Category: Building

The Pebble Mill Building

Last days of Pebble Mill – interiors

Pebble Mill main lifts

Studio A entrance

Studio A entrance

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos by Tim Savage, no reproduction without permission.

VT Editor, Tim, took these photos just before the auctioning off of equipment in autumn 2004, before Pebble Mill was demolished in 2005.

The first photo shows the main lifts, on the ground floor, at the rear of the building.

The second two photos are of different entrances to Studio A. Studio A had been stripped as a digital studio by this time, although ‘Doctors’ may still have been using it to house sets and film in, along with other locations around the building.

Notice the photo of Warren Clarke from ‘Dalziel and Pascoe’ on the wall in the second photo.

Telecine – Ray Lee (Part 3)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by John Kimberley, no reproduction without permission.

One aspect of telecine operation involved tariffing the film. TARIF was an acronym for Technical Apparatus for the Rectification of Indifferent Film. (There were other translations). The problem was that standard film prints have too high a contrast range and too variable a colour range to translate well into TV pictures, and so some means of correcting this was required. Where films were shot specifically for TV, special low contrast prints were used, but news items on reversal film had no opportunity to be graded other than by the camera operator getting the exposure right in the first place. The TARIF unit worked in conjunction with the TK processing chain, and was usually operated by a pair of joysticks. The left hand one affected the blacks, and had green red and blue on 3 axes at 120 degrees apart, and a twist control to alter the overall black level. The Right hand one was similar but affected the whites, with the twist control setting overall signal level (or brightness).
There was a display which showed the red green and blue signals just below the transmission monitor, to help guide the operator, and a greyscale light box above the monitor to allow for both monitor calibration and a guide to the operator for overall colour balance.

The tarif control panel also had a set of rotary switches which could be set to fix a specific colour axis and then just use a master lift and gain. This was rarely used, as it could not be changed quickly and was only really of benefit where a properly graded print had a particular colour cast which needed correcting without the need to be changed. The joystick control provided the quickest means of correcting the errors, but relied on the quick reactions of the operator.

Ray Lee

Videotape machines in MFA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos by VT Editor, Ian Collins, no reproduction without permission.

Ian took photos of various pieces of kit, for posterity, before Pebble Mill was decommissioned in 2004.

These photos are of different videotape machines, including beta sp, and digibeta.  Betacam sp, was a 1/2 inch analog videotape introduced as a format in the early 1980s and took over from U-matic tapes.

The machines were probably in MFA.

Mike Skipper added the following comment:

‘Just managed to have a closer look – the very top machine is indeed a Panasonic AJ-D350 1/2″ digital D3 recorder.

These machines saw heavy use at TV Centre until the 16:9 aspect ratio was settled upon as the standard recording format, at which point Digital Betacam became the preferred recording format. In very simplistic terms, D3 ‘digitised’ PAL signals before putting them to tape, whereas Digital Betacam processes signals in their component form.’

 

Pebble Mill building – photos by Tim Savage

Photos by Tim Savage, no reproduction without permission.

VT Editor, Tim Savage, took these photos of Pebble Mill in Autumn 2004, as the building was being de-commissioned.

In the photo of the entrance to the rear car park, someone seems to have helped themselves to a souvenir ‘C’ from the BBC logo!

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

Gail Herbert: ‘It really is hard to realise that this building is no longer there – such happy memories.’

Brian Johnson: ‘London was always jealous of the success of P Mill so demolishing it under the guise of economy and using the ‘Mailbox’ made it look right on paper, but also made sure it was not a competitor to London productions (did I say London or Salford) ooops old age is a terrible thing, it seems to make you realise the truth.’

Pete Simpkin: ‘Still so fresh in the memory.’