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Post by Richard Molesworth on Apr 12, 2017 18:51:07 GMT
I've raised previously, on another thread, the fact that in 1992 JNT organised the release of a VHS box set of Cybermen episodes from incomplete serials, in his 'Early Years' series, which included a 16mm poor quality second-generation dub of what, IIRC, was episode 6 of 'Wheel In Space'. It has struck me in subsequent years, when I understood more about the mechanics of telerecording, how odd it was to have this lone dub in the BBC archives, which the BBC had no motive for making. Enterprises would not have bothered to duplicate from a positive, unless they had a customer but no longer had the master negative. But if they had junked the negative, that indicates a decision not to retain that serial, so why would they bother to duplicate a surviving positive? They had no reason to care about the fate of 'Wheel in Space' once its negatives had been junked, so would just have shipped the last remaining set of positives overseas to their customer. The only logical place for a positive to be duplicated is overseas, in a huge country - such as Canada or Australia - where there could be a motive for having more than one print. For instance, you could only show a serial simultaneously in such a country, i.e. in all provinces at once (in the days before it was possible to use a satellite link to transmit from a single print), by supplying a separate print to each transmitting station. That gives ABC and CBC a motive for striking dub prints. And it's not unreasonable, given that they were both financially capable of bearing that cost: far more so than the smaller countries that participated in the cycling process. If we are puzzling over rogue dubs of VT material, we shouldn't overlook the evidence for the existance of rogue dubs of 16mm b/w film prints. If overseas stations were routinely striking their own duplicates of film or VT material, there may have been more prints and tapes in existence than we have previously supposed. According to my notes, the BBC don't have a 16mm print of 'Wheel' Ep 6, just 35mm postive and negative prints. Could be a database ommission, as the 35mm prints are superior after all... Even if they did, there's nothing suspicous about the BBC getting a 16mm reduction viewing print made from the 35mm prints. And thinking about it, I suspect they may well have done this when Ian Levine purchased his own 16mm copies of the b&w episodes still held by the BBC film library in 1977/8. 'Wheel' 6 would be one of those... The 'Cybermen - Early Years' VHS release did contain a terrible 3rd-generation 16mm film copy of 'Wheel' Ep 3, but this is because they made a neg copy of David Stead's original print when he loaned it to the BBC in 1984. They then made a 16mm viewing copy from the neg, dropping another film generation. Regards, Richard |
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Post by Jon Preddle on Apr 12, 2017 19:15:41 GMT
The only logical place for a positive to be duplicated is overseas, in a huge country - such as Canada or Australia - where there could be a motive for having more than one print. For instance, you could only show a serial simultaneously in such a country, i.e. in all provinces at once (in the days before it was possible to use a satellite link to transmit from a single print), by supplying a separate print to each transmitting station. That gives ABC and CBC a motive for striking dub prints. And it's not unreasonable, given that they were both financially capable of bearing that cost: far more so than the smaller countries that participated in the cycling process. Wheel in Space didn't screen in Canada, and Wheel only ever aired in Australia on a staggered regional basis, so there was no need for more than one print. The BBC had at least one 16mm reduction print of Wheel part 6 as far back as 1976. It's possible that this is a print returned from overseas (my money's on it being from Gibraltar) and the BBC retained it but not episodes 1-5 because the Film Library had the episode as a 35mm negative, and it was thus convenient to retain the newly-returned 16mm copy of that same episode. ETA: AS Richard says above, the ropey copy that was used on the VHS was probably a later dupe. |
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Post by Steven Sigel on Apr 14, 2017 20:13:03 GMT
There definitely were some contact reversal prints made as viewing copies. I've got some in my collection, and the episode of "The Romans" that Paul and Steve found was a reversal as well.
I suspect it was a simple question of what was easily accessible when they needed to make a new print -- if the neg wasn't available for whatever reason, they just struck from a positive.
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Post by timmybrown82 on Apr 17, 2017 0:30:45 GMT
anything new on missing shows?
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Post by Nicholas Fitzpatrick on Apr 17, 2017 11:37:05 GMT
There's always something new - like the announcement last week of the restoration of some audiotracks of missing The Black and White Minstrel Shows.
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Post by timmybrown82 on Apr 17, 2017 14:39:48 GMT
There's always something new - like the announcement last week of the restoration of some audiotracks of missing The Black and White Minstrel Shows. was talking about Doctor Who. |
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Post by Nicholas Fitzpatrick on Apr 18, 2017 0:34:39 GMT
was talking about Doctor Who. Oh, there was the surprise recovery of all missing 9 episodes of the Dalek Master Plan plus Mission to the Unknown last week. It's already on iTunes. It's a good job you asked, or else no one would have mentioned it. Seriously though - nothing to report since 2013 ... there's always a hoax or two floating around - I'm not sure why people keep falling for it. There were a couple of ones late last year s on a board that is known for the hoaxers that frequent the place, without any sanction, about various Season 3 Hartnells being returned to BBC. Given the clear denials at the time of those that would know and the 4 months that have since passed (with both sources avoiding the topic for the last 2 months) it's clearly completely dead. I haven't even heard a good wind-up this year ... well other than last week's Masterplan of course.  If anything seems to be gelling, I'm sure you won't have to ask! Or do what I do ... pay the FBI to tap Paul Vanezis' mobile. |
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Post by ianphillips on Apr 18, 2017 0:47:02 GMT
There's always something new - like the announcement last week of the restoration of some audiotracks of missing The Black and White Minstrel Shows. was talking about Doctor Who. Really the only thing of note that has happened this year that I know of was the announcement that the New Zealand Macra Terror rumor was almost certainly true and that a new lead turned had up for it. Not a recovery or even an imminent recovery for it, but it's the closest we've been to an episode recovery since 2013 barring anything Phil Morris or someone else is doing in secret. |
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Post by George D on Apr 18, 2017 2:34:58 GMT
Unless Phil has something in the works, Im not optimistic of a major find as most recovery efforts are focused on him.
Just keep a lookout for any film prints and if we're lucky, maybe something will surface within the next 10 years.
Sadly, as time goes on, the places one can check are diminishing.
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