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Post by John Andersen on Jul 13, 2008 20:02:57 GMT
That medal has been awarded to her at other forums already. I had very high hopes in the 80s that a lot more material would be returned from overseas television stations, but unfortunately those stations were telexed with specific orders to destroy their prints as well.  That's not to say that foreign stations, particularly in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and especially the African countries may not still have prints. That is true. Maybe somebody at one of those stations might discover something by accident. Unfortunately, nobody is looking in those areas for something that is supposedly destroyed. We can only hope that something is found and the person finding the prints would know that they are wanted by the BBC. The search for missing episodes is like riding in a train without wheels right now because we are not getting anywhere. |
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Post by JOHN SMITH on Jul 13, 2008 20:13:57 GMT
That's not to say that foreign stations, particularly in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and especially the African countries may not still have prints. That is true. Maybe somebody at one of those stations might discover something by accident. Unfortunately, nobody is looking in those areas for something that is supposedly destroyed. We can only hope that something is found and the person finding the prints would know that they are wanted by the BBC. The search for missing episodes is like riding in a train without wheels right now because we are not getting anywhere. Indeed! It seems more and more likely, that the recovery of ANY 'lost british tv' will only ever be made if it is handed back by a private individual. I just can't see ANY tv station anywhere spending the money/manpower to look for something that is not even theirs. They (the stations) might have many 'lost' Who episodes left, but other than a 1 in a million lucky/accidental find such as what happened at Villiers with Ice Warriors, they will just be left gathering dust. |
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Post by Steven Sigel on Jul 13, 2008 22:07:40 GMT
As far as ANY hope of future recoveries of Who goes, since it seems to have been established that none (at least in UK) were made from skips at villiers. The one encouraging sign seems to be how popular Doctor Who was 'to borrow'. I don't see how you've established anything... It was never likely that anything came out of the skips, but it's not impossible. Dr. Who was not Popular to "borrow" -- we know of two people who took prints out of the BBC in the 70s. The case in the 80s was after things were already junked so is irrelvant. No one knows where the other prints that were recovered came from originally. No - there was not another copy of Tomb in the UK - that's a debunked rumor. Very few of them... I know that a print of "The Daleks (1)" was advertised in "The Big Reel" magazine in the US, and subsequently showed up on ebay some time later... Also a print of Spearhead from Space Ep (2) in color turned up on ebay... Not necessarily - no one really knows where many of the prints in private hands came from ... |
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Post by Adrian Gregg on Jul 13, 2008 22:49:35 GMT
"No - there was not another copy of Tomb in the UK - that's a debunked rumor."
When it came back within a day or so i saw a s-vhs with a small group and we were told it in fact was not the returned prints but another copy that someone has "let go" as the find would make his prints worthless. (at the time i heard loads of these rumors) so when i watched the tape ( it was a straight run of of the hong Kong prints IE. no editing at the front of epp one moving a scene around)
I carefully remembers most of the film damage and when i saw the BBC VIDEO version of it the prints were the same. same off locks, same scratches etc etc.. the only diff was the opening scene buggered about with. (which what is probably causing all the confusion) as loads of us saw the prints within days of the discovery. the beeb hadn't shuffled the fist scene around so in some peoples memory's it may appear to be a different print.
"
Very few of them... I know that a print of "The Daleks (1)" was advertised in "The Big Reel" magazine in the US, and subsequently showed up on ebay some time later... Also a print of Spearhead from Space Ep (2) in color turned up on ebay... "
But there has been a glut of early 80's 16mm and 8mm reduction prints that some fan made . there has been quite a few on ebay in the last 10 years
and to clarify the Australian ABC has all the missing epps thing.
The ABC central archive/storage area has moved twice in the last 20 years. EACH TIME a careful stock take was made.
maybe prints slipped though and from what Ive been told the last move less that a few years ago. a whole load of prints were dumped. but again this is for storage reasons and its not some mad anti-who vendetta. and over the years Ive spoken with many fans who "worked the ropes" in the industry by starting in Archives.
and them being mad who fans they checked every inch of film. this Ive heard about 4 times. these people don't know each other so that's 4 independent searches in 10 years.
"As far as ANY hope of future recoveries of Who goes, since it seems to have been established that none (at least in UK) were made from skips at villiers. The one encouraging sign seems to be how popular Doctor Who was 'to borrow'."
this is perhaps the comment I've been looking for for a while. see how the whovie bases his entire knowledge on missing episodes on Dr who. not other programs. Dr who popular to "borrow" ha ha bloody ha. mate do some research on OTHER shows.. please.
That's the problem of "Learning your trade" as it were on missing dr who by reading all the articles online. go off and look for the epps. yep i really mean LOOK for em. no internet, no emails, no exuses. yep go for it. there's no point trying to "pecice together" any theroies from the drivl on the internet. everyone been down that road.
Ok here's one to get you going. how many prints of early ITV film based series are out "there" you know robin hood etc etc, how on earth did fans get hold of these prints. and how is AR stuff still being found.
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Post by Steven Sigel on Jul 13, 2008 22:54:59 GMT
Ade: yes - you are right, there are a fair # of the 80s dupes that have turned up on ebay.. I wasn't counting those... Only prints that I've seen that I couldn't account for their origins...
There are a lot more ITV prints out there than BBC prints - partly because they were shown in the US... I've had dozens of prints of "Robin Hood", "William Tell" and the like over the years..
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Post by John Andersen on Jul 14, 2008 2:44:50 GMT
It seems more and more likely, that the recovery of ANY 'lost british tv' will only ever be made if it is handed back by a private individual. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case. What is even more depressing is the very few returns from private collectors. 1 episode from The Wheel In Space. 1 episode of The Abominable Snowmen, 1 episode of The Faceless Ones, 1 episode of The Evil of the Daleks, 1 episode of The Reign of Terror, 1 episode from The Crusade, 1 episode from The Dalek Masterplan. There might have been an episode from The War Machines that a collector had in Australia, but I am not certain. After going over all of this bad news and the bleak future for lost Doctor Who episodes, I can use a drink. |
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Post by JOHN SMITH on Jul 14, 2008 5:37:29 GMT
Dr. Who was not Popular to "borrow" -- we know of two people who took prints out of the BBC in the 70s. The case in the 80s was after things were already junked so is irrelvant. No one knows where the other prints that were recovered came from originally. Very few of them... I know that a print of "The Daleks (1)" was advertised in "The Big Reel" magazine in the US, and subsequently showed up on ebay some time later... Also a print of Spearhead from Space Ep (2) in color turned up on ebay... Not necessarily - no one really knows where many of the prints in private hands came from ... Since what information is available seems to indicate that eps (of bbc programming) (missing or otherwise) were not obtained from skips, it is therefore logical to assume that realistically, private recoveries (in uk) can only have come from out of the BBC. And whilst the information is concrete about at least 2 of the 'borrowings' of Dr Who taking place in the 70's. That's not to say that the 'others' did not take place during the 70's either, and that they were just sat upon by their original owners, (and then where necessary their return owners) for a while before being eventually returned. After all Mr Watson sat on his for 30 years, and given how high profile 'lost' Who has been covered, especially during 1999, then it would seem likely that even at that late point surely he must have realised (since it not too hard to check) that he had a missing ep in his possession, but yet it was a further 5 years before it was returned. So rather than seeming unlikely, it would seem likely that other eps were not returned immediately. Heck, Time Meddler 1, 3 were not returned until after the other prints of it were found. However what is not an assumption, is that the recovery of any more Dr Who, whilst not impossible, makes for depressing reading. |
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Post by JOHN SMITH on Jul 14, 2008 9:11:46 GMT
Just a general question, is it easier and cheaper to make a positive film print from a negative one, and is the quality better?
I can only think it's similar to film photo cameras. From the negative, the positive (photograph) is produced. But if a person wants to reproduce a photograph without a negative, just by using the photograph itself, the photo needs either a: photographing and the ensuing negative then developing and the end result is a photo of lower quality than the original. Or b: The photograph is scanned (however relating to a film print, a positive film print can't presumably be scanned in order to reproduce another positive print) and the resulting image is then printed out, however from what I've experienced in that field, again, the quality of the reproduction is lower than in the original.
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Post by Daniel O'Brien on Jul 14, 2008 13:31:41 GMT
what is not an assumption, is that the recovery of any more Dr Who, whilst not impossible, makes for depressing reading. Attitudes to missing 'Who' episodes can be broadly categorised as follows: 1. The 108 episodes still exist - with the possible exception of 'The Feast of Steven' - and are out there somewhere, in forgotten or unchecked TV vaults, with private collectors who don't know their value, or with hoarders who refuse to share. (A minority view, I would say.) 2. A good number of episodes still exist and may be recovered with a combination of persistence and luck. 3. A few episodes may exist and could be returned. 4. The missing episodes are gone for good. I've never believed in option 1. and have come to regard 2. as a fan's pipe dream. I incline towards 4. but hope for 3., if that makes sense. |
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Post by William Martin on Jul 14, 2008 16:19:38 GMT
it is normaly reckoned that 80% efficiency is the maximum that can be attained over a long period of time, simply add the total number of missing episodes returned by fans (not including duplicates) multiply by 0.2 and that will give you a rough idea as to how many are still out there.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 16, 2008 2:22:08 GMT
If this collector rescued 321 reels of film from the Karori dump, what has become of the 320 others? It would be interesting to know what else was saved. Was is all foreign (BBC) stuff, or was there more importantly BCNZ recordings too? Is there a list of the recovered films online anywhere? There is no online copy of the list. Until the 'owner' of the list gives his permission, the list will never be put online. Of the other 320 films he saved, he kept (and still has) most of the ones he wanted, and sold or gave away the rest. It was mostly US film series, and a few nature documentaries. Thanks for that. It a shame it wasn't a cache of lost New Zealand television programmes. The self-obsessed collectors wouldn't want that and thus it would probably return to the archive where it belongs. Too much of our TV has been lost and no-one seems to care. |
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Post by Rich Cornock on Jul 16, 2008 8:25:43 GMT
what is not an assumption, is that the recovery of any more Dr Who, whilst not impossible, makes for depressing reading. Attitudes to missing 'Who' episodes can be broadly categorised as follows: 1. The 108 episodes still exist - with the possible exception of 'The Feast of Steven' - and are out there somewhere, in forgotten or unchecked TV vaults, with private collectors who don't know their value, or with hoarders who refuse to share. (A minority view, I would say.) 2. A good number of episodes still exist and may be recovered with a combination of persistence and luck. 3. A few episodes may exist and could be returned. 4. The missing episodes are gone for good. I've never believed in option 1. and have come to regard 2. as a fan's pipe dream. I incline towards 4. but hope for 3., if that makes sense. this is the most sensible statement i have read on here for ages, much more likely than some of the other wild speculation thats been floating around |
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Post by Greg H on Jul 16, 2008 9:18:51 GMT
what is not an assumption, is that the recovery of any more Dr Who, whilst not impossible, makes for depressing reading. Attitudes to missing 'Who' episodes can be broadly categorised as follows: 1. The 108 episodes still exist - with the possible exception of 'The Feast of Steven' - and are out there somewhere, in forgotten or unchecked TV vaults, with private collectors who don't know their value, or with hoarders who refuse to share. (A minority view, I would say.) 2. A good number of episodes still exist and may be recovered with a combination of persistence and luck. 3. A few episodes may exist and could be returned. 4. The missing episodes are gone for good. I've never believed in option 1. and have come to regard 2. as a fan's pipe dream. I incline towards 4. but hope for 3., if that makes sense. In defence of optimism, i.e. #2 on your list, there are still home video recordings from the 60s being discovered, and its very hard to say when this particular well will run dry. I find it probable that someone somewhere was recording one of the most popular television shows of its day. Yes the tapes were expensive, blah blah, but so were the machines, so we can assume a certain ammount of money was in the bank accounts of people who purchased 60s video recorders. Finding them is a different story of course.............. |
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Post by Greg H on Jul 16, 2008 9:20:46 GMT
There is no online copy of the list. Until the 'owner' of the list gives his permission, the list will never be put online. Of the other 320 films he saved, he kept (and still has) most of the ones he wanted, and sold or gave away the rest. It was mostly US film series, and a few nature documentaries. Thanks for that. It a shame it wasn't a cache of lost New Zealand television programmes. The self-obsessed collectors wouldn't want that and thus it would probably return to the archive where it belongs. Too much of our TV has been lost and no-one seems to care. Is no one hunting for missing NZ tv then? Seems a shame really. I dont really know anything about classic NZ tv. Got any interesting links? |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 16, 2008 9:40:12 GMT
Perhaps a few people are, I'm not sure. But TVNZ and the Film and Television Archive doesn't seem to actively seek out the return of items as far as I'm aware. The only campoaign I've ever heard of here in NZ was the Film Archive asking for old home movies of events and social things, which pulled in lots of interesting stiff.
Sadly VCR's didn't really come onto the scene here till well after the UK, Europe and the USA. If you had one in the 1970's you'd probably have been mega rich. I'd never even heard of the concept till the early 1980's and when Dad bought a VCR in 1984 our family were one of the first in town I think. There were certainly no video stores, and only one other guy i knew at school had one at home which his family had brought from the UK.
So the 1960's-1970's stuff made in NZ is probably very unlikely to ever turn up as very little of it would have been sold abroad. I think they archived all the news stuff, but they wiped things like dramas, variety shows, etc I'm told. I'd like to find a list of the important lost stuff missing from the NZ archives to find out what needs to be found - or what we'll never see again.
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