10:51 GMT William Martin said:

it matches pretty well (although not without a gret deal of hard work I suspect) I would quite like to see the start and end of the reel perhaps there's a bit more. It would be good to collect all these of air home movie clips, there must have been quite a lot done at the time.

Yes, I'm quite curious to see what else is on that film reel since we have a couple of tantalising snippets either side of the clip which hints there may be some footage of Alan Freeman's intro or outro since he was that weeks host.

Any TOTP fragments no matter how short or trivial are always welcome!

[William Martin]

Jul 23, 2008 14:18:34 GMT Peter Elliott said:

Jul 23, 2008 14:10:51 GMT William Martin said:

it matches pretty well (although not without a gret deal of hard work I suspect) I would quite like to see the start and end of the reel perhaps there's a bit more. It would be good to collect all these of air home movie clips, there must have been quite a lot done at the time.

Yes, I'm quite curious to see what else is on that film reel since we have a couple of tantalising snippets either side of the clip which hints there may be some footage of Alan Freeman's intro or outro since he was that weeks host.

Any TOTP fragments no matter how short or trivial are always welcome!

I'm sure something can be done about the interferrence pattern as well there would be some image at the fringes of the bars that could be recovered and then a bit of vidfiresque enhancement wouldn't hurt either

I wonder what speed it was shot at I'm guessing 18 or 16 fps, that should tell us the maximum possible length.

[Deleted]

Jul 23, 2008 14:18:34 GMT Peter Elliott said:

Yes, I'm quite curious to see what else is on that film reel since we have a couple of tantalising snippets either side of the clip which hints there may be some footage of Alan Freeman's intro or outro since he was that weeks host.

Any TOTP fragments no matter how short or trivial are always welcome!

Indeed. I wouldn't ponder what was on the start and end of the film reel too much though; I suspect - bearing in mind the expense of film etc. - there's probably not much more than we see. Although, having said that, nothing is conclusive and i'd love to be proved wrong! It's a fascinating clip and i'd like to know how much other home movie footage exists of TOTP out there! I have seen some very brief mute fragments of The Yardbirds on the show too but if this Bown clip exists (of, relatively speaking, an obscure act too) in what is pretty good quality given the circumstances, then i'd say there's a very good chance more is out there, as i've always imagined is quite possible anyway. The good thing about mute movie material from TOTP is that the audio can be re-dubbed (even though sometimes there was a partially live performance), which isn't so with drama material etc. At least the person who recorded it has shared it with everyone, rather than hoarding. Thanks for that, whoever you are!

[Peter Elliott]

Right on Laurence.

Whoever filmed this clip obviously had pre-planned to do so so I would at a guess imagine there might be a few frames from either end of it that ended up being surplus to requirement. What I find fascinating about this particular clip is that it is complete. Virtually all 8mm clips of lost TV I've seen has been at best, fragmented and brief... the Jimi Hendrix and Dusty Springfield clips come to mind as indeed do the various Doctor Who clips which are as brief as one second.

It is indeed great that whoever has this footage took the time to re-dub it and share it, instead of either hoarding it or applying various tricks to it to prevent us from seeing the whole sequence. It's nice that virtually 40 years after it's original transmission that this turns up and indeed it does get one wondering just what else could be out there.

[Deleted]

Absolutely! The other thing that gets me salivating is the thought that this clip could look even better with modern restoration techniques applied to a direct transfer of the 8mm original. Notably reducing the flicker effect, increasing the grey scale range, a general clean-up and even possibly Vidfiring (if the results of the restoration proved good enough to warrant it).

[Peter Elliott]

Thanks for that very informative and interesting post regulo3.

I always wondered what on earth those dots on the Hendrix/Springfield duet was and now I know! I genuinely never knew Standard8 used 16mm film and worked in the manner you described.

[Reg Long3]

Thanks Peter hope it was of help?.
the 16mm film for 8 ,obviously had more sprockets but was essentially just a standard product that had been adopted for economy.

[Adrian Gregg]

Jul 23, 2008 21:35:56 GMT Reg Long3 said:

some nerdy facts about 8 mil film.


post sixties Super 8 , and sound cameras were available with mag sound on film and a much longer running cartridge."

True they were avalible but the average punter had a silent camera PERIOD. out of the 100's of super 8 camera's i've owned and all the 60's 70's "camera" mags (ohh err) and catalouges ive seen from that period (from the likes of kmart etc) and of course talking to collectors and film buffs who owned this kind of gear. the silent camera is what like 90% of the great unwashed owned.
and those with sound cameras sometimes never used the feature. most camera's ive seen you had to plug an unweidly mic into the camera, which made the whole pratice a bore (so i've been told)


"The Jimmy Hendrix clip on Dusty Springfield is Standard 8, the dots across the picture give it away at the end.
Why? well Standard 8 was actually 16mm film , Halfway through the film the operator had to switch the film over and record down the other side . The dots that were at the end of the film IIRC were code, something to do with telling a machine at Kodak to start doing things like perhaps guillotining it into the separate two halves? .

Nope it WAS 16mm film as you say. But it was spiced in house before the customer got the "unexposed reel" .
have a look at 8mm cameras I have a few and have just looked at the "guts" and there is NO space for double perferated 16mm film at all. and think of all the "double exposure" issues flipping a film over would have caused!!



"Super 8 or any camera filming off a British screen will show black bars . Filmed off an American screen will show a fine white tearing disturbance.
Expensive Super 8 cameras had devices which could synchronize a TV picture while running at the proper speed."

Those devices were not That expensive and a lot of cameras had the capabilites it was a lot of trial and lots of error. A chap i know filmed a LOT of tv in the 60/70's and after the first "trial" reels he had it sorted. On a Standard model camera too not a flashy one by all means so it wasn't that difficult. It's just that alomost all *mm stuff we see today (from TV like TOTP DR WHO ETC) was filmed by kids. remember that. not by adult who could spend a bit of time talking with the guy down the Camera store, or by trying things out. kids would just point and hope for the best (IMHO)

[Reg Long3]

Hope it was useful to some?
I have removed the post now .

[Adrian Gregg]

eh?
I think personally people need to know about the various methods and means that 8mm or super 8 films from the telly were made (and of course more importantly the technology used at the time)

TOTP's or anything that's missing is imnportant and thanks for the link and the look see at the remarkable film.
what we as missing tv hunters or whaterver need to know is the Techonlogy used. we all need to FULLY understand it and Appreciate it. some of the posts on this board border (rarley i might add) on the bizzare (from a techie's point of view) the more people know about the ways and means that this unique material was made and has survived only helps us in preserving this kind of thing..

I know some people get blinkered into Dr who camps or TOTP's Camps and don't really care or apreciate HOW this stuff survives, but i find knowing as much as we can looks good when speaking to collectors or even the old man down the road with a loft full of old film, he can see we are genuinly interested in not only what's on his films but we care enough to know what he went though to make it in the first place. I've spoken to many collectors who shy away from missing epp hunters BECAUSE of thier Pig Igrance of anything BUT the film itself some never want to engage in conversation about how the films were made and such, just blind questions some collectors have told me it's like speaking to someone with "dollar signs in thier eyes"
if we can converse with these collectors with tact and know a bit about the times and technolgy used we could go a long way.

[LanceM]

I would agree with Ade42 that tact, patience, and courtesy when asking about old TV prints, or related material goes a long way indeed. A good understanding of the electronics, equipment, methods, standards, and formats used to professionally record or domestically record TV material does go a long way at finding some common ground, possibly you have some information that might interest them about a process like home 8mm TV filming, or off air open reel video formats, etc.

Asking enthusiast's about old home movies, likes interests, could also yield some material as who knows, could of been a big TV fan in the past. There is also ideas for possible discoveries such as the photo that was discussed a few years ago from an old film enthusiast's magazine at how you could record TV at home using 8mm film. They had a test photo from what was discovered to be a print of The Wheel In Space episode 4, which could or not still exist out there somewhere. So, there was a market for home TV recordings, this further example here of the Alan Brown Set performance would seem to confirm those sort of suppositions. I have for example a super 8mm colour episode of Benny Hill that was filmed off a TV screen, another example of home TV filming. I would definitely think that this area of research would be a good one to investigate for future material discoveries.

Also, in relation to this thread, when adding the improved High Quality ending to the clip, the results are much better than before, the sound is also improved here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixFp74vAWC0&fmt=18

Cheers, Lance.

[Adrian Gregg]

Thanks Lance, I've meet many collectors NOT because of my interest in missing TV/Radio. but for my Passion for restoring old 78's. Reading a few 1000 mags from the 30's-70 helped a LOT . i could talk about electronics and related recording gear in THIER lauguge . Ive made may friends and learnt about recording thecnolgy from them first hand which is greater experiance than reading about it. I've used gear and understand more than you could ever read form any internet in any age.
This is not to brag, it's just somthing ive done so i could restore shelac 78rpm discs better than had ever been heard before, Which i have achived. and during this iv'e seen missing TV seen missing radio on a variety of formats. But in all cases these guys have Already been in contact with people like some of us on this forum, spoken to guys who are only interested in this OR that never thing and that. I learnt so much in my 15 year "soking up" of this tecnology., that for many Tv collectors I'm the guy who fixes thier gear when it fails. and hey im only in my mid 30's !!