Contacting Production crew

[John Curley]

Apologies if this has been discussed before.
What about contacting people who worked on the show in the 1960s? I am sure Directors have been approached/asked if they had kept any records of their work in 16mm form. But what about other people like Assistant Directors, AFMs etc.They might have wanted to keep a record of their work.
Also what about people who worked in the duplication process of the 16mm films or BBC projectionists. They might have kept the odd episode for their collections themselves or passed them on to other film collectors in the 70s instead of junking them.
I am not advocating a witch hunt here just polite enquiries. We all know thats how some of the returned episodes got out of the bbc in first place.Just scrabbling for ideas I know....

[Dave Wood]

Funnily enough I was thinking the same thing earlier today. Didn't Victor Pemberton once mention having a home cinema and 16mm collection? No idea if that would have included any BBC material though.

[John Wall]

I think that virtually everybody has been talked to, interviewed, etc. Just look at some of the extras on the DVDs and see who appears in them. People who were junior then would probably have progressed up the ladder. Remember also that no-one started looking for missing episodes until the late 70s/early 80s as few knew that any were missing. I recall an early (written) interview with, I think, Debbie Watling who wondered why there was an interest in something she'd done years earlier and was this because it was being repeated ! She had no idea that her era had been decimated.

[John Curley]

Victor Pemberton...funny you should say that.
I think it was 1991 ish I interviewed him for our local Doctor Who group (Manchester&Salford) and he mentioned that he had seen 2 episodes of Evil of the Daleks at Derek Martinus's home. We all told him that he was mistaken as at that time only Ep2 existed but he seemed pretty sure. I think this was followed up , and it all came to nothing.( so please don't think I am starting a rumour) but thats the point tho...other production crew may have kept material.
Victor never mentioned that he had a home cinema/projection room or any Dr Who episodes either.He is a very nice bloke and loves Dr Who.He travelled up from down south for the day and gave his time freely to what was a small group of fans. I am sure if he had had any material he would return it and understands how passionate we all are about it.

[Dave Wood]

I think you' re right John. I may be confused and it may have been Derek Martinus. At a small Fantom Films event within the last two or three years someone (either Martinus/Pemberton) mentioned showing/watching Evil 5 but the guy was quite old and very confused, so I just assumed it was a mistake. Some of the audience tried to engage Martinus in conversation about missing episodes but he didn't seem to understand the questions. He had some family members in the audience and chatting with them they were quite surprised and sad to hear that the archive is incomplete. I assumed he was talking about a historical event back in the 1960s, so even if something was shown back then it doesn't mean it escaped the BBC's 1970s junkings.

[John Curley]

So can we assume that every Director of 60s Who has been asked if they have any material?
Should Derek Martinus be contacted , through the correct channels, and asked if he has any material?
Like you say..he may have done in the 60s and its now junked but it would be interesting to find out for sure.He directed some great Who episodes, and I am sure other programmes.
Wouldnt some of the people working on the series back in the 60s want some kind of record of the work they had done?

[John Wall]

Jan 22, 2012 21:22:07 GMT John Curley said:

So can we assume that every Director of 60s Who has been asked if they have any material?
Should Derek Martinus be contacted , through the correct channels, and asked if he has any material?
Like you say..he may have done in the 60s and its now junked but it would be interesting to find out for sure.He directed some great Who episodes, and I am sure other programmes.
Wouldnt some of the people working on the series back in the 60s want some kind of record of the work they had done?

Anybody's who's still around, in possession of their marbles and amenable has almost certainly been interviewed for the DVDs, CT, DWB, DWM, etc, etc. At the risk of appearing sarcastic if someone could be found who made a cup of tea for Patrick Troughton during the making of Power or Evil......

I think it's very important to remember (a) that the interest in old Dr Who is relatively recent - the first video release was Revenge of the Cybermen in, iirc, 1983/4/5 and (b) for most of those involved in the 60s it was just another job. To be cynical I think it has become important to some of them as they make a few bob out of it ! There are some set, costume, etc designers who kept sketches, photos, etc and, of course, some people bought telesnaps - but I suspect that they were a minority.

[George D]

If we merely suggest that people/places have been checked, then we're limiting our finds.

I think if we know person x checked with Derek Martiumus (not asking if he has dr who, but rather, I'd like to come by and visit and take a look at your film collection) then I would assume its not followed up correctly.

And even if it was, i think its nice to call an older man every year or so, let him know he's not forgotten and see if he might have remembered someone since.
Im not saying Paul should have to do this as he apparentlly has other projects, but designating an assistant to work with him to do these things would be great.

[Richard Bignell]

Jan 22, 2012 21:22:07 GMT John Curley said:

So can we assume that every Director of 60s Who has been asked if they have any material?

Well, if they've been around over the last few years, then they certainly would have been spoken to about their Doctor Who work, so the chances that they wouldn't have mentioned it at some point is pretty remote.

Wouldnt some of the people working on the series back in the 60s want some kind of record of the work they had done?

In short, no. It's actually very rare to find directors who were interested in keeping any lasting momento of their work - and if they did, then that's what John Cura's tele-snap service was for - and the vast majority of directors didn't even bother with that. If they didn't wish to spend £2-12s-6d on tele-snaps, then the chances that they would have been willing to spend much, much more on getting a telerecording made is remote in the extreme. That's even assuming that the BBC was in a position to arrange such a thing for their staff, which they weren't! ;D

[PAUL COTTON]

Interestingly when interviewed in 1990 for Doctor Who Magazine(by Stephen James Walker) Derrick Sherwin had the 2 inch master video tapes for a 1973 TV series called 'Ski-Boy' that he had produced. This series now appears to be complete in the archive, I wonder if it was ever missing. The interview appeared in DWM issue 166(October 1990) and was reprinted in 'Talkback Volume One: The Sixties' edited by Stephen James Walker.

[John Green]

Those of us who've never actually done anything to track down missing episodes must sound hypercritical,but when we (re)offer suggestions,we're back-seat drivers with the best of intentions!
Its just a thought that some of those who were involved with Who (or their widows) might have been contacted once,the box ticked,and nothing more in 20 years.
It has been know for people to have a clearout and say "Good God! I forgot I had that!"
Sometimes people dissimulate-especially when there's a possibility that they might face criminal charges for theft of film,sometimes they might misunderstand "Do you have are rare Doctor Who films" as meaning location home-movies,because after all,the BBC have all the episodes,don't they?So I don't have any rare ones?
To mangle a few metaphors,is it possible that some wires were crossed,and played-out mines still have a motherlode?

[Dave Wood]

Are there any remaining trade periodicals and magazines for the TV industry? If so would it be worth running adverts or magazine articles to cover the general topic of missing TV/has it ever been done before?

It does seem that some interesting recent TV recoveries (not limited to Dr Who) have been made via TV Engineers, cameramen, directors, presenters (such as David Hamilton/Bob Monkhouse) etc. In many cases the donors haven't even worked on the recovered material, but they just seem to have an interest and love for for the material, the industry and access (maybe historically) to the relevant playback equipment.

[Richard Bignell]

Jan 23, 2012 18:35:19 GMT Dave Wood said:

Are there any remaining trade periodicals and magazines for the TV industry? If so would it be worth running adverts or magazine articles to cover the general topic of missing TV/has it ever been done before?

Several requests have been put through Prospero, the newspaper that goes to everyone drawing a BBC pension.

[John Green]

Obviously,the best scheme is:
(1)Join the BBC.
(2)Retire.
(3)Become a member of the BBC's laudable Volunteer Visitor Scheme,going to meet fellow retired BBC staff at their own homes,giving them a chance to reminisce about the good old days.

[John Curley]

Thanks guys for not blowing me completely out of the water with this.
There would be no harm surely in politely contacting Directors/Production staff etc about any film collection they may have? Replies may be negative or no reply at all but at least they will have been asked and it might jog peoples memories and produce further leads.

There must be other old Enterprises copies of episodes that had left the bbc by retrieval from the junking bin and taken home or just taken home anyway that will very slowly turn up.
I am sure that there may have been 1 or 2 people working at Enterprises in the 70s/early 80s who saw what was being junked and picked up a selection for friends/film collectors etc. Otherwise how have various episodes turned up at film fairs etc.

I know of someone who had a friend who worked at one of the ITV Companys back in the early 80s.He was able to retrieve a programme from the archives for him, copy it on video, and put it back in the archive.On this occasion the Original programme did not disappear but was put back into the archives.It has now been released on DVD, but in the 80s old tv programmes released on VHS were very few and it was a good 15/20 years before it did appear on DVD. But some fans do have friends who work/worked in TV production don't they.
I am just theorising here that this may have been how some Dr Who episodes may have gone, obviously not copied, but just taken for friends/collectors when asked if anything was going.
Should we then be asking former staff at BBC Enterprises for leads ,even anonymously, and assurance nothing will be taken further.Again its not a witch hunt because we only have some of the episodes we do beacuse of them! I know the bbc wouldnt have been pleased at the time but they would now if more Who turned up.
Maybe Paul V knows if certain bbc staff at Enterprises have been asked/approached confidentially eg projectionists, junking staff, editing etc.
Can this be clarified? Have they been asked?
Sorry for waffling on....!