Top Gear – Page 5 – What Was Pebble Mill?

D3 and Beta SP machines

Photo by Ian Collins, no reproduction without permission.

The photo shows a Panasonic D3 machine, and an Ampex Betcam SP machine.

D3 was a 1/2 inch videotape format which lost very little information between generations, and was hailed as a great revolution. It was brought in, in the early 1990s. I remember how excited everyone in post production got about D3, because you didn’t lose picture quality in going down a generation – although some thought that it would make production staff even more lax in their editing, because it didn’t matter if you had to go round again! Ironically, the tapes did not stand the test of time well, meaning that much of the BBC archive had to be digitised. D3 tended to be an editing and delivery format, rather than a shooting format.

Beta SP was also a 1/2 inch videotape format, and was the standard tape used in the late 1980s, and early 1990s for recording portable single camera location pieces.

These machines were in post production – probably in the machine room between VTC and VTE.

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

Paul Vanezis: ‘We had three D3’s in VTE but 2 machines everywhere else. We did totally mad pre-read edits on Top Gear and The Clothes Show. But the maddest was a Motor Show Special. It was 10 minutes before TX on a Sunday afternoon in 1992. Steve Neilson was editing and dropped out of record in the middle of a pre-read edit. The look of horror on his face was something to behold. I got him to redo the edit as audio only and pick the vision up later! We did make it on air and there were plenty of examples of that going on.’

Alan Miller: ‘I believe the D3 saga has an interesting ending in that the BBC has thousands of tapes to archive but there are not enough D3 head assemblies in the world to copy them to another format!’

Adam Trotman: ‘And you had to line them up properly or you would get a hop in the picture. …’

Russell Parker: ‘They retired there, but I think this photo is either VTE or Edit 17’s machine room.’

David Lancaster – Pebble Mill News 1984

This article is from Pebble Mill News 1984, the internal newsletter.

David Lancaster was a producer on Top Gear, and perhaps being a non-driver gave him an objective perspective when reviewing cars on the programme.

David Lancaster went on to work on Pebble Mill at One.

Thanks to Robin Sunderland for sharing the newsletter, and for keeping it safe all these years!

1984 Spring and Summer line-up

This page from the 1984 Pebble Mill News, includes an article about David Waine’s press briefing about Pebble Mill’s output: 500 hours of network TV, 1,000 hours of network radio, and 160 hours of regional television. Highlights include a new Saturday night light entertainment show, new series of Top Gear, Kick Start and Top Sailing, as well as Now Get Out of That, Gardeners’ World, Asian Magazine, and Gharbar. On the drama front there is mention of The Groundling and the Kite, Phoebe, The Amazing Miss Estelle, and Morte d’Arthur.

Network Radio was also busy, with a new Radio 4 series of Enterprise, and Rollercoaster, as well as hosting a Schools Radio Festival hosted by Sue Lawley, Rolf Harris and Duncan Goodhew.

In regional television there were new series of, Midlands Sound and Midlands Tonight, and a television version of Malcolm Stent’s Radio WM series, In the Barmaid’s Arms.

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

Peter Poole: ‘I worked on The Barmaid’s Arms in Studio A. They had a good band called The Nightriders. This was before producer choice. After that regional TV could never afford Studio A.’

Pete Simpkin: ‘As producer of the Radio version of the Barmaids it was quite pleasant to be a member of the audience with the real beer and not have to worry about anything! I do remember that someone had crafted a tiny hole in the chest of Malc’s shirt to take the cable for his personal mic.’

Lynn Cullimore: ‘Yes, Peter it was Mike Sheridan and the Nightriders…I was the PA and I loved it. Malc was wonderful to work with and i did many programmes with him. Malcolm is still going too..doing shows and things. Mary someone or other did a brilliant set for it…cannot remember her other name but she was very good.’

Peter Poole: ‘Hi Lynn, it was great when regional TV could do shows like this. Do you remember who the producer was? Malcolm often did warm up for PM at One. He always did a great job entertaining the audience.’

Lynn Cullimore: ‘The Producer was John Clarke whom I worked with for a long time. I did many Studio A programmes at one time – do you remember The Garden Game?’

Stuart Gandy: ‘I do remember The Garden Game. Wasn’t it on during the Friday night opt slot? In those days regional programmes had two opt slots per week.’

Peter Poole: ‘I remember John he was great producer and a very nice man. It’s amazing the programmes produced on such small budgets. I didn’t work on The Garden Game but do remember it. One of the many panel shows in Studio A. I always enjoyed working on regional TV programmes. The production teams were lovely people.’

1/4″ audiotape – Charles White

A stack of 1/4″ audiotapes recorded on location, transferred to 16mm magnetic tape, and then cut to bits in the edit. The items here include Top Gear inserts, and Pebble Mill at One inserts on midwifery.

These were the master 1/4″ tape recordings from location, made from progs about 1986. The sound recordist locked sync on a Nagra using Crystal sync, and they matched the 16mm film, when it was transferred back in Sound transfer, by messrs Poole, Peissel, et al. We as assistant editors then locked the Mag and film on a 6-way Acmade using the Clapper board frame to synchronise. This could be done using the ‘front’ or ‘end’ board.

Thanks to editor Charles White for sharing the photo, adding the information – and for keeping the audio!

Sharon Pemberton using the Acmade. Photo by Peter Poole

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

Peter Poole: ‘The transfer suite often worked 12 hour days, 7 days a week at busy times. Not the most exciting job but very good overtime!’

Alan Miller: ‘In Scotland we synced up using a device known as a Pic Sync, Does that mean it was probably actually an Acmade?’

Dawn Trotman: ‘We called them pic syncs too.. goodness that takes me back to chinagraphs keeping your hair up and splicers with your initials carved on them .. people also tried to steal a good one … Happy days when you had time to think!’

Top Gear: Waterworld

Waterworld was a Top Gear spin-off series. There were five episodes in all, transmitted between 20th July and 20th August 1998. It was presented by Jeremy Clarkson, Tiff Needell and Julia Bradbury. It was a magazine show which covered motorised water vehicles of various sorts.

Thanks to VT editor Ian Collins for making this titles grab available.