A brief glimpse of Rediffusion at Wembley in 1967

[Tim Disney]

I discovered some footage of Rediffusion's Wembley studios in the 1968 feature film 'Interlude.' It was shot during the summer of 1967 and I have posted a few screen grabs to my general Rediffusion dumping ground at bit.ly/hO19Ty for anyone interested.

[Kev Mulrenan]

You've reminded me of the excellent colour footage of Pete and Dud from Bedazzled in the rsg studio. Great spoof!

[Tim Disney]

Oh yes, that's the one where you can see the signs from the last RSG in the background. I've been meaning to dig that film out again at some point. My favourite line is "you fill me with inertia." ;D

[Tim Disney]

Anorak firmly zipped up!

I had a discussion online with someone about these pictures of the Rediffusion studios in 1967 and recommended that they took a look at the feature film 'The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer' to see the studios in 1969 during the early period of LWT's residency. I've uploaded some stills for anyone who might also be interested. bit.ly/hCC99P
It looks like an interesting period of 405 and 625 line equipment. Although I would imagine the 405 line equipment was more available for use on set, as it would have been redundant by 1969?

[markboulton]

To think, that's where The X Factor is now filmed. What a comedown!

[Tim Disney]

Nov 30, 2010 21:45:42 GMT markboulton said:

To think, that's where The X Factor is now filmed. What a comedown!

Very true, it is a come down, but I suppose it at least keeps the place busy for the time being. The remainder of the site must be ripe for a retail development.

[Peter Stirling]

Interesting stuff .The B/W monitors dont look that dated as most studios prefered B/W monitors in vision mixing and elsewhere well into the 1990s when perhaps the B/W monitors were getting a bit thin on the ground. Colour monitors were mainly just for the punter areas or final output.

[Peter Bradford]

Nov 30, 2010 19:06:59 GMT Tim Disney said:

Anorak firmly zipped up!

I had a discussion online with someone about these pictures of the Rediffusion studios in 1967 and recommended that they took a look at the feature film 'The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer' to see the studios in 1969 during the early period of LWT's residency. I've uploaded some stills for anyone who might also be interested. bit.ly/hCC99P
It looks like an interesting period of 405 and 625 line equipment. Although I would imagine the 405 line equipment was more available for use on set, as it would have been redundant by 1969?

The gentleman in the white shirt in pictures 4&5 (and some others) is Gerald Chambers, who was a floor manager with LWT right up until his retirement.

[Peter Bradford]

Dec 1, 2010 11:36:08 GMT Peter Stirling said:

Interesting stuff .The B/W monitors dont look that dated as most studios prefered B/W monitors in vision mixing and elsewhere well into the 1990s when perhaps the B/W monitors were getting a bit thin on the ground. Colour monitors were mainly just for the punter areas or final output.

Not really, there were two factors. The pure cost of colour monitors as opposed to monochrome, so there were usually just two colour monitors in the production gallery - studio output, and mixer preview.

The second reason being that early colour monitors were notoriously difficult to colour balance because they weren't that stable over long periods of time - imagine having a dozen or so in the same monitor stack all looking a different 'colour', you can imagine the complaints the maintenance staff would get from the gallery staff, so, it was simply an expediant to restrict the number of monitors in a gallery. It is only in relatively recent years that even major production galleries have moved to all colour monitors in production stacks - well into the 90s as you say.

[Peter Bradford]

Dec 4, 2010 23:48:42 GMT Peter Bradford said:

Dec 1, 2010 11:36:08 GMT Peter Stirling said:

Interesting stuff .The B/W monitors dont look that dated as most studios prefered B/W monitors in vision mixing and elsewhere well into the 1990s when perhaps the B/W monitors were getting a bit thin on the ground. Colour monitors were mainly just for the punter areas or final output.

Not really, there were two factors. The pure cost of colour monitors as opposed to monochrome, so there were usually just two colour monitors in the production gallery - studio output, and mixer preview.

The second reason being that early colour monitors were notoriously difficult to colour balance because they weren't that stable over long periods of time - imagine having a dozen or so in the same monitor stack all looking a diferent 'colour', you can imagine the complaints the maintenance staff would get from the gallery staff, so, it was simply and expediant to restrict the number of monitors in a gallery. It is only in relatively recent years that even major production galleries have moved ot all colour monitors in production stacks.

Edit. Professional monochrome monitors have only become thin on the ground in the last 5/10 years or so. You can still source some but they are not illuminant D6500 and so are of no use in a professional environment. It is still considered good practice to have at least one illuminant D6500 monitor in a vision control area since it is the only reference for the human eye (or at least the vision controllers human eye) that he or she is not colouring the camera pictures the wrong way. LWT (or TLS) still use them to this day.

[Peter Bradford]

Nov 30, 2010 19:06:59 GMT Tim Disney said:

Anorak firmly zipped up!

I had a discussion online with someone about these pictures of the Rediffusion studios in 1967 and recommended that they took a look at the feature film 'The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer' to see the studios in 1969 during the early period of LWT's residency. I've uploaded some stills for anyone who might also be interested. bit.ly/hCC99P
It looks like an interesting period of 405 and 625 line equipment. Although I would imagine the 405 line equipment was more available for use on set, as it would have been redundant by 1969?

References to LWT's seven year residency in the article aren't correct. LWT moved into Wembley Park in May 1968, and began moving over to the new South Bank Television Centre starting in 1972.