"Making of a Movie" question

[David Zientara]

I was watching the "Not Only...But Also" home video last night, and I got up to the "Making of a Movie" segment, which apparently is one of the few remaining segments from the third (color) season. My question is: what is that circular artifact that cascades down the screen about halfway through the segment (I think it first manifests itself when Henry VIII confronts the Archbishop of Canterbury)?

So far the best of the bunch was "A Bit of a Chat."

[Charles Roberts]

I belive this is what as known as "Damage to the master copy". It is a result of poor storage, which results in damage. In this case it's probably just film decay, ratehr than dirt or a scratch. There's also some of it in "Ludwig!".

[John G]

If its a film, then the film has probably been run in a dodgy old projector at sometime with a hamfisted operator . What happens is the film is not installed properly and it runs out across the sprocket mechanism which then punches holes in the film.

Something that would not happen in a TV telecine and shows that the film has been in private hands.

[David Zientara]

John said:

If its a film, then the film has probably been run in a dodgy old projector at sometime with a hamfisted operator . What happens is the film is not installed properly and it runs out across the sprocket mechanism which then punches holes in the film.

Something that would not happen in a TV telecine and shows that the film has been in private hands.

Actually, that's probably what it is. It's a circular artifact that works its way horizontally across the film; it happened at least twice.

I assume that season three was not sold to other countries and the reason why most of it is missing is because the original videotapes were wiped and all that remains are the prerecorded segments (which would have been recorded on film)?

[Freddy Thomson]

Out of the prefilmed sequnces:
Making of Movie has 'em
Ludwig! has 'em
Bargo doesn't
Glidd of Glood doesn't(although it seems to be a bit "softer")
Cricket Match may or may not have 'em, but I haven't seen that one yet

[Simon Winchester]

Is 'Ludwig' the octahedronic animated character that preceeded many an edition of the Early Evening News with Richard Baker MBE?

[Tristan]

Who?

By the way, which came first, "Ludwig!" , or Monty Pithon's "It's Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart" ?

And I was also wodnering one other thing....it seems every ep of series 3 had pre-filmed sketch. The five survivors(listed above), and "Conman". That's six. What's number seven, if indeed such a thing exists?

[Laurence Piper]

The Python sketch came first, being 1969.

[John Millar]

Interesting that in harry Thompson's book he mentions sneaking into the BBC archives, loading up tape to VHS it, and damaging some master copies when he laced it up wrong..............

[Charles Roberts]

I have seen scripts from not only this sketch but also other Cook/Moore sketches and saw that there was scripted material that didn't make the shows. So the q is....was this stuff never filmed , or rather filmed than edited out?

[John Stuart Miller]

More likely just not filmed. In some cases they filmed stuff but this was then edited out before transmission, and presumably junked at the same time. Anything that isn't on any of the BBC's tapes has likely been gone for decades.

[Mitchell]

I heard they edited out all the stuff before transmission so it likely never even made the vt.

[Wigtin Blomreds]

If it's not on the print it'll almost certaiunly never be seen (again). If they couldn't be arsed to keep whole episodes the chances of keeping edited-for-time material is none at all.

[John Steven Miller]

With regards to what you said earlier, andrew I would be evry interested to find out whether the Not Only.....But PSYCHO footage still survives?

[Geoff Sear]

Charles said:

I have seen scripts from not only this sketch but also other Cook/Moore sketches and saw that there was scripted material that didn't make the shows. So the q is....was this stuff never filmed , or rather filmed than edited out?

I don't know about other sketches, but in the case of "Ludwig" (and to answer an earlier query, no, it's nowt to do with the Mirek and Peter Lang "Ludwig" 'pre-news' cartoon!), the film material linked VT stuff. So what we have now is just the film segments of the sketch, which would explain why it doesn't seem to flow very well.