BBC Archive

[Colin Anderton]

From several different comments made over the years, I get the impression that there are still large areas of the BBC archives that remain unchecked. I know the paper records are fairly complete, but I'm referring to actual video and film material.

Is it possible that one day an announcement might be made that huge chunks of video and film material are being opened up for the first time in decades - or is the BBC archive almost completely explored now?

Living in hope (particularly where the space programme is concerned)!

Colin.

[cperry]

Everything is logged, sometimes when cans are examined the contents can be different, and sometimes things can be misfiled and temporarily lost, but I can assure you that every can, tape and item is barcoded and recorded.

c

[davemachin]

Every item that is known about though, Chris. Right? I am sure you know what you are talking about from personal experience but two things. Firstly, the BBC is such a big organisation with lots of annexes all over the place that I am betting there are corners that remain unchecked. Another thing is that unless every can of film and every single video tape (and there must be many copies of some items I would guess) is put on a machine to view all the way through, it can't be possible to know absolutely. Not that I would expect them to but it's another avenue.

Looking at some of the other postings on this forum over the last couple years, I see the issue of Bob Pratt material comes up a lot and BBC archive man Andrew Martin himself states more than once that the contents of Bob's collection are still not logged in any detail (if at all) and much of what is in that collection is not on the main part of the BBC internal data base. So I am just saying really that it is always possible there will be more surprise reappearances of missing items in the archive itself in the future. This is good news for us though!!

Dave

[Greg H]

It is concievable that there are still a few items kicking about somewhere in the BBC archives, but I personally think that the best bet for a 'large haul' or even a little one are private collectors who are either aware or unaware of what they have and home recordings on archaic formats. Just my personal opinion on the matter. Every years recoveries proves that there is more material out there to be recovered so never stop looking and hoping!

[davemachin]

Yes that is what I meant, Greg. A few odd items I expect to turn up within the BBC on and off in future but not piles of them. Private collections and also other overseas archives that have so far not been checked properly or at all for British stuff are the best possibilities for recovering now. Also early home video recordings.

It does still go back to what I said before though that if the programmes are out there, it still needs someone to physically make the effort to recover them. At the moment, many things sadly remain in limbo or slip through the net (particularly so with pop music footage) because the archives don't chase them up, even if it is known where the clips are and who has them.

Dave

[cperry]

Every item at Windmill Road is barcoded and logged. Indeed the vast majority have been transferred to digibeta, HDCam or servers by now.

The regions may have a few things knocking around but their stuff is all card listed or on internal databases. It's a myth that there is a huge uncatalogued archive.

You are all barking up the wrong tree if you think huge rows of cans still exist uncatalogued. There may be cans with the wrong reels inside them but it's been many years since significant finds have turned up.

Film and tape is found all the time in producer's offices etc but normally its dupe stuff.

c

[LanceM]

I can think of a few items off hand which were rediscovered within the BBC Archives:

It's Happening For Lulu:The Jimi Hendrix Experience footage (1969)

Out Of The Unknown:The Little Black Bag footage from 2in PAL Quad Master(improperly erased ensured this material's survival)

Adam Adamant Lives:D for Destruction (rediscovered in 2003 at the BBC)

Doctor Who;The Space Pirates film trims (discovered at the BBC in a can which had Dad's Army Titles listed as the contents)

Granted,as displayed here,has been a good deal of time since the Adam Adamant Lives episode was rediscovered,but does show as Chris aptly stated here that items were indeed cataloged,albeit improperly and these items slipped through the net so to speak.In instances like these,we will not know until items are physically checked for appropriately labeled contents.All comes down to time,only time will tell!

Cheers,Lance.

[cperry]

Re:

It's Happening For Lulu:The Jimi Hendrix Experience footage (1969)

Out Of The Unknown:The Little Black Bag footage from 2in PAL Quad Master(improperly erased ensured this material's survival)

Adam Adamant Lives:D for Destruction (rediscovered in 2003 at the BBC)

Doctor Who;The Space Pirates film trims (discovered at the BBC in a can which had Dad's Army Titles listed as the contents)

4 items since 1985 is hardly indicative of a huge uncatalogued archive.

The Lulu footage was ex-Bob Pratt as I understand it. The OOTU came back from BBC Scotland on an engineering tape, hence it was used for salvage and technical work and therefore never in the archive in the first place.

The AAL and Dr Who discovered by Andrew Martin were both in cans that were barcoded and catalogued but - as I said in a earlier post - when the film was checked they were different items in the cans. This can be the case, but Andrew has checked thousands of cans in his job and only a handful have been missing progs.

I say again, you're barking up the wrong tree here Lance if you think there is a vast untapped resource to check. :-)

c

[davemachin]

Feb 11, 2010 21:12:06 GMT @cperry said:

You are all barking up the wrong tree if you think huge rows of cans still exist uncatalogued.

I can't speak for anyone else Chris, but I said

'A few odd items I expect to turn up within the BBC on and off in future but not piles of them'

so I hardly think anyone here is suggesting there are huge rows of cans uncatalogued. If you look back at the postings by Lance, Greg and the others too, none of us have said that! Where there is a human element to anything in life though, I find there is room also for human error. So I stand by what I believe, which is that there are still a few items that remain undetected within the BBC and may or may not come to light in time. This does not happen very often but as examples by Lance above prove, things do get discovered in unexpected corners. The regional outposts may hold a few more (I emphasise few) gems as well.

There is also the relevant point of Andrew Martin's comment that the Bob Pratt material is not fully catalogued as yet (or at least wasn't not so long ago). The Out of the Unknown footage found in the BBC Scotland engineering division also proves my point that things do get forgotten about in other sections of the BBC (not in the actual archive itself), which is precisely what I was talking about. These instances prove to me that everything is not fully documented within the BBC as yet.

Dave

[Deleted]

There have also been many other instances of things turning up in unexpected places too such as the BBC-2 aborted opening night VT that was discovered only a few years ago at BBC research and development, Paul Vanezis' discoveries of Philips reference copies of missing material at Pebble Mill etc. etc. So I think what Dave is saying is that there are other non-archive departments in the corporation that warrant a thorough look-over. R&D, Engineering divisions, regional offices etc. I understand BBC Wales has it's own archive of material too, which is worth checking as regions could conceivably have made time-shifted PasB recordings of programmes to screen at different times to the network or just for reference / technical reasons (I believe the TOTP found at Glasgow was such a recording? I may be wrong on that one but it's still a valid avenue to explore). No stone unturned and all that!

[cperry]

Colin's original comment was,

"I get the impression that there are still large areas of the BBC archives that remain unchecked."

My point remains the same. That isn't true. I can't speak about technical, engineering or R&D units, they do collect junk tape and cans over the years and may find stuff yet, but my point is still true - the BBC archives have no large unchecked areas.

We all live in hope that stuff turns up elsewhere :-)

c

[cperry]

ps by the way I'm not sure what collection of Philips tapes at Pebble Mill you are referring to, but if you mean the large collection of Second City Firsts, Play for Today and oneoffs found circa 1993 they were found by Kathryn Shuttleworth, in the collection of an ex-engineer and she returned the tapes to Paul V.

Kate is our main technical support and she would be very cross if she thinks her involvement has been sidelined. Paul has always been fair and given her the credit, so please let's keep give her the credit due.

c

[Deleted]

Well, that's just all the personal politics of the thing, Chris - too much of that as far as i'm concerned! So far as I knew, Paul found the material at Pebble Mill (I think this was mentioned here a long time ago now but apologies if I attributed the find to the wrong person - Paul will be able to say more himself).

Wasn't the colour rehearsal reel of Horne A Pleny (a Thames show) discovered at Pebble Mill too? Now i'm sure I did read that one in print on a past NFT screening sheet. The point here being that things turn up where you least expect them to, so it's always better taking the attitude of "never say never" rather than "it's all been checked and nothing else is there".

[Paul Vanezis]

Feb 13, 2010 14:43:20 GMT @laurencepiper said:

So far as I knew, Paul found the material at Pebble Mill

Nah. Not me. I just arranged for the transfers to happen. That said, this was just another case of BBC material leaving the Corporation by non-standard means. At the time it was 'disposed of', it should have been passed onto a relevant department as far as I can gather, but it wasn't. It is indeed Kath Shuttleworth who deserves all the credit for getting the material and making it available to me.

Feb 13, 2010 14:43:20 GMT @laurencepiper said:

Wasn't the colour rehearsal reel of Horne A Pleny (a Thames show) discovered at Pebble Mill too?

No. That was one of four Quad tapes I, Mark and Steve Roberts found in Bob Wallis's attic. Steve and Mark weren't too bothered about the tapes assuming they would be wiped, but we took all four and two had material on them. One was an episode of a surviving 'Armchair Theatre' from 1971 and the other the infamous 'Horne a Plenty' colour rehearsal from the 1968 Christmas show. In the sense that it was a recovery, yes I found it, but it was Bob Wallis who looked after the tape and didn't chop it up like he had all his others. If only he'd kept some of the tapes from the 60's instead of turning them into half inch spools!

Paul

[Deleted]

OK, Paul. Fair enough. I think what's happened here is that a lot of incorrect reporting has happened along the way and discoveries attributed to the wrong people!