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Post by Phil Leach on Nov 14, 2013 12:54:17 GMT
Well the BFI list is interesting. If the entries are accurate they appear to have the last two episodes of Season 5 - `Pipeline' and `The Answer'. I was under the impression nothing from that season had survived. Then again I didn't know about the inserts for the third and fourth seasons either........... collections-search.bfi.org.uk/webOn the BFI catalogue that shows their actual holdings they're listing Big Freeze 1-4 and Menace episode 5 only.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2013 13:15:56 GMT
Yes, although (as we've found before) what they list isn't necessarily what actually exists.
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Post by John Green on Nov 14, 2013 14:06:47 GMT
Actually no, one episode from series 7 is currently missing, and several episodes from series 8 are currently missing. This is preventing the release of both series. Lostshows is correct. Only off-airs from the 1980s Childrens' Channel repeats exist for these lost epsidoes, plus some film inserts at Wessex. The 2" masters were lost some time in the past 15 years or so. There is a possibility that Simply/Renown may issues a dvd release of series 7 & 8 using the existing masters plus off-airs cleaned-up. Network have done this before, so it's do-able. Drat.Oh,well,we abolished the "shoot the messenger" policy last year,so you're safe enough! Seriously,isn't the situation with the master-tapes awful? Hopefully,they'll turn up...
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Post by John Green on Nov 14, 2013 14:12:31 GMT
Actually no, one episode from series 7 is currently missing, and several episodes from series 8 are currently missing. This is preventing the release of both series. Lostshows is correct. Only off-airs from the 1980s Childrens' Channel repeats exist for these lost epsidoes, plus some film inserts at Wessex. The 2" masters were lost some time in the past 15 years or so. There is a possibility that Simply/Renown may issues a dvd release of series 7 & 8 using the existing masters plus off-airs cleaned-up. Network have done this before, so it's do-able. Simon,just to get it clear,Lostshows has 11 (of 13?) episodes of series 8 missing.Are most of these really "domestic-format copies exist" with,as you say several entirely missing?
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Post by Phil Leach on Nov 14, 2013 15:41:15 GMT
Yes, although (as we've found before) what they list isn't necessarily what actually exists. True but the new database is far better than the original one which didn't list any holdings or the short lived compromise version available via Union Search. Although all archives have uncatalogued material so you can never say that their catalogues are complete!
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Post by Simon Winters on Nov 14, 2013 15:57:21 GMT
Yes, from series 7, the master of episode 4 is missing. From series 8, only two master episodes survive.
All 'missing' episodes survive as off-air vhs or betamax tapes recorded from cable tv in the late 1990s.
So, a release is possible, but many episodes will be ex-vhs or betamax.
The loss dates from the period when Meridian TV got rid of it's Southern TV collection in 2004-5, a period during which many Southern TV series and episodes disappeared. Other Southern programmes were actively junked by Southern Star in the following years, after being deemed unmarketable by them.
Unfortunately, Southern Star failed to donate the junked tapes to either Wessex, the BFI or Kaleidoscope.They all went into the skip in the past 15 years, proving that some junking carries on today.
Southern Star no longer exists, thankfully. It was bought by Endemol and ceased to exist in 2009. Endemol had nothing to do with the junking.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2013 16:05:12 GMT
Shocking stuff and thanks for clearing this up, Simon. I wish we could say well and truly that the way things were done in the past was well and truly behind us. Sadly though the same philistine attitudes toward "old TV" still prevail in some quarters.
This is particularly bad for Freewheelers though as so much of the series was already junked. With this turn of events, I hope some sales copies are found to survive in German (or other) archives, where it was either sold or co-funded.
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Post by Ian Wegg on Nov 15, 2013 12:10:22 GMT
Yes, from series 7, the master of episode 4 is missing. From series 8, only two master episodes survive. All 'missing' episodes survive as off-air vhs or betamax tapes recorded from cable tv in the late 1990s. So, a release is possible, but many episodes will be ex-vhs or betamax. The loss dates from the period when Meridian TV got rid of it's Southern TV collection in 2004-5, a period during which many Southern TV series and episodes disappeared. Other Southern programmes were actively junked by Southern Star in the following years, after being deemed unmarketable by them. Unfortunately, Southern Star failed to donate the junked tapes to either Wessex, the BFI or Kaleidoscope.They all went into the skip in the past 15 years, proving that some junking carries on today. Southern Star no longer exists, thankfully. It was bought by Endemol and ceased to exist in 2009. Endemol had nothing to do with the junking. Strewth! Yes, thanks for the explanation Simon … that’s quite a bombshell! What a dire situation. I knew all of the last two series existed as off-airs and as Renown Ltd lists 3x13 episodes I naively thought they had the masters of all the final three series. SimplyHE even had a release date for series 7 once (7 Sept 2009). A reconstruction of the missing series 7 episode 4 from the off-air would be great, and possibly the film inserts at Wessex could be used - at least half this episode is on film. I have no idea how commercially viable that would be though, but I'll happily pre-order now if it helps! Incidentally, this is also the previously mentioned edition with Southampton College of Technology as MI5 HQ. As to series 8 - lostshows.com lists all missing apart from episode 1 "Contact" and episode 10 "Switched", so I presume these are the two masters that Renown do have. Wessex list Series 8 Episode 8 as a complete telerecording but it gives the title as “Helga” which is a series 7 episode. AV763/20/3/V1So to summarise - the overall archive status of complete programmes in any format (telerecording, master or off-air) is: Series 1 Complete (13 eps) Series 2 Episode 8 "Doomsday" only (1 ep) Series 3 all missing Series 4 all missing Series 5 all missing Series 6 Complete (13 eps) Series 7 Complete (13 eps) Series 8 Complete (13 eps) 53 episodes exist out of 104 (lostshows says 105 for some reason?) Of these, the masters (including telerecordings) are: Series 1 Complete (13 eps) Series 2 S02E08 "Doomsday" only (1 ep) Series 6 Complete (13 eps) Series 7 All except S07E04 "Vertigo" (12 eps) Series 8 S08E01 "Contact" and S08E10 "Switched" only (2 eps) = 41 episodes. Which leaves 12 episodes only available as domestic off-air recordings and 51 missing. Film inserts at Wessex:Series 3, Episodes 8-11 Series 4, Series 7 and Series 8 Others material:S03E06 "Caged". A silent 5’ 45” reconstruction of this episode from approximately 60 telesnaps exists. S05 episode 8 (or 9?) 1 minute silent clip showing on a TV set in a film a 1971 "Dutch Teenagers at Home". A preview can be seen here: BritishPathe the clip is the final minute. Does this appear correct? If so I’ll update the Wikipedia entry with the archive status. ~iw
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Post by Patrick Coles on Nov 15, 2013 13:12:34 GMT
Thanks for clarifying the position guys and setting out the situation re episodes held Ian !
Hopefully Germany might hold something, tho' as with 'Paul Temple' they can sometimes not be that forthcoming re what they hold in their archives.
As 'Freewheelers' was 'action/adventure' as opposed to 'Sci Fi' themed it's a 'kids show' that never gets the kind of acclaim or fanbase devotion that the likes of say; 'Dr.Who', 'The Tomorrow People' etc all enjoy
but with more interest now being shown in general 'missing TV shows' hopefully some of the currently 'lost' Freewheelers may yet come to light...
I assumed only BBC had the mass junkings attitude, sad to see some ITV stuff was similarly lost....tho' Southern TV despite making some excellent shows was never accorded the same kind of 'kudos' that the ITV regions such as Granada, Yorkshire, etc were afforded, which in retrospect seems a great shame.
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Post by Mike Womersley on Nov 15, 2013 16:24:13 GMT
I will try and sort out what appears to be missing information in the Wessex Archive lists. As far as I am concerned they had all the important inserts of all 8 series but for some reason my original lists and theirs do not confirm this. As a last resort I do have the insert's on VHS (transferred on a T/C Steenbeck) as my personal copies, they are also now on Hard Disc. I have some more material to deposit at Winchester; whilst I am there will go through all the relevant cans.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2013 16:43:39 GMT
Hi - is that Mike Wormersley?. Can you post under a full real name please as handles are not allowed on the forum. Thanks.
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Post by John Green on Nov 16, 2013 2:01:56 GMT
I will try and sort out what appears to be missing information in the Wessex Archive lists. As far as I am concerned they had all the important inserts of all 8 series but for some reason my original lists and theirs do not confirm this. As a last resort I do have the insert's on VHS (transferred on a T/C Steenbeck) as my personal copies, they are also now on Hard Disc. I have some more material to deposit at Winchester; whilst I am there will go through all the relevant cans. Thanks,Mike.I'm looking forward to hearing more. In the meantime,could someone explain a little about the "evaluation copy" on Youtube? www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL0tV9Azn-0
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Post by Ian Wegg on Nov 16, 2013 10:11:19 GMT
I will try and sort out what appears to be missing information in the Wessex Archive lists. As far as I am concerned they had all the important inserts of all 8 series but for some reason my original lists and theirs do not confirm this. As a last resort I do have the insert's on VHS (transferred on a T/C Steenbeck) as my personal copies, they are also now on Hard Disc. I have some more material to deposit at Winchester; whilst I am there will go through all the relevant cans. Thanks Mike. So you have inserts for all the series - that is great great news. I'd love to see the series 5 Thruxton scenes. Your mention of cans got me thinking and I've now only just realised an important issue using the Wessex online catalogue, as explained on their web page: Using the online catalogueWhilst all WFSA holdings have been catalogued at Collection level, this is not yet the case for individual items, which only represent the video and audio copies available for research.The amount of detail for items varies, from just a title, date and reference code, to a full summary description of the contents. We are working all the time to improve on this situation.On my visits to Wessex I have requested the material in the County Archives downstairs and watched it on DVD. I've never be anywhere near a film can. My reading of the above is that only the films available that way are in the online catalogue. So any individual item (upstairs) in the Wessex Film and Sound Archive that hasn't been transferred for viewing won't appear in the catalogue.As mentioned earlier, the description for this main collection AV763 doesn't mention Freewheelers at all, so if "research" copies of those individual items hadn't been made it would have been impossible for anyone to have found them from an online search. This isn't just a Freewheelers problem of course, it is a major consideration for anything at Wessex; probably worthy of its own topic. I assume there is a way of searching the full catalogue by visiting the WFSA? ~iw
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Post by John Green on Nov 16, 2013 14:00:27 GMT
Ian,good point.It can be confusing in English when we say "I've got a copy of his CD",when we can mean that we literally have copied it,or that we've bought a legit 'copy'.Wessex seem to be literally saying that they've cataloged shows they've got copies of i.e. copied for research purposes?
Is there any chance that we've got the same situation that we had at the BFI up to 2011,that is donations left uncatalogued for decades?
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Post by Tony Walshaw on Nov 17, 2013 9:56:33 GMT
Shocking stuff and thanks for clearing this up, Simon. I wish we could say well and truly that the way things were done in the past was well and truly behind us. Sadly though the same philistine attitudes toward "old TV" still prevail in some quarters. Seems like the threat of junkings may never go away. Archives often change hands. This puts programmes into the clutches of people 'new on the scene', who have no idea of cultural worth and the past history/issues with archiving. They only see an old tape as being....an old tape. And so what might be a classic programme still with commercial value, or a piece of social history, is at risk of disappearing.
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