Off-screen home movie footage - why so short?

[Dan]

Why does this footage exist? I mean, I was looking at a list on a site which I can't find now which listed all the existing footage from the missing episodes, and as well as all the clips from New Zealand etc... and all the other clips there's the footage filmed off-screen by someone with an 8mm home movie camera.

All the clips are 3 seconds, 2 seconds, 1 second. Why are they so short?

I'm trying to visualise someone in the 60's intending to capture some Dr Who off-screen for posterity. You'd set up your camera on a tripod, you'd use a cable release so as not to jog the camera when you started and stopped filming, then you'd film BLOODY USELESS 2 SECOND CLIPS? Why? It doesn't make sense. When you played the film back it'd be a jumble of incoherent flash-frames whizzing past the screen (they'd not know that 30 years+ later the clips would be incorporated into episode reconstructions).

Surely it'd be more sensible to film longer sequences. How long is an 8mm film anyway? 8 minutes. 11 minutes? I forget.
Anyway, if it was me and I couldn't afford to use 2 or 3 rolls of film for every episode it'd have been more sensible to use a lower frame rate. If you'd have filmed at 2 frames per second for example you'd have got 4 full episodes onto approx 8 minutes of film. It'd be quite watchable when synchronised with the audio, and highly preferable when the alternative is some useless 2 second clips. Has anyone asked the people who filmed the footage in the first place why the clips were all so short?

[Nigel Bland]

According to the Doctor Who audio & video faq -
archive.whoniversity.co.uk/av_faq/av_faq.html#2.2
- the clips were most likely recorded on a clockwork camera, and according to a site dedicated to clockwork cameras -
www.siltec.co.uk/amovies/clkwkmovs/qanda.html
- these were only capable of filming continously for a few seconds.
As for why a better camera wasn't used, I imagine it's down to cost.

[Richard Bignell]

Guest-Dan said:

All the clips are 3 seconds, 2 seconds, 1 second. Why are they so short?

As Nigel indicated, the footage was shot on a clockwork camera, most of which would only exposed around eight feet of film before the spring needed to be rewound. Film was also quite expensive, so cine photographers tended to be very aware of keeping their finger on the trigger too long. Indeed, in my pre-video days, I took recorded some clisp from a Tom Baker episode, and they likewise are all quite short.

Surely it'd be more sensible to film longer sequences. How long is an 8mm film anyway? 8 minutes. 11 minutes? I forget.

3½ minutes, and if it was on Standard -8, then the film needed to be removed from the camera half way through, turned over and rethreaded.

Anyway, if it was me and I couldn't afford to use 2 or 3 rolls of film for every episode it'd have been more sensible to use a lower frame rate.

You rarely got variable speed on cine cameras. Most operated at the one speed of around 18fps, others you could adjust down to 12fps or up to 24fps. Most didn't have cable release either.

If you'd have filmed at 2 frames per second for example you'd have got 4 full episodes onto approx 8 minutes of film. It'd be quite watchable when synchronised with the audio

You wouldn't have found a camera that would have run at 2fps. As for being "quite watchable", it would have been quite the opposite and virtually unwatchable. Viewing material shot at 12fps is bad enough, let alone anything slower.

Richard

[Dan]

Thanks for the info.

Richard said:

As for being "quite watchable", it would have been quite the opposite and virtually unwatchable. Viewing material shot at 12fps is bad enough, let alone anything slower.

I meant quite watchable as opposed to only having 20 telesnaps for an episode.

[LanceM]

Hey,
Some video footage is better than none at all. I mean some missing episodes do not have any video footage existing at all, so we should count our blessings and be happy with the black lined choppy footage that we can all watch from the fantastic BBC release Lost In Time Collection, which was so much fun to watch the fury footage from epispde 6, and the Power of the Daleks trailer, and Space Pirates inserts.

Lance.

[William Martin]

all been said above really, expensive film probably £10-20 in moderm money for 2 1/5 - 3 1/5 minutes, clockwork drives only running 30-60 seconds perhaps not fully wound, not knowing what would be the best to record(it was the first time they had seen the episode) and trying to conserve what little film they may have had left(it would most likely be a few feet at the end of a holiday film) accidentaly pressing the trigger and so on.