The Mausoleum Club Forum

I doubt very much that the 14 man story is totally true. Besides, even now if a layman - for that is all any politician is - who doesn't understand how television is made, were to turn up to the studios or a location shoot and see a few sparks loitering, the B camera operator twiddling his thumbs an...

I kept wondering if anything would appear in the "Ashes to ashes" area. Given her undoubted impact - rather like an Exocet amidships - upon British television there's certainly a discussion to be had. But like others I guess, it flickered through my mind for a nanosecond to start a thread and then c...

IIRC some of the ITV companies used to sort of invite ideas. Didn't some of the companies' entries at the back of the old ITV Yearbooks have some sort of "programme ideas or scripts should be sent to...." in their text.

It is far too soapy and often preposterous. Also there is Jane Asher's "acting" to contend with. I remember watching it as a teenager and have watched it again on DVD. It's well made from a technical point of view and the locations are good. I know some of the crew who worked on it and the stories o...

There used to be an overflow car park (to call it a car park was to flatter it) on wasteground at the end of Ariel Way adjacent to a lorry park and some sort of railway works. It was a muddy gravel mess and there were enormous smelly dogs associated with the owners. If you hadnt been issued one of t...

Yes, if it's stretched and lit then it's a cyclorama. If it's just hanging freely and unstretched/not weighted, like a star cloth or blacks then it's generally referred to as drapes. I remember once as a trainee, a fellow junior colleague of mine referred to the cyc as "curtains". The camera supervi...

From memory, wasn't TC1 taken out of service for a little while C.1991 - give or take a year - for a major refurb (CCD cameras and some new kit in the galleries and grid) and the audience handling facilities were upgraded at that time.

I was a bit like you then, Bob. I have scripts galore and various other mementos. While I was training I'd have still turned up even if they'd stopped paying me. It was fun!

I never understood why BT didn't just make the new kiosks a modern facsimile of the old ones but in modern low maintenance materials and with subtle adaptation for disabled access. The newer 'phone boxes are fairly hideous. The latest version at least gives a nod to the classic design but is still c...

That's not right at all, the Executive Producer was Caroline Wright who has worked at the BBC for at least twenty years, she produced Danny Baker's TV Heroes which was one of the best programmes about old television we've ever had. That was in 1993. Her production team including the likes of Lucy K...

It should've been crewed and directed by proper TVC old timers who could've been included in some of the chat. Yeah, but...why would that have been better? A load of old men saying 'I think I worked on the moon landing, but it was just another working day and I can't actually remember anything apar...

Just watched this. Hmm, let's see now ... a contemporary programme about a highly topical subject - the closure of TV Centre, an electronic television factory, based around multi-camera video. So what better for its final, electronic production, to stick on a tacky "film" look for all those shot-as...

It was a missed opportunity really. Reading the credits at the end, many of those making the show were "Johnny come latelys". It should've been crewed and directed by proper TVC old timers who could've been included in some of the chat and it should've been researched and produced by more thorough i...

It happens quite a lot. I'm sure I remember on "The Camomile Lawn" spotting an RM bus trundling through frame. It is annoying. They should be RT type or some other from the correct period. Telephones are the other things which are often wrong. The various series of GPO telephone apparatus have a cle...

Haha I'm sure you would. It's not her fault I'll be bound. No doubt she was merely fronting packages which had been scripted and produced by others who were either wilfully misinforming their audience or were just idiots who'd done no proper research.

That interview studio at BH had a blue tinted picture of BH as the backdrop. The pan, tilt and zoom/focus of the camera was controlled from a little booth next to the Charisma lobby on the 6th floor of TVC near the N1 and N2 studio galleries. It was called the Remote Studios Control Room. A News Tec...

Interesting Bernie, and your thoughts help to further highlight what a lot of clap-trap was spouted in the course of the programme.

Yes I was rather surprised he didn't say W12 7RJ. I also thought his repeated references to "the kiddies' programmes" during the chats was rather condescending. Also Victoria Coren's pieces repeated the nonsense that TVC was the first purpose built TV studios in the UK. She also stated that TC8 was ...

Although he'd have been self-employed so he'd only have paid tax on his profit from self-employment. He could at least deduct expenses like his agent etc. He would have paid less tax than a salaried P.A.Y.E. employee. It's quite tricky to actually pin down a definitive figure for what money then wou...

Actually, if you watch the original interview, his words have been taken out of context. It made me smile that he still loves Coronation Street. He deserves a medal, since the rest of us gave up years ago! I must say that it seems like a storm in a teacup. Whilst I have absolutely no time for any k...

Seeing as £1 in 1963 would be equivalent to about £16 now, I would imagine and hope that the eye watering percentages quoted are indeed taking inflation into account and not on top of any inflation correction. So apart from the turns and the jinglesmiths, who else on a TV productions continues to ge...

I agree, I've just had a full calendar month with no work whatsoever. If only I could rely on money coming in from the programmes I helped make in years gone by. Not that I'm in penury you understand, it's just that being freelance, casual or ad-hoc is not unusual these days. Whatever historical jus...

A VHS tape was released just after it ended, "Adios Eldorado". I know it was. I was thinking more in terms of people not being likely to keep individual episodes recorded offair. As I said, I recorded the first episode for posterity on an E-60, so then a year later added the last one to it. I think...

Glad to hear the balance hasn't entirely gone from an hours point of view for some lucky people, although increasingly I'm seeing staff cameramen in some places brought in for nasty little 6 or 7 hour calls 5 or 6 days a week or expected to work 50hrs a week! 5 days at 10hrs a day! And all for piss ...

But what about the areas of the operation that couldn't be done during the week like actually putting the channel on air. I assume that either the staff were shared between other areas, were part time/freelance and worked elsewhere, or they managed to cram full time hours into 3 days? I'm just a wh...

Things don't stop happening at weekends. Thames News would still require cover in case any stories broke that would need to be featured in the following week's programmes. They might want to send a crew out to shoot a feature for Monday's "Thames News". It's all happening, even at weekends. Yes sche...

I remember as a child being fascinated by the idea of a "weekend" television company. I often used to wonder what they did from Monday to Friday? It's quite obvious now as a 'grown-up' that they were very busy during the week making programmes just like everyone else. Indeed, but I'd always assumed...

Ah I see, so that's how it worked. Thanks for the info :-)

Also, doesn't one of the captions in that video say something about VT not having talkback to the gallery, just a buzzer. I can't imagine that's true. I never worked in transmission but in all the studios, although 90% of the time VT would give yes/no responses via their buzzer, they could actually ...

I spent a couple of hours sat next to Andy Cartledge in the strange days when the BBC spoke separately to analogue and digital viewers on networks 1 and 2. Extravagance? at the BBC? Surely not. Anyhow he was lovely, very informative and welcoming. It was another of my abortive career changes. I'd ap...