Studio Operations (part 6) – Ray Lee

All Creatures Great and Small, Studio A. Photo by Tim Savage

All Creatures Great and Small, Studio A. Photo by Tim Savage

Saturday Night at the Mill, 1977. Photo by John Burkill

Saturday Night at the Mill, 1977. Pebble Mill courtyard. Photo by John Burkill

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Programmes

Studio A had a lot of drama series, and one off plays, as in those days drama was more often than not recorded in a studio. Exterior shots were done on film for the most part, and played in from TK during the recording session.

One of the early drama series was The Brothers  which was a fairly dire soap opera about a set of brothers who owned a lorry transport business. I remember virtually nothing about the series apart from the lovely Lisa Goddard, but it was a regular booking and kept us all in employment. Rather more interesting were the Dickens classics – Martin Chuzzlewit and Nicholas Nickleby. Then there were several series of  All Creatures Great and Small adapted from the James Herriot books. The first few with Carol Drinkwater, and the later series with Linda Bellingham, as James’ wife Helen. Then there was Gangsters which was I think the first studio production to use a “handheld” camera. The camera was a Bosch Fernseh, which had a quite large camera on a shoulder pad, connected to a back pack by a short cable, then the cable from the backpack went to a further CCU which was rigged in TAR. The Camera / backpack combination was pretty heavy, so the cameraman tended to put it all down as soon as the required shots had been taken.

There were a number of plays for today, and several series of The Basil Brush Show. The latter was recorded on a Saturday evening with a live audience, but for the afternoon dress rehearsal, several staff members and their children formed and audience so that “Basil” had someone to perform to. My wife and children came on several occasions when I was working in the gallery or TAR.

We hosted Playschool for at least one series, possibly two. This may have been around the time when there was a union dispute regarding who was to start the clock! As I remember, electricians said it should be them as it was electrical, and scene hands said it should be them as it was a prop. I don’t remember how it was resolved, but it was that kind of union silliness that set Margaret Thatcher on her crusade against the unions.

Studio A hosted Young Scientist of the Year at least twice, and also The Great Egg Race  with professor Heinz Wolff. There were several series of  Angels a kind of forerunner to Casualty. Then there was the great Pot Black which really put snooker onto the map for the first time. This was recorded over four intensive days after Christmas (27th – 30th Dec) and then shown one game per week. The quote of note being “For those of you watching in black and white, the red ball is next to the green ball, just beyond the black” or something like that. The problem was there was little difference in the grey level of red and green balls, so identifying them virtually impossible. It really was a game that had been waiting for colour. There were just so many programmes that came out of Studio A, the place buzzed with activity.

In addition to that there were all the Pebble Mill at One programmes which came from both studio A and studio B gallery, with the cameras in the foyer area or outside both at the back and front of the building, and occasionally on the roof! From the camera rigging point of view it was like an outside broadcast, but with the fixed infrastructure of a proper studio gallery.

In early 1975 a pilot programme Pebble Mill at Night was produced. It eventually materialised as Saturday Night at the Mill but not until 1976. This likewise used the foyer area, and depending on whether Studio A had a drama booked in used either Studio A or Studio B gallery.

Saturday Night at the Mill had the dubious honour of causing 2 of the big windows to be replaced. I think it was the night that a parachute jump landed on the front lawn, and in order to get some additional lighting, the lighting director (TM) had 2 big lights shining through the long gallery windows onto the lawn. The lights were well back from the windows and he checked that the windows were not getting hot. However they would have warmed slightly. That night after the show we had one of the hardest frosts in a long while, and the thermal stress on the windows caused them both to crack (several hours after the lights had been switched off). The replacement of the windows subsequently featured on a Pebble Mill at One, although what may not have been seen was that the new ones were about 3/4 inch too short! The gap was filled with mastic.

Studio B progammes in addition to the regular Midlands Today, hosted the Asian unit New Life programme on Sundays, and Farming, (the forerunner of Countryfile). Pebble Mill at One on any days when Studio A was in use for drama, and several programmes that could be squeezed into the small space, including incredibly some with an audience. Sadly I cannot remember all of them but The Clothes Show certainly started off in Studio B. There was rarely any slack days, and Studio B (or its gallery at least) may well have seen at least 2 and often 3 different programmes during the course of 24 hours! The presentation annex was arranged as a self operated area, and close down was done from there every night, with just a couple of engineers manning the TAR end of things. David Stevens was one of the regulars, and used a series of colour slides for his close down sequence. Sometimes the slides jammed in the slide scanner, resulting in a somewhat curtailed sequence. One of the slide scanners took a pair of slide boxes from which the slides were pushed up into the scanner gate by a metal plunger known as the Sprod. Unfortunately this required consistent slide mounts to work properly, and David’s assorted slides were not quite as regular as required, so sometime it spat out a slide altogether, just leaving a blank white screen. When possible the other slide scanner was used for this as the slides were pre slotted into place in a pair of discs which rotated into the scanner gate. The disadvantage of that being that changing the order of the slides took much longer if they needed to be changed.  As there were only the 2 slide scanners, and both studios might need to use slides there was a lot of pressure on the engineers to keep them both in working order.

Ray Lee

 

The Clothes Show

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.

‘The Clothes Show’ ran from 1986-2000. It was a spin off from fashion items on ‘Pebble Mill at One’.  Roger Casstles was the executive producer.  Jeff Banks and Selina Scott were the original presenters.  The fashion magazine show mixed catwalk with high street items.  The show became very popular for its stylish visuals, and use of digital video effects.  It was transmitted on Sunday afternoons.

In 1989 The Clothes Show Live exhibition at the NEC was launched, which is still an annual event, and The Clothes Show magazine started a little later.

The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook Group:

Ruth Kiosses: “I was on the show dressed in an Edwardian evening gown at the Barbican centre January 1989. A year later I was working at pebble mill and bombing around in the clothes show ‘wagon’ the large box van with CS logo on. I remember a very funny journey thrapsing down to Oxford but that’s another story! ”

Hilary Anne Hughes: “I remember trying to get some mens ties to stay put while they shot underwater. We wired the ties in the end then they could be shaped but stayed in place.”

Ruth Kiosses: “There was a Vivienne Westwood corseted evening gown that arrived in huge box. The dress was so enormous with layers of net the model could hardly walk in it! It looked amazing but totally impractical for anyone who wanted to do anything other than stand still!”

Becky Land: “Finding a sofa covered in recucled fleece then hauling it up a hill in Snowdonia so models could drape themselves over it. Surreal.”

Janice Rider: “Took Selina Scott shopping for the rock ‘n roll edition . She had a wonderful flat overlooking Hyde Park . She and Jeff joined in with a rock ‘n roll dance club for the shoot – very amusing.”

Jane Green: “I was the runner on the first ever Clothes Show Bride of the Year – a Mrs Elizabeth Barnes. Mad, mad few days but fabulous programme. Years later was director. Usually worked with Jeff who wandered off a lot during filming to use phoneboxes to make business calls while crew were waiting and public held back by security to get the shot. I’d have to go find him. I worked with Viv Westwood, Naomi Campbell, Philip Treacey and more. Hardest job I ever had.”

Charisma Keyboard

Charisma keyboard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Ian Collins, no reproduction without permission.

VT editor, Ian Collins, took a number of photographs of obsolete kit before the closure of Pebble Mill in 2004; this still of a Charisma keyboard among them. Charisma was a digital video effects machine which was de rigour in the late ’80s, early ’90s.  It enabled complex video effects to be incorporated in programmes like ‘The Clothes Show’.  In fact the style of series like ‘The Clothes Show’ were largely due to Charisma, and the skilled use of it by VT editors like Mike Bloore, who was awarded a craft BAFTA for his editing of the programme. I remember being really excited about using Charisma in VT edits, and thinking the effects looked really great.  If anything it was used too much, and caused a reaction against multi-layered complex edits and effects and back towards straightforward cuts.  Nowadays the effects look pretty dated. I also remember a funny story about an edit assistant, who shall remain nameless, going to a job interview and being asked about what he thought about Charisma.  He replied that charisma was an important quality in a person, and meant that they could be inspirational to others etc.  It was only later he realised that they were talking about the Charisma machine.  I can’t remember if he got the job or not! The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook Group: Mike Workman: ‘As used by the Six O’Clock News in 1985 for headline transition wipes, what a machine – VizRT is not a patch on Charisma!’ Matthew Skill: ‘we had one in Newcastle BC, there’s a complete set of manuals down in the workshops in the basement of TVC. That’s all the info i have for now….’ Mike Workman: ‘there’s a few dotted around TVC that came out of the then N1/2 news studios when the News Spur opened in 1997’ Mike Skipper: ‘Their successor the Ten X was used up until about a year ago at TV Centre!’ Ian Collins: ‘Without this piece of kit, Clothes Show would not have been the success that it was.’ Jane Green: ‘Ian’s right. I remember racing back from the NEC Clothes Show Live 1992 with the rushes of the live show and using Charisma with VT at Pebble Mill to put the show montages together. The effects were groundbreaking at the time. Took the finished tapes back to Roger at the NEC for TX and everyone crowded round to watch and loved the Charisma transformation.’

Date with Fate – Becky Land

Photo by production designer Lynda Kettle, no reproduction without permission

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had so much fun on this show. I remember I stood in as ‘presenter’ in the run throughs on the top floor! It lasted only one series and was a daytime Mr and Mrs with horoscopes. It pitted family and friends against guest astrologers to see who would be able to answer questions about them; the astrologers used personal birth charts of each contestant to help them. The prizes were a little modest compared with today but it was still when the BBC had a limit on the value of prizes. I do remember a Henry vacuum and of course the ‘Date With Fate’ Plate. Three shows in a day running back and forth along the ground floor to the old ‘Clothes Show’ Office. I think it was around early 1998? We all went separate ways and I ended up on ‘Gardening Neighbours’ in Sheffield.

Becky Land

Portable 1″ Videotape Recorder (VPR 20)

Photos by Video Editor, Ian Collins; no reproduction without permission.

Ian took these photos before the sale of equipment when Pebble Mill was cleared prior to being demolished in 2005.

The portable 1″ videotape recorder (probably a VPR-20) was a useful piece of technology, meaning that shots could be recorded on location without a full outside broadcast, and before the advent of portable single cameras.

The VT editors shown in the photo are (left to right) Ian Collins, Steve Neilsen, Brian Watkiss, Ivor Williams, Mike Bloore, John Burkill, John Doidge, Steve May.

Peter Poole added the following information on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:  ‘I remember a Clothes Show recording using the Ampex/Nagra VPR5. It was an audition for models in Studio 1. The queues stretched down Pebble Mill road.’

Please add a comment if you remember which programmes used portable 1″ recorders.