Best of Benny Hill & Colour Telerecordings

[Simon Destere]

I was watching the best of Benny Hill on G.O.L.D. today, and as I understand it, it is just a compilation of the best sketches from the TV programme rather than re-enactments.

How exactly did they get the video of the original programme onto film?

I guess telerecording is the only viable way - but it is in colour. I didn't think this could be done due to the distortion of the process.

Can anyone shed any light on how it was done and why things like Pertwee Doctor Who episodes and Dad's Army 'Room At the Bottom' weren't transferred like this?

Thanks

[Deleted]

They probably didn't need to be for selling to countries that only used b/w anyway (which was the case with most countries anyway)! Colour t/r has been used from time to time (ATV particularly made some). Usually they were considered inferior quality but I guess there was no choice in the Benny Hill instance or the material would not have made it into the movie at all.

I'm sure someone with more specific technical knowledge will tell you exactly how it was achieved though...

[johnstewart]

Sorry to come in late on this one but I am a fan of that old Benny Hill stuff - really just up to about 1975 and the BBC shows.

Regarding the EMI release 'Best of Benny Hill' that ran as a B film in 1974 at cinemas hence the need for transferral.

It's possible Thames may have used colour TR for Australia as they indeed did seem to do that for the 1974 and 75 runs of TOMMORROW PEOPLE. The only other ITV colour TRs made I know of actually are the ATV ones for the Liberace Show 1969 but the reason that was done was probably as the U.S. wanted the show in colour; and ATV are known for having not hung on to shows in tape form for long after transmission.

Bear in mind the ITv companies would have different policies from the BBC. Colour TRs I understand were expensive which might be one reason at the BBC. However so far as I know the BBC largely exported just in B+W T/R form right up to 1974, with just Australia and the U.S. having colour tape versions of Pertwee series 1. But the rights for sales were usually a couple of years later so would guess the Pertwee series 1 Dr Whos were not bought in that form till 1972.

[Robert Belford]

Up until the mid-1980's (at least) the BBC used colour telerecordings when video inserts had to be included in programmes such as documentaries that were being edited on film. The film editor would put the telerecorded clip - which would have timecode on it - into the edited film and then the original video would be inserted 'over the top' later when the whole thing was transferred to tape for broadcast. Which is when titles were added too.

However I can remember colour telerecordings being broadcast in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Though usually only for short clips.

So facilities for making colour telerecordings were around.

[Rob Moss]

Indeed, there's a section in the last episode of The Changes which appears to have required a video effect, and which has then been colour telerecorded so that it can be edited back into the programme (which was made on and broadcast from film).

In terms of why colour telerecording wasn't done more often, I think the issue isn't whether it was possible, but the poor quality of the results. Looking at the Tomorrow People film prints, the picture is shockingly bad in places!

[Nathan Dickel]

I know this thread is old. They blew up the 16mm outdoor stuff to 35mm and it looks great (apart from the missing bits that were cut out to shorten them) and they kinescoped the videotape sequences, and that is why they look so bad.

[Richard Marple]

I saw the Benny Hill compilation a few years ago I guessed correctly it was VTR transferred to film, judging by the picture quality.

It made a Sweeney episode seem glossy, or the BBC's print of Santa Claus The Move seem like a HD transfer.

[Brian Fretwell]

I don't think the film was made the usual way that telerecordings were done. The film 200 Motels was made on 625 line VT and transferred to film IIRC by Technicolor labs for Frank Zappa, I'm sure I saw a documentary on the process but as it was 1971 I can't remember much about it.

[Deleted]

Basically, this film was a cheap cash in. Benny had been shown a compilation film of an American comedians TV work - Red Skelton, Sid Caeser or whoever - and he felt it was a good and cheap idea since all they had to do was edit it together from what they already had. I've no idea if all the VT sourced stuff was edited together on video then transferred to film with the original film sequences blown up or not. Either way, it was a nice money spinner made at very little expense. The only thing especially created for it was the title sequence.

Whilst the 200 Motels story has been detailed muchly over the years, the actual process of transferring the video to film has never been detailed. We know they spent a couple of weeks editing it all on videotape after which it was transferred to film "electronically" - that's the only word Tony Palmer used to describe the process. Somehow, Palmer was able to release his own digitally remastered DVD of that movie a couple of years ago which disgusted all Zappa fans who saw it since it was clear that Palmer was working from a bad print of it, yet he made some tantalising claims. Zappa claimed all the original videotapes were wiped in 1971 once the final edit was done to save money whereas Palmer two or three years ago claimed that was nonsense and that he had "the original tapes" but given some of Palmer's claims about his remastering, one can't be too certain if he really does have the original 625 line PAL videotape master of the movie which was then transferred to film. If he does have it, there's a lot of Zappa fans who wish he would do something with it... he certainly didn't use it for his remaster of the movie.

Sorry for wandering off topic a bit, but...

[Nathan Dickel]

Slightly off topic, but does anyone know when we'll get the ATV specials on dvd? I remember reading a few years ago it was cancelled.

I'd also wish they'd hurry up and released Benny Hill: In Australia (retitled Down under when broadcast in the UK).

[dennywilson]

Nov 23, 2012 13:34:12 GMT @phillipgruber said:

Basically, this film was a cheap cash in. Benny had been shown a compilation film of an American comedians TV work - Red Skelton, Sid Caeser or whoever ...

It was Sid Caeser - they edited together 10 skits from YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS from the 1950's as "Ten From Your Show of Shows" - thankfully they were high quality kinescopes.