Format of missing colour episodes?

[Ben]

If missing black and white episodes are generally 16mm film, what format are missing colour episodes such as Doctor Who, The Goonies and Doomwatch likely to be on? Is there such thing as colour 16mm film?

[Steven Sigel]

Yes, there is 16mm colour film, but you wouldn't be likely to find BBC shows that were originally videotaped as colour telerecordings -- as far as I know they never made any... It's technically possible, it just wasn't done. Other organizations used color T/Rs (The Tomorrow People for instance).

[Laurence Piper]

Colour telerecordings, yes. Not that common but there are some. Doctor Whos come in all formats (16mm b/w film, PAL colour tape, NTSC colour tape, domestic off-air recordings etc). Series like Doomwatch are likely to be either in colour (PAL or NTSC) or b/w film, depending on what the TV station showing it transmitted it from! There is no general rule - expect the unexpected!

[Ben]

Thanks for the replies - they're exactly what I wanted to know.

[Spiny Norman]

There are also B&W telerecordings of colour programs - for example monty python's flying circus.

[William Martin]

And bizarrely enough colour film prints of black and white copies of colour programs.

[Westy 2]

William said:

And bizarrely enough colour film prints of black and white copies of colour programs.

How's that happen then ?

[H Hartley]

A colour telerecording exists of 'George's room' 1967

Of course being a Rediffusion Programme nothing is that simple and not only is the colour master tape gone but half the TR is missing as well.

[michael]

Regarding the item about TV shows being in coulor and existing as 16mm film prints.
Contary to what has been said about the BBC not doing this,they did.
I have a documentry about Joyce Grenfell repeated in 1989 which has clips from her appearing on MY MUSIC and from her four part stand alone seris of her monolouges from mid 70's were the picture can clearly be seen to be from a 16mm print,with bits of black dirt flying around.
Also in 1989 BBC2 repeated the four Joyce Grenfell monolouge shows and these were clearly from 16mm coulor prints that had been telerecorded from the origanal 2" tapes.
One must assume these were overseas sales copies.
Also when TV Heaven in 1993 did a title sequence compliation,the titles to the ITC FATHER BROWN seris was shown;this was a film and VT prod,but the title sequence used had a 70's ITC spinning logo with the theme music and then the grainy titles-and I was told by a mutual friend that this did come from an overseas sales copy.
Going back to the BBC and coulor telerecording,they did do coulor T/R's of some sporting events and I remember seeing an Open University prog that dealt with timing a train journey from Kings Cross to Hertford North that was a film and V/T prod but was seen to be a coulor T/R.
Regarding The Tommorrow People on 16mm this was done by Thames in 1980 when the seris was sold to Australia who apparently could'nt run PAL V/T so Thames put them onto 16mm.
It was actually cheaper than having more V/T copies made.
Also the US TV networks liked to do a lot of coulor T/R's in the 60s&70s of sports,emmy awards etc.

[Laurence Piper]

I also have a BBC mid -'70s Open University programme which is a colour t/r of a VT show, so they DID do it sometimes, it seems.

[Laurence Piper]

...and an episode of LWT's Just William, which was a colour t/r of a VT show (it also had arabic subtitles burnt in, which tells you at least one country which was buying shows in this format anyway).

[IAN]

ITV was no stranger to colour telerecordings: especially LWT and ATV, and, with regards to children's stuff, so was THAMES.

The BBC on the other hand were very wary of colour film prints of vt programmes - though, oddly at this distance, it was often cheaper to tr a programme in order to use clips from it than to actually drop in colout vt clips.

(There are poor quality colour film clip's CITY OF DEATH in a Mona Lisa doco circa 1982).

The only "official" BBC colour TR that springs to mind is a THEATRE 625.

[Adrian Barrett]

IIRC, I believe a list of "Softly Softly" somewhere on this site mentions one episode as existing as a colour TR?

[William Martin]

Guest-Westy said:

How's that happen then ?

well

B/W TR of a colour program for a country that only has B/W, then perhaps they only had a colour film handy to make a copy for whatever reason. I wish I could remember what it was I have a feeling it was a bit of the DR Who and the invasion of the rubber dinosuar models.

[andrew martin]

Guest-Adrian said:

IIRC, I believe a list of "Softly Softly" somewhere on this site mentions one episode as existing as a colour TR?

If it does, it's not true! All the existing b/w episodes of "Softly Softly" exist as telerecordings. All episodes of "Softly Softly Task Force" exist, though one of them only exists as a b/w telerecording. Two episodes of it were made on colour film (ie not telerecordings) and exist in that format.