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Post by steve davies on Jun 16, 2004 10:41:11 GMT
Hi Folks,
I would like some feedback on this suggestion, it stemmed from a previous posting on oversaes archives being trawled.
I think it is time for another appeal for missing material, the previous one was a great success and from that time till now, high profile missing episodes are still coming from the woodwork.
Another, and perhaps yearly frequent appeals may generate finds.
I know it costs money etc, but I have put together "an ideal world" scenario.
Over a period of say, two weeks, the BBC announces at certain times on radio and tv about this.
With the BBC having at least 6 radio stations on air and two terrestrial channels and other satellite channels it must be quite simple to get someone down for interviews on radio stations and to cover most of the country.
A little featurette could be created showing some of the episode finds of late and show the work of the Restoration team to demonstrate how archive material is not sitting gathering dust but being restored for the viewer and consumer.
To demonstrate this the before and after of Tomb or Seeds of Death could be used.
Get Dick Fiddy along ala the Time shift and Dads Army MBW programmes as well to plug the BFI MBW screenings.
I Know the BBC will never buy back its own material but we could have for cases as this where we can use Andy Hendersons brilliant idea on the Z Cars ebay situation, a way where a group of people all chip in to a go between to act for both parties.
Let us not ofrget that The Restoration team has actually bid on ebay for behing the scenes footage, which would come to a dvd very soon if succesful.
If collectors wanted to trade material, groups like The Program Preservation society could step up to the plate and help out there with members having their own colections and would probably be more than happy to help in those situations.
Again if it was stipulated that any dealings with were looked at with no criminal repercussions and actually being seen to do so and returning stuff after copied quickly, Im sure word would pass around collectors that the Beeb is an organisation you can deal with, one of the main niggles form the first BFI MBW was that much material was not retuned to their respective owners quickly and it did cause a little ripple or two.
I know this is , as I say an ideal world situation, but further appeals will not go amiss and there is much to learn from the first one.
I know that Mr. Paul Vanezis is a moderator on this forum and the Restoration team are happy to act as go -betweens on episode recovery.
I would be interested to hear what everyone thinks on this topic.
Thanks for reading till the end and apologies for those that have nodded off.
Best wishes
Steve
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Post by H Hartley on Jun 16, 2004 11:28:29 GMT
The sad thing about all this, is the majority of this 'missing' stuff is right there at the BBC/BFI etc , just that they dont even know its there.
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Post by andrew martin on Jun 16, 2004 13:21:11 GMT
Err... no...
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Post by Mark Brown on Jun 16, 2004 15:25:17 GMT
The sad thing about all this, is the majority of this 'missing' stuff is right there at the BBC/BFI etc , just that they dont even know its there. indeed, it's in the cargo hold of Wonder Woman's Invisable jet plane out in the car park. |
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Post by William Martin on Jun 16, 2004 15:34:22 GMT
unfortunatly the film is invisible as well
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Post by H Hartley on Jun 16, 2004 16:29:39 GMT
youll see! you mark my words. They all laughed at Edison when he said the world was round.
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Post by Andrew Doherty on Jun 16, 2004 17:03:19 GMT
To give encouragement to this idea, back in 1993, while carrying out a spot check at the Brentford BBC Archive, Adam Lee (BBC Television Archivist at the time) found a 1954 "Animal, Vegetable and Mineral" programme along with a 1957 "What's My Line" programme, both were marked as deleted in 1960. Having visited the BBC Archive in 1998 I saw for myself that such a situation is perfectly possible; this is certainly underlined by the recently uncovered "Adam Adamant Lives!" episode.
So, there may still be some future discovery made, though of course, it cannot be guaranteed.
Yours sincerely,
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Post by Peter Chadwick on Jun 16, 2004 18:13:16 GMT
Unforunately, the thing that puts people off returning material is the lack of a reply or even acknowledgement of contact, particularly if it's done through the 'Treasure Hunt' website. The BBC has said on occasion that it doesn't have many staff to spare to man this site full time, so why ask people to contact them through it?. The point about a lot of this stuff existing somewhere within the BBC/ITV companies is a good one. As a brief example, a track on 'The Beatles Live At The BBC' was included with a spoken intro over the track,because - the BBC said - the only version available was from a transcription disc pressed for overseas stations. The version with the 'clean' intro was actually broadcast six years earlier in the 13 part series 'The Beeb's Lost Beatles Tapes' (even though the majority of the material in the series was taken from bootlegs). The point is that it's all very well putting out new appeals,but from what I can see,the BBC haven't even touched the TH website to update it for a very long time. Then of course they turned down 4th series Goon shows.
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Post by William Martin on Jun 18, 2004 14:36:09 GMT
and the knowledge that once returned it may stay on a shelf forever or at least longer than their remaining years
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Post by andrew martin on Jun 18, 2004 15:29:39 GMT
Material returned to the BBC, especially tv material, may not be re-broadcast, but it is often shown at Missing Believed Wiped. I know that is not accessible to many people, but it is something, and if the BBC has material it is always possible that in future it could be transmitted again - I for one would love to see more regular archive slots, even on BBC4. If material is hung on to by collectors, no-one but they will ever see it - all the BBC asks for is to borrow it and copy it, then it is returned. Archive material is also useful for research purposes. I tried on another thread to find any corroboration for the 4th series Goon Show story - no-one has answered with any information so far. Treasure Hunt was advertised at the time as a short-term project, because it does cost money to do that kind of advertising and arrange extra staffing. To have permanent staff for a project that will only ever turn up tiny amounts of material is unrealistic - for every one who thinks the BBC should spend more time and money trying to find lost/destroyed material there are hundreds who would say that they pay their licence fee to see new programmes, and would be happy to denounce the BBC for wasting money on looking for copies of old ones. If anyone is still being directed to the Treasure Hunt site they shouldn't be since it is currently inactive, but I believe there is some thought being given to doing another similar project in the future. Anyone who has missing material they want to loan back to the BBC should contact the TV Archivist, BBC Archives, Reynard Mills Business Park, Windmill Road, Brentford, Middlesex, TW8 9NQ; for radio material contact the Sound Archivist, Henry Wood House, 3 & 6 Langham Place, London W1A 1AA.
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Post by William Martin on Jun 18, 2004 16:33:38 GMT
Material returned to the BBC, especially tv material, may not be re-broadcast, but it is often shown at Missing Believed Wiped. I know that is not accessible to many people, but it is something, and if the BBC has material it is always possible that in future it could be transmitted again - I for one would love to see more regular archive slots, even on BBC4. If material is hung on to by collectors, no-one but they will ever see it - all the BBC asks for is to borrow it and copy it, then it is returned. Archive material is also useful for research purposes. I tried on another thread to find any corroboration for the 4th series Goon Show story - no-one has answered with any information so far. Treasure Hunt was advertised at the time as a short-term project, because it does cost money to do that kind of advertising and arrange extra staffing. To have permanent staff for a project that will only ever turn up tiny amounts of material is unrealistic - for every one who thinks the BBC should spend more time and money trying to find lost/destroyed material there are hundreds who would say that they pay their licence fee to see new programmes, and would be happy to denounce the BBC for wasting money on looking for copies of old ones. If anyone is still being directed to the Treasure Hunt site they shouldn't be since it is currently inactive, but I believe there is some thought being given to doing another similar project in the future. Anyone who has missing material they want to loan back to the BBC should contact the TV Archivist, BBC Archives, Reynard Mills Business Park, Windmill Road, Brentford, Middlesex, TW8 9NQ; for radio material contact the Sound Archivist, Henry Wood House, 3 & 6 Langham Place, London W1A 1AA. couldn't agree more, by the by what has happened to the on-line archive plan or has that gone with greg dyk.e |
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Post by andrew martin on Jun 18, 2004 19:42:17 GMT
It's still going ahead - but contrary to what a lot of people read into it, in the short term at least it will be easily clearable material (ie without lots of artists' rights, as they are difficult and expensive to clear).
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Post by Peter Chadwick on Jun 19, 2004 4:45:53 GMT
Andrew, If you need corroboration for the Goons 4th series story,see Steve Arnold's posts on this site;it was Steve who tried to return the shows. I'd also argue that the Treasure Hunt has resulted in finding more than 'tiny amounts' of wiped material.
If the BBC sets up a website, the least they can do is respond to people offering material. If they keep turning down material they've been asking for, then that's up to them,but it does negate the whole point of the 'Treasure Hunt'.
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Post by William Martin on Jun 19, 2004 14:16:32 GMT
It's still going ahead - but contrary to what a lot of people read into it, in the short term at least it will be easily clearable material (ie without lots of artists' rights, as they are difficult and expensive to clear). fair enough, we'll just have to wait |
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Post by andrew martin on Jun 20, 2004 11:08:05 GMT
Re Treasure Hunt - the amount of material that came back was tiny, but it could have been microscopic, or non-existent. The last thing I wanted to sound was ungrateful to anyone who contributed! However those amounts, while justifying occasional repeats of the project, can't justify its continual existence, in terms of spending money on publicity. I agree that people shouldn't be being misled, if they are being told that the Treasure Hunt site is still active - I will bring the matter to the attention of the people responsible, to make sure anyone with material isn't sent on a wild goose chase in future. As for the series 4 Goon Shows - I'm still unclear as to the exact details of this affair, it may be that if it was not part of Treasure Hunt itself - which one posting I read seems to suggest - it may just be an unfortunate set of circumstances. There could be other factors - if the recordings were particularly low quality, for example. I'm afraid I don't have all the facts at my fingertips as I work in the tv archive not the sound archive, but to me it seems against sense that if lost Goon Shows were returned that the BBC wouldn't want to know, as they are obviously making money to supplement the licence fee from issuing that programme on CD etc. That's not to say that the story isn't true - but if so it's an abberation. There was a certain amount of material offered on Treasure Hunt that was duplicated, and in certain cases radio material of some shows might have been turned down - sound archival policy is slightly different to tv archival policy, but neither archive can keep absolutely everything - it's just physically impossible. Part of the reason for having archivists is to select material, though obviously with increasing numbers of outlets for old material the opportunities for reuse are increasing also. At the end of the day, the BBC is, like any other organisation, just made up of people, who sometimes make mistakes - I think they/we recognise that the old attitude to archive material in the 60s, 70s etc was one of those. The fact that we had Treasure Hunt, the fact that we have tv and sound archive departments who do make efforts to recover lost material, shows that we're not entirely indifferent to those mistakes, but no-one can say they're never going to make another mistake - however hard they try not to. (I think I'll retire from this forum for a while - this is too much like hard work).
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