One of the limitations of television, particularly on outside broadcasts, has hitherto been the very great bulk and weight of the television camera, and of the other essential control and power units, etc., to which the camera must always be connected by a thick and unwieldy cable. This dearly restricts the mobility and versatility of the system.

This difficulty has now been overcome by the development of a miniature television camera of such reduced size that the entire equipment including a radio transmitting link can be carried by one man. The camera itself, which measures only 7½ in. × 4 in. [19x10cm – Ed] is carried in the operator’s hand, and the rest of the equipment, control unit, power supplies and transmitter complete with aerial, is carried in pack form on his back, the total weight being 60 lb. [27kg], maximum. This equipment has come to be known by the nickname of “Creepie Peepie”.

The picture obtained from the camera is radiated by the transmitter on a frequency in band 3, and may be picked up within a radius of several miles on any standard type of television receiver. This receiver would normally be housed in the outside broadcast “Scanner” or in a special mobile van, from which the received picture would be passed on to the Master Control Room in the normal way.

For the technical

The camera contains a standard vidicon pick-up tube together with its optical lens system and scanning and focusing coils, and a 2-valve video pre-amplifier; it is connected to the camera control unit via a small flexible multi-cable. There is an optical viewfinder attached to the side of the camera and a zoom lens is provided for use if desired as an alternative to the interchangeable fixed lenses. The entire optical system is of the standard 16-millimetre type.

The Camera Control Unit is electrically speaking in three parts: i.e., the control unit proper, the synchronising generator, and the low-power transmitter. The control unit proper contains the main video amplifier, scanning and sync pulse generators, mixing circuits and the pre-set controls. The controls provided are: target voltage, beam current, black level, video gain and picture size, hold and shift controls. The electrical beam focus control is on the camera itself. The synchronising generator which is fully transistorised is so small that it is built into the lid of the control unit. It contains 32 transistors and 42 germanium diodes, which would have been the equivalent, not so long ago, of 74 valves. The function of this unit is to supply timing pulses to the control unit for the purpose of triggering the scanning, blanking and sync pulse circuits, so that the various components of the picture signal arc put together in the correct sequence. The low-power transmitter feeds about one-tenth at a watt of power to the aerial and the resulting signal may be picked up within a distance of about 100 yards. For all these purposes, the control unit uses only 11 valves.

The power unit contains a transistorised H.T. unit and a miniature 12-volt silver-zine battery giving a running time of 3-4 hours. As implied earlier where a range of a few miles is required a high-power transmitter, having a power of 5 watts, is available. This is in two units: the transmitter itself and the power pack very similar to that described above. The two units arc mounted on top of the other pack-borne circuits, and are included in the quoted weight of 60 lb. A small flexible aerial is fitted to the top of the transmitter.

The complete equipment, therefore, radiates a standard TV signal, and the operator is free to move about wherever he will. The received signal may be fed to the relay frame in the scanner and selected by the programme director just like a normal camera picture.

Extensive tests have had to be carried out to discover the most suitable type of receiver for use with this camera. Good sensitivity and a first-class automatic gain control system arc essentials. The best performance in these respects would appear to be given by the Murphy Receiver Model VR 97, while for adequate performance coupled with ease of portability the Alba portable Model 909 is to be recommended, being very useful for setting up and checking of equipment. Considerable assistance has been given by Messrs. Wolsey Aerials Ltd. in constructing special receiving aerials to our requirements giving the desired characteristics of direction and gain.

There are numerous other matters—mainly problems of communication which have to be dealt with when using a portable camera. It may be required to have a spoken commentary, as well as pictures, from the camera site, and the operator must also be in contact with the programme director in the scanner. Multi-channel radio links are thus involved, which may even have to be extended back to base in certain circumstances.

The post Creepie-Peepie appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

The phone rang … suddenly … shrilly. P.S. stretched out his hand and hesitated – was this a trap? What fiendish question was he now to be asked ? He overcame his fear and picked up the phone, hand trembling slightly. ‘Hello, production office’ he said. No one answered, but he could hear heavy breathing through his earpiece. He glanced at his colleague T.H. and his eyes indicated the extension, which T.H. slowly lifted to his ear.

‘Hello’ said P.S. again. The muscles of his jaw twitched and his steel-blue eyes narrowed through the thick cigar smoke that filled the office. Both men were still, tense. The phone had not rung for at least two minutes and now – this. The tension became unbearable and beads of perspiration trickled slowly down his temples, dropping from his chin and staining the blotter on his desk. He could still hear the breathing of his adversary and faintly in the distance, revolver shots – one! two!! Immediately a voice at the other end – metallic, authoritative – called: ‘Hold it there – don’t move’. P.S. tensed. It was not the first time this situation had arisen. Twice before this very day he had heard those shots, and the cold command to stay still. He glanced quickly at T.H. on his left. T.H. sat still, relaxed, but ready to move instantly to back up his colleague in any emergency. The pencil drummed lightly on the ash tray before him. Both men were experienced operators and had passed through these crises many times before. There had been that time with the lions and panthers when only feet had separated them from a terrible mauling – and they were still in action: and again, when all seemed lost, and they had fought their way through the Russian mob and beaten the crime – and punishment. But this – this, was different. P.S. glanced swiftly at the schedule hanging by his side. Nothing sinister – all should have been quiet. But it was always in these moments of apparent calm that the greatest danger came. Although it seemed like hours, in fact only a few seconds had elapsed since that first terrifying ring.

Suddenly the door was flung open and D.N. stood framed in the opening. His sharp eye took in the situation at a glance. ‘What now?’ he gritted and took one sharp, nervous pace into the room. P.S. held up his free hand in a gesture of silence. D.N. stood stock still, his eyes never leaving the telephone in P.S.’s hand.

In an instant the tension broke as a sharp, incisive voice said ‘Is that the production office? Oh! Studio 5 here – will it be all right if we go to lunch five minutes early?’ The air whistled through P.S.’s lips in a surge of relief. ‘O.K.’ he said. Slowly he replaced the receiver, slumped back in his chair and lit a cigarette. Another crisis over. He smiled: ‘How about a quick jug in the club before lunch?’ There was a quick flurry, the slam of a door and – silence.

I must confess that the above is a slight exaggeration, but sometimes this is how it appears to us on extension 207 in the production office at Wembley. It is not a large office, but every day from early morn until half an hour after the last studio closes, these is always a duty manager on hand to answer queries on studio technical requirements, dressing room allocation, special effects, staff problems, hygiene, safety first, and 100 other subjects of a production, whether it be of a personal or domestic nature.

On average, about 15 productions are transmitted, telerecorded or videotaped every week at Wembley, and four or five at Television House.

Those of you who read articles on ‘Hippodrome’ and ‘The Informer’ in Fusion will have realised the enormous problems facing members of the production teams, and these are but TWO series. Apart from these two there are also other series such as ‘The Rat Catchers’, ‘No Hiding Place’, ‘Orlando’ plus drama, science, schools, features, light entertainment, children’s and religious programmes, all of which have their own (and equally important) administrative problems and, in all of which, somewhere along the line, the production office is involved.

For example, while ‘Hippodrome’ was in production, the production office team were responsible for the housing, feeding (and bedding) of 12 elephants, 12 lions, six tigers, two pumas, and five leopards, plus assorted dogs and trainers – not to mention the acts – Mexican, French, Spanish, and German – who required facilities for cars, caravans and cages and the laying on of electricity, water and heating.

During ‘Ready, Steady, Go!’ every week cloakrooms are set up to take care of the coats and handbags of up to 150 teenagers and while ‘Five o’Clock Club’ is transmitting and recording parents must be accommodated and facilities for them to view the programmes laid on – somewhere. We have in our time, dealt with a fire in dressing room 26, flood in Studio 2, a ‘punch-up’ in Studio 5 and a robbery (and arrest) in dressing room 513.

The post The 007 men on 207 appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

A two-headed figure, half man, half woman, looms at you out of the gloom. You turn – and a wild-cat, eyes a-glint and jaws snarling, is ready to pounce. Everywhere you look, nightmarish objects stare back at you.

‘This is our horror room,’ says Mary Paul, whose husband Ken is one of Rediffusion’s chief props suppliers.

Ken Paul’s sprawling premises occupy two shops, three storeys high, in England’s Lane, a part of Hampstead still village-y in character. They house thousands of articles for hire to stage, screen and television companies.

Most of the props borrowed for Rediffusion’s ‘Crane’ come from here, because Ken Paul, while stocking all sorts of antique and unusual props, specialises in Moorish and Eastern pieces. You want a hookah? There’s a choice of half a dozen over in the corner. We’re in a room entirely given over to Eastern stuff, in surroundings as exotic as anything in the Arabian Nights.

Some of the latest additions in this room are those bought from the set of a recent film made in the Near East. (A reversal of the usual procedure, and one that is not too common, for most of the articles stocked are genuine and not reproductions, and are bought privately or at auctions.)

‘When the stuff came in, we noticed the most peculiar smell,’ says Mrs Paul. It was very puzzling – until we realised it was a hang-over from contact with camels.’ Mrs Paul is a blonde, vivacious woman. Her husband, who has a trim, pointed beard, is slightly more reserved. They married in 1942, and started up in business with £100 [about £3,500 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed].

‘We got the lease of one of these shops – the other we only acquired recently – and did it up ourselves. We started with hardly anything – a tandem in bits, an enormous grand piano, a rocking-horse and a doll’s pram.’

Mrs Paul recounts this as if it were all a huge joke – one that has gone on being funny all these years. She’s not always in the shop, but when she is there she finds the business great fun. ‘It’s not like work at all.’

She continues: ‘When we began, we intended just to sell antiques. We didn’t think of lending them until a friend gave us the idea. Our first film order was for “The Scarlet Pimpernel”. It was worth £25 and we were thrilled.’ [The film was 1934, too early for the 1942 establishment of the business; the ATV/ITC TV series was 1955, which seems too late. If the TV series is what’s intended, £25 is £560 in today’s money]

The normal hiring fee is five per cent of the original cost of the article for each week of hire. Where the same article will be needed maybe for months – for the full run of a TV series, for instance – a special fee is arranged.

Ken Paul explains this as he hurries about in the office quarters at the back of the shop. This is where the administrative work is carried out by the Paul’s manager and two assistants. It’s called an office, but really it’s more of another props room.

A huge Victorian cabinet stands along one side, covered with a multitude of unrelated objects. Part of the space inside is used as a drinks cupboard, the rest holds neat drawers full of snuff-boxes, of all shapes, sizes and antiquities; fans of ostrich feathers, lace, and painted satin; and hundreds of postcards. (‘You get people asking what Portofino or somewhere looked like 50 years ago, and you can usually show them.’)

Cups of half-drunk tea or coffee lie scattered among the accounts and order books. You expect to turn the china upside-down and find it marked ‘Spode’, ‘Minton’ or even ‘Worcester’.

You pick up a cup to see if you’re right and you’re distracted from your aim when you find that the cups are resting on a glass-topped display cabinet filled with fabulous jewels.

‘They’re not all real, actually,’ you are told. ‘This diamond set – the tiara, bracelet and necklace – they’re paste. But they’re very fine quality. They came from a duchess who had them copied exactly from her real set, which she kept in the bank.’

There is jewellery of all periods and types. ‘We’re very good on pawn-shop settings. Rediffusion usually comes to us if they need a pawn-shop in “No Hiding Place” for example.’

Jewellery was among the items on the pages-long list of props that Rediffusion hired from Ken Paul for the ‘Crime and Punishment’ drama production. There was also a samovar on the list, a Victorian doll’s pram and two Russian icons.

‘The icons were presents to our two daughters when they were younger,’ says Mary Paul. ‘When we started borrowing them to hire out, they asked for the fee. They’ve been borrowed so often now that they’re part of the stock.’

Another prop that originally belonged to the Paul children is a huge Victorian doll.

It now lives down in the basement, in the room that could adequately rival Madame Tussaud’s ‘Chamber of Horrors’ for monstrosities.

A life-sized stuffed bear rears up on his hind legs as if to pounce when you reach the bottom of the stairs. Behind him, a hideous stuffed monkey. Lying on the floor, glowing wickedly and translucently, the wax model heads of a number of mass murderers.

‘There were more masks,’ you are told, ‘but they were borrowed so often that in the end they melted under the hot lights.’ More grotesque objects are upstairs, among the ethnographical gear, with voodoo carved figures and masks.

Then there’s the naval and military room, with cutlasses, globes, daggers, guns, maps, portraits and heavy bronzes. From here come some of the props which appear weekly in the ‘H.M.S. Paradise’ episodes. Another speciality is blackamoors, ebony-coloured figures beautifully painted, some of them extremely rare and valuable, as is the greater part of the stock.

‘When we’ve supplied a lot of the props, we like to see the final production – whether it’s on television, the stage or the screen,’ say the Pauls. ‘Sometimes, though, it can be quite a harrowing experience. You see a big fight scene, all your stuff gets knocked about, and you think – “Now I know why so-and-so came back damaged”. It’s sad … but you can’t mind too much, and on the whole people are very good about looking after our props.’

After the horror room and the military room, it is a relief to wander into the gracious atmosphere of the Victoriana room, where all the trimmings of that leisurely age are stored.

It is an even greater relief to pass into the next room and find yourself in a fully-equipped pub – bar, stools, prettily-painted handles for pulling a pint.

‘All fake again,’ you’re told.

But if you’re lucky, there’s a real drink waiting for you in that Victorian cabinet…

The post Voodoo and murderers in Hampstead appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

Three years ago on June 9, 1960, the first production was transmitted from Studio 5 at Wembley. Since then thousands of people from this country and from all over the world have come to stand and stare.

Advertising agents and advertisers have goggled at the lighting console, heating engineers have marvelled at the ventilation system, architects have wondered at the high degree of accuracy in the floor level, television experts have come from all over the world and few have gone away without learning something. All have been bemused by the giant doors – there is nothing to touch them anywhere else in the world.

When you live with something like Studio 5 you tend to forget that it is a show-piece just as the people in a town rarely visit an attraction which is a focal point for tourists… unless they want to show it off.

Those directly involved with handling visitors know how deeply people are impressed by Studio 5, but we who live with it tend to forget that this happens. We’ve told the story before, but it’s worth repeating, how the Japanese television engineer was told by a compatriot when he said he was visiting England: ‘You must see Studio 5.’

A brochure has now been printed to give away to visitors and the inside pages of this brochure are reproduced here because we feel that the staff might be interested in seeing what others will receive. Most of the photographs were specially taken by Donald McCullin.

A highly technical workshop like Studio 5 must have an equally skilled staff. In Studio 5 the hands of the craftsmen, artists, technicians that fashion every production, are experienced, talented and thoroughly professional. Even the hand of welcome in the reception hall plays its part. The hands that paint the backcloths. The hands that dress the set with properties. The hands of the make-up artists that prepare the cast for their performance. There are many pairs of hands and all of them help to maintain the high standard. So much to be done: a deadline to be reached every day. The set must be designed, then fashioned, then built. The property men must dress it with the hundreds of bits and pieces. The carpenters must modify, improve and alter. The curtains must be hung – but even in this apparent turmoil there is time for a meal, a drink or a quiet read.

The stage is set, the cast is assembled, the Director arrives and rehearsals begin. High above the studio floor he sits, facing fourteen 21-inch monitors, and selects the picture he wants. His word is everyone’s cue. Flanking him are the Vision Mixer (right) and Production Assistant (left). In the early stages of the rehearsals the Director may have a discussion on the studio floor with the Designer, Floor Manager, Senior Cameraman or artists – but for the performance he sits alone. Each of the two sections of Studio 5 has its own Control rooms but when it is operated as a single unit, one half, 5A, becomes the master and 5B, the slave. Studio 5 is equipped to operate on the 405, 525 or 625 line standard. The Vision, Lighting and Sound controls are situated on the first floor with double windows and have an easy access to the studio gantries. Each section is equipped with four 4½-inch Image Orthicon Cameras and 5A can employ all eight cameras at one time. Lighting Control and the Camera Control Unit downstairs on Studio floor level can be likewise divided, or operated as a single unit.

The final ‘take’ – the last performance – the Studio is stilled before the opening seconds. The set is built, dressed and lit – everything is prepared. The Floor Manager, who hears the Director through his headphones, cues the Studio and the production begins. The cameras swoop in and out or crab sideways, peering, staring, prying. The lights beat down, the floor is tense and alert.

The final shots are taken, the performance ends. In half an hour the Studio is empty – to be filled again tomorrow – and the next day and the day after that. Studio 5 has a healthy appetite. But so has television.

The post The world comes to Studio 5 appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

The development team, under Mike Spooner, was led by Geoff Pryke, supervisory engineer, planning, and consisted of Bob Warren, Dave Johnson, George Jackson, Eric Ruckle, Jack Nichols, Peter Koller, Jim Beasley and Dave Skeate.

Great assistance was given by Jim Crossley and Jim Runkel throughout, and also involved of course, was mike metcalfe, engineer-in-charge, E-cam ops., the author of this article.

The concept of E-cam was born from a desire to produce high quality film programmes by television methods. If this long standing dream of programme producers could be realised, it would not only reduce production costs, but would overcome the serious technical problems associated with the international exchange of programmes for television.

The varying line standards of the television systems used throughout the world severely inhibit the free exchange of programmes, and a conversion process is necessary before material recorded in one country can be played back in a country with different line standards.

Originally the conversion process was an optical transfer, and in essence, consisted of a television camera on one standard, viewing programme material displayed on a monitor of a different standard.

Later developments have removed the optical transfer and are purely electronic with consequent gains in picture quality. The system works well for black-and-white material and can be used for live or previously recorded programmes.

The future interchange of colour programmes, however, presents an acute problem. Not only must consideration be given to the line standards of the countries concerned, but also the system of colour television employed, there being several in current use throughout the world and variants of each.

Programmes on film however, do not suffer from these technical limitations as the telecine machine used to transmit a film is already working on the required system and so the process becomes automatic.

This applies to both black-and-white and colour films – if the telecine is colour equipped of course – and removes completely the problem of conversion and colour system compatibility. Since all television stations possess telecine equipment, film has become the universal currency of programme exchange. However, film making by traditional methods can be long and expensive compared with television, and various ways have been sought to combine the best of both techniques.

The idea of coupling a television camera to a film camera in order to monitor the scene remotely and to facilitate the control of several cameras simultaneously is not new. A photo-recording system was devised in 1955 by Dumont in New York in collaboration with Arnold & Richter of Munich, and although it had limited success, it nevertheless showed the value of the concept. Since that time, several systems, using both 16 and 35 mm. film in various configurations have been developed, each having its own particular advantage. In the latest development of Electronicam the film camera used, a well tried Arriflex 35 mm., has been developed by Arnold & Richter from the original prototype system of 1955. The television channel using a Plumbicon picture tube and embodying the latest circuitry, was produced by Fernseh in collaboration with our own engineers, to a first-class broadcasting specification.

Briefly, the system works as follows. Light from the studio scene is focused by a zoom lens on to the film in the camera gate. A specially designed reflex shutter in front of the film gate has two reflecting segments. These mirrored sections allow a proportion of the available light to be reflected through a suitable system of correcting lenses into the Plumbicon camera attached to the side of the film camera.

The two mirrored sections of the shutter are of equal area, one operating during film pull-down and the other during film exposure. The shutter revolves at a constant speed of 25 frames per second, giving the two equal exposures per revolution necessary, one for each field of the television picture. The mirror segments are so arranged that the film receives full exposure at ¹⁄₅₀ sec.

The television picture, therefore, is an exact replica of the scene viewed through the film camera lens and is available to a monitor viewfinder mounted at the back of the camera. The cameraman uses this viewfinder in exactly the same way as in a television camera and has normal control of zoom, focus and framing etc. The television picture is also available to monitors in the various control rooms.

The method of operation follows closely that of a standard television studio production. Pictures from all cameras are permanently available to the director whether the film is running or not. Rehearsal takes place in the usual manner and film is only exposed for the actual transmission/take. During rehearsal when film is not being exposed, an estimate of the amount of film to be used during the subsequent take is indicated by footage counters, one for each camera, displayed on the control desk. Careful pre-planning ensures that the sequences are arranged for the most economical use of each camera’s 1,000 ft. magazine of film (approximately 10 minutes running time) and that no camera runs out of film during the take. The actual transmission/take is accomplished by pressing the appropriate button on the simple vision mixer panel which starts the film camera and switches its television picture to ‘transmission’. Cutting from one camera to another is achieved by pressing the appropriate buttons, and after a delay of approximately ⅓ second, to enable the camera motor to attain speed, the vision is automatically switched and the film exposed.

For fast cutting sequences an extra button is provided enabling the selected cameras to stay running while cutting between them, thus obviating the running-up delay. This method, of course, is wasteful of film and should only be used for short periods. As it is not possible to fade or mix between the film cameras, the vision mixer is a simple ‘cut only’ device. Opticals and other effects are added where required in the film laboratories.

Programme sound is recorded in the normal way on sprocketed magnetic tape running in synchronism with the film cameras. To facilitate the later assembly of the processed film, a cue tone, having a different frequency for each camera, is recorded on the magnetic sound tape on another track alongside the programme sound. These tones are selected automatically by the vision mixer’s cut buttons. During the assembly of the processed film, the cue tones are played back on a synchroniser to identify the camera and to serve as a guide for the assembly of the film.

To allow the lighting director to maintain consistent film exposure, the lens iris of each camera can be remotely operated from the lighting control console. Comprehensive picture and waveform monitoring facilities are available to the exposure controller and the lighting director to enable the close exposure tolerances required for successful colour filming to be maintained.

By close control of the electronics (which require a high degree of stability) the television camera can be used as an exposure meter and the high definition pictures from it give a continuous indication of what the film is recording. The system is equally capable of filming in colour or black-and-white, and it is in its colour role that its greatest virtue will become apparent. At a time when the complexity of interchanging colour programmes recorded electronically is becoming apparent, the E-cam system can be a vital link in the chain of international programme exchange.

The post E-cam appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

Cast your minds back to last October. In one week we had a general election, Russia dispensed with Kruschev [sic] and China exploded a bomb. On the following Monday with the Outer Hebrides result still due we were contemplating the state of the parties … the telephone rang, ‘Please’, said a breathy, secretarial voice, ‘Could you tell me if Parliament is sitting?’

Not all queries are answered quite so readily. A great deal of time is spent begging photographic agencies to send us pictures of ‘aeroplanes about to crash at night’, ‘jets taking off dramatically’ or ‘a plane in flight at an angle to match the picture I am holding in my hand of a bird in flight’. We were asked for a picture of a middle-aged man in a passionate embrace with a young girl. Having no luck, but an avalanche of suggestions, we put out an emergency call to the staff – alas all we got were middle-aged men. Aviation apart, subjects range from left-handed polo players to Zeppelins flying from left to right at night.

Checking spelling and helping with your letters to Dukes and Lords, together with those elder sons of Earls helps the day pass. There are also calls to various establishments on your behalf. One of us once rang the Tower of London, ‘Is that the Keeper of the Tower?’ ‘No,’ replied a quiet elderly voice, I’m his mother.’ We are quite accustomed to worried stage-managers asking us whether a man stabbed in the back would die with his eyes open or closed … how far would a brick have to fall to kill someone … what are the death agony symptoms of certain poisons?

The books on our shelves are a combination of standard reference and technical handbooks. As a library we are able to borrow from any public library in the London boroughs. People ask for stories they think might adapt for programmes, some we feel are not really for this purpose at all. Did you ever see a programme based on ‘The Naked Lunch’? We had fun last year trying to borrow a book for someone who was sure it was called ‘Cobbles from my Brain’ – we did, however, track down ‘Pebbles from my Skull’. We have a copy if you want to read it. Our most cherished memory of the American library dates back to 1962 … we rang to ask for any biographies of President Kennedy and still find it hard to believe they really said, ‘We don’t have any, after all, everyone knows all albout him anyway’. Among the facts we check are place and club names, and in the case of the armed services whether we are about to use an actual officer’s name in a programme. The first time we rang the Army Records Office only to be told, ‘Oh, we don’t keep records here’. We now know where to ring. Sometimes we feel like an annexe of W. H. Smith’s with more than 500 magazines passing through our hands each week in addition to the daily papers and Television Times. [sic]

Then there are quotations. It is better to check before broadcasting. The best yet; ‘Is it really, “Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt melt”?’

We have our dissatisfied customers. There was the researcher who returned the Tenniel drawings of‘Alice in Wonderland’ because they didn’t really look like Alice … or the one who wouldn’t believe that an actual photograph of Sherlock Holmes, even without pipe, didn’t exist … or the one who couldn’t understand why we were unable to obtain photographs of aboriginal houses, although our resident Aussie explained that they are ‘nomadic’ so they don’t stop anywhere long enough to build them.

Being British the weather is often the subject under discussion. When illustrating types of traffic hazards we were asked for a picture of traffic ‘in smog so thick you cannot see a thing’. Or country snowdrifts over 16 feet high (how the photographer arrived and departed was apparently his problem), buildings about to be struck by lightning or a river about to overflow its banks. We must hand a bouquet to photographic agencies; they try very hard on our behalf. Once when trying to find pictures of Chinese farm workers studying, a helpful Chinaman offered to go home and take some.

Incorporated in the library picture collection is the Weaver-Smith collection. This consists of 300,000 engravings covering the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The designers and programme staff use them frequently and we also loan them to outside concerns. One of these once asked if they might borrow again the engraving they had had five years ago. ‘It was,’ they said, ‘one of a medieval street with a dog in the corner.’

If this article has given you the idea that working in the library can be fascinating and fun we are pleased. It is and we enjoy it even though we sometimes feel that this query is the toughest yet … until the next one comes along.

We could fill a few pages of Fusion with anecdotes but writing this article has quite satisfied any desire we had to go into print. We leave you and return wholeheartedly to the search for ‘a man on a raft alone in the middle of the ocean’, to check the spelling of Popocatepetl and the satellite ‘Early Bird’ (honestly!) and endeavour to find a photograph of‘a municipal rubbish dump’. If you should require any strange information do ring us, or come and browse through the books … as for us, we should love to hear from those of you who have ever taken an unusual picture.

Somebody is bound to want it sometime.

The post Can we help you? appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

Perhaps the greatest attraction of television outside broadcasts is the excitement of being caught in the atmosphere of a particular occasion, and, although the facilities available in studios are, by comparison, the last word in technical luxury, there is a certain extra challenge when you are starting from scratch.

Since we have been on the air we have covered most kinds of outside broadcast, among the most memorable being the Opening Ceremony from the Guildhall, the Hallé Orchestra series, Princess Margaret’s Wedding, Summersong, Wimbledon, and The Derby.

On the average O.B. there is a complement of staff similar to that for a studio production – six riggers, three racks, three sound, four radio links engineers, five cameramen, a senior engineer, a director, and a P.A.

But these numbers can grow quite considerably. For one of our “spectaculars’, The Derby, we had 12 cameras, three ‘scanners’ (mobile control vans), 70 technicians, six commentators, 17 horses and a cast of approximately 500,000.

Once a site has been suggested for an O.B. the director and various senior technicians carry out an initial survey. This involves siting the cameras and microphones to the best advantage, arranging power supplies and measuring out cable runs.

The maximum distance a camera can be placed from the scanner by a cable run is 1,000 feet. This is not very far when you remember the size of most racecourses.

At Epsom for the Derby last year five of the 12 cameras had to be situated up to a mile away from the scanner. When this happens a radio link has to be used to transmit the picture back to the main scanner. From there the programme is sent by radio link or Post Office line to the transmitter via Television House.

One of the more difficult types of O.B. to produce is an advertising magazine from an exhibition hall. The advertising department has to sell time to clients months ahead of the exhibition date – before the clients have balloted for floor space.

Consequently, when the programme arrives on the director’s desk, he is committed to televising stands from all corners of the exhibition hall, probably covering a few thousand square yards. The amount of energy and thought expanded by a television crew in these circumstances is tremendous.

Many O.B.’s can only be rehearsed in a basic fashion. After deciding the best format much must be left to the moment. Rain can, for example, play havoc with the equipment. You can find yourself going on the air with only one working camera.

Fog does not help either. It was so foggy at Sandown once that it was impossible to distinguish the horses. The cameramen were trying hard and Tony Cooke was doing a brilliant commentary in the appalling conditions. Finally, he said, ‘Kings Troop is passing the post now’. But the horse we had in shot jumped a hurdle. We had been faithfully following the last horse for most of the race.

The Radio Show last year had its moments too. We had rehearsed at Earls Court for two days and managed to get in two dress rehearsals. The programme entailed a quick piece of work in moving the cameras to the stand of a television maker. All went like clockwork, but when the cameras arrived the whole stand was in darkness. Everyone had gone home. There were mad scenes (unknown to me at the time, thank heavens) as all the available staff tore-down the boards in front with seconds to spare.

About 20 of us went to Lisbon two years ago for the three-week-long Trade Fair operation, which involved about an hour’s transmission delay in Portuguese. After a fortnight one of the P.A.’s thought she had mastered the language. One morning she ordered breakfast for about six of us. It sounded most professional, but the waiter went a sickly colour and said in broken English: ‘Would you mind waiting please as we will have to re-arrange the kitchen.’ Apparently she had ordered 120 cups of coffee.

Another time I was doing my first Greyhound racing programme from Harringay Stadium. We had results from five other race meetings to transmit as well as our betting in between races, and it was all becoming fast and furious. In the midst of this an inquisitive voice from within the scanner piped up: ‘Excuse me, is the hare alive?’

All of which shows that outside broadcasts are an endless source of interest. New locations and different circumstances ensure we never get in a groove.

The post O.B. stands for Outside Bustle appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

To some, the floor manager (F.M.) is a necessary evil, someone to be tolerated. Certain directors, for example, regard the relaying of instructions to an artist through the F.M. as not only irksome, but also (and this is particularly unfortunate) superfluous. To them it is a time-wasting operation. Why not, they reason, use the ‘mic’ to talk direct to the artist? When this belief is practised excessively, that’s when the time wasting really starts. The voice booms out but the instruction is not understood. It is repeated but still not understood. This is not because the artist is particularly unreceptive, it is usually because the director lacks a ‘mic’ technique. So eventually, the F.M. has to relay the instruction himself. What should have taken perhaps 20 seconds has taken a couple of minutes, and when you are on a tight schedule (as nearly always is the case), these minutes are precious. Once I recall nearly an hour being wasted in this way during one day’s rehearsal. That hour would have given the director another run of the play.

In some ways the F.M. is the invisible man of the studio crew. If he has done his job well there is little if any indication of it to the layman when the programme is transmitted. But if he has done his job badly, how it shows. A late cue may not only leave an actor with egg on his face, it can wreck that scene and the whole play. Failing to clear an actor who has a quick move can result in a beautifully composed shot of another actor talking to an empty chair. These are ordinary examples. There are more colourful ones.

Some years ago during a live transmission of a play, the F.M. had to make four quick cues in four different parts of the studio. Unknown to him, the lead from his ‘cans’ had become partially wound round his legs. He stood by at his first cueing point and duly cued action. As he moved to his second cueing point, the ‘can’ lead wound itself more tightly around his legs. By this time he realised what was happening but had no time to do anything about it. He duly gave the second cue and then just about managed to get himself in position for the third. Having given that, he was completely unable to move. The director cued for the fourth time but there was no response from the artist. This made the director slightly hysterical. He began screaming at the F.M. who, by this time, had fallen to the floor (to cue). Gamely he picked himself up and half-jumping, half-diving, the F.M. eventually gave the cue … in shot. Discretion prevents me from saying which company was transmitting the play, although the incident occurred before 1955.

Like all members of a studio crew, the efficient F.M. can be an enormous asset to a programme, often in subtle ways that are not obvious even to the rest of the crew. For example, many people fail to realise that there are many artists who have a distrust, if not a deep hostility, towards television in general and the studio crew in particular. An incident that illustrates this occurred last year during rehearsals for a play. The F.M. (himself an ex-actor) was chatting to a member of the cast with whom he had been in rep. Turning to the F.M., the artist waved his hand in the general direction of the studio crew and asked: “Are you with them or with us?”

This problem, although not generally recognised, is a very real one. The actor who feels like this may also believe that the cameramen are cold, unemotional fish whose only aim is to offer the director artistic or exciting and unusual shots. Obviously this is only one facet of the job of a good cameraman. One reason for this attitude could be that it is only in comparatively recent years that actors have been trained in television techniques. The older artist has had to acquire a technique by trial and error.

Just consider a few of the things an artist has to remember. There are many moves, for example, from set to set, key lights, voice projection, moves in relation to other actors and the cameras. In addition, he also has to remember his lines. No wonder there is distrust sometimes. Once recently an actress had to hit 12 different marks on the floor in one short scene. And then some genius remarked that her delivery appeared to be stilted. A F.M. must smooth the way and dispel this mistrust. But this is only the start. The artists should be protected and cocooned from the cares and worries of the studio. If this is not done his performance will certainly suffer. It is also an essential part of the F.M.’s duties to maintain discipline on the studio floor. It is equally important when occasion demands, to be ready with a joke or a remark to reduce the tension on the studio floor, for any TV production produces tension. If the people on the studio floor are not mentally relaxed occasionally during rehearsals, the recording will certainly suffer. It is not only the artists who ‘tighten up’ – the entire crew does as well. The ideal F.M. should have the reactions of a racing driver, the tact of a diplomat, the astuteness of a politician, a highly developed sense of humour, two heads, four arms and four legs. With all these gifts, he would still be found wanting by some. He should be able accurately to interpret the effect of any situation on the production. Besides relaying the situation to the director, he should also offer intelligent advice. He must be able to hold at least two conversations simultaneously.

It may be that his work is mainly intangible. However, it would be nice to think that the next time a visitor to our studios asks about the F.M., he can be given a little more information than ‘he cues the actors’.

The post The invisible two-headed racing driver and diplomat appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

Going, going, gone – and the Granville Theatre (Studio 6) is no longer with us. That’s just a bit sad.

All right – so it was in many ways hell to work in. The steeply-raked stage made tracking cameras something of an exhausting adventure – and the scenery leaned drunkenly forward; the control room was a minor Black Hole of Calcutta in which you were roasted alive; the building was murderously expensive to run. All sorts of things made the place rather white-elephantine.

But I loved it. There was an atmosphere about it which you felt the moment you passed through the stage-door. Those of us who have been brought up in the theatre tend to go much too far in sentimentality about the atmosphere and tradition of what, to more rational beings, is merely a heap of bricks and mortar. So, when I arrived to do my first television show at the Granville it was quite an occasion for me.

Then came the shocks. (In those days I had not yet become accustomed to a steady diet of at least 20 shocks a day.) I sniffed. Where was it – that indefinable aromatic amalgam of size, accumulated dust, the corporeal exudations of generations of playgoers, the staled tobacco of millions of stubbed cigarettes and the faint leaven of reluctantly applied disinfectant?

Associated-Rediffusion had cleaned the place up. In fact, Fred Pacey, that lovable and quite unforgettable character who was manager there, told me that, setting aside any rubble the builders ejected in the course of converting the theatre into a television studio, no less than six tons of sheer dirt were carted away.

Associated-Rediffusion had also removed the stalls, whose seats either pierced or numbed your bottom. Instead there was a shiny black floor which rose precipitously when you got to the rake I mentioned earlier. But they had left the tiled proscenium, cleaned the ceramic frescos – which were hideous in terms of pure art but rather beautiful in their setting – and the list of composers in the ceiling. Suddenly it all became very romantic; the live theatre of yesterday transformed into the electronic theatre of today.

But not even Associated-Rediffusion could remove the tradition of the Granville. In that endearing little auditorium audiences had laughed, clapped and cheered a fabulous list of names since 1898. I hate lists, but this one is a little staggering: Dan Leno (one of the original directors), Marie Lloyd, Gus Elen, Charles Coburn, Tom Costello, Harry Champion, Gertie Gitana, Nellie Wallace, Little Tich, George Robey, Billy Bennett, Charlie Chaplin, Marie Loftus, Vesta Victoria, Willie Bard, Naughton and Gold, Grade Fields – it seems to go on for ever.

By the way, in 1909 the management must have had a fit of pre-vision. For in that year, when I was born, they decided to feature the Bioscope – that early form of moving pictures – and one of the main offerings was an epic entitled ‘The Butcher’s Boy’.

By the ’fifties, things had become somewhat phrenetic. There were shows like ‘Nudes in the Night’, ‘Red, Hot and Saucy’, ‘Nude, Neat and Naughty’. And in 1955 Associated-Rediffusion cleaned the Granville up.

I was so happy there. I’m referring to 1955-6, when Maurice Browning and I were doing the ‘Granville Melodramas’ – a most unique set-up. We were a private little television world of our own. There was a permanent nucleus of players: Helen Shingler, Hattie Jacques, Victoria Grayson, Erik Chitty and John Bailey. (We gathered various other amiable souls to our bosom as we went along.) There was Bill Turner, floor-managing for us, Marie Holme, my P.A. and Penny Drummond, a stage-manager of vast experience with a gimlet eye for any artist who might be tempted to play the fool.

Our world also included Juan Cortez, who performed miracles in adapting these long melodramas into half-hour programmes; Henry Federer, who gave us the most wonderful scenery at practically no cost at all; and Ruth Pearl and Peter Moffat, who formed what we billed as ‘The Granville Ensemble’. And there we were.

We rehearsed at the Coleherne, a splendid hostelry in Old Brompton Road, which ever since has been my ‘local’ no matter where I happen to be living – and we performed at the Granville. Wembley was a place we had vaguely heard about, but we were not too sure of its exact location.

Visitors from there were treated with the old-world courtesy and guarded incredulity which the Edwardians extended to anyone coming from outside the British Isles – ‘Foreign fellers – don’t you know’.

Television House was an unattractive necessity, to be kept away from as much as possible. Our brave veterans may remember that this was a time when all members of the start had their own private pneumatic drills working alongside them and brick walls were falling on poor Tania Lieven with monotonous regularity. No, it was a place with only one possible thing to recommend it – and that was the privilege it had of paying us our money.

Even that was a fraught matter from time to time. Our artists were contracted on a weekly basis on the assumption that the Melodramas went on once a fortnight. Then we were suddenly put on weekly and the day of the week was altered the moment we got ourselves nicely re-adjusted. Sorting that out in terms of £.s.d. was a hideous problem. Perhaps that is why our financial colleagues were the first to develop that shade of complexion, which can only be described as Television House Green.

But left to ourselves we were perfectly happy – a small band, all brought up in the tradition that nothing mattered as long as the show went on – and we didn’t care how hard we worked to make that happen. That also went for Fred, Harry and Joe at the Granville.

Our permanent cast was unique in television. We tried to spread the leading parts around as evenly as possible. Sometimes, of course, the result was a little surprising – such as when Hattie Jacques played the constantly fainting heroine in ‘The Chain of Guilt’.

It was arduous enough for John Vere (playing her brother) to refer to the supine Hattie as ‘poor fragile flower’, but we were stopped in our tracks by a stage direction which said: ‘He picks her up and carries her, fainting, into the night’. ‘He’, the villain, was played by Erik Chitty, five-foot-seven, according to Spotlight. At this point Hattie looked at us squarely and said in her most glacial voice: ‘That is not possible’.

But in the main we treated these fine old plays very seriously and played them for all they were worth. Certainly there were some magnificent performances, such as John Bailey’s in ‘The Silver King’ and Helen Shingler’s in ‘East Lynne’.

I held my breath as she came to the famous line: ‘Dead, dead – and never called me Mother’ – wondering what our live audience, encouraged to laugh, cheer and boo, would do to us. But so poignant was Helen that you could have heard a pin drop.

Perhaps that is why people still remember us. And perhaps we added a small something to the tradition of the Granville.

The post The Granville has been sold appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

‘What is D. & I? I’ve never heard of it.’ Thus spake the frilly young thing. Sic transit gloria.

We members of D. & I. have become accustomed to this greeting when our section heading is used as the reply to an interrogative: ‘Where are you from?’ or ‘Who shall I send it to?’ Our particular work and resources are probably a little vague to the non-technical sections that we come into contact with infrequently. Remember, not all the engineers come from ‘engineering’ section.

Personnel-wise the section supports and is supported by: one section head, two assistant heads, one manager, nine engineers (one supervisory), four draughtsmen (mechanical + electrical + construction), three prototype electronics wiremen, two instrument mechanics, two typists/secretaries.

Total technical qualifications of these members amounts to: one Ph.D., two M.Sc., one A.M.I.E.E., three Grad. I.E.E., one Grad. Brit. I.E.R.E., seven B.Sc., one City and Guilds Diploma Electrical Engineering (Communications), two H.N.C. (Communications), one City and Guilds Certificate (Telecommunications), five O.N.C. (Engineering and Drawing). Because of the nature of our work the body as a whole is rarely gathered en masse. More likely the operatives will be found, singly or in twos, labouring behind a maze of wire and cable (which has just been uprooted from one of the bays in a studio control room) on a Friday night, after production has ceased, with a deadline for the equipment to be working efficiently on the Monday morning following and the added facilities, or modified, or renewed equipment, tested and working. Or they might be standing predominantly and obviously midwife-like in charge of a 16 mm. telerecording machine which they have cared for since conception, improving, rebuilding, improvising and improving again for the last two years and bringing it to fruition, the end of the process giving results which make it compatible with those from any other similar machine, even in the BBC’s cornucopia of technicians and equipment.

Through the section passes all capital technical equipment which the company purchases, ranging from O.B. vans to zoom lenses, from Image Orthicon cameras to camera pedestals to microphones for sound section.

All these items are obtained after liaison and consultation with the sections involved in their usage; engineering, who will be required to operate and maintain it, and the sections who will be required to operate it where this is not an engineering task.

We are responsible for the purchase, testing and installation of all studio sound and vision equipment, all cabling and wiring involved in fitting in or taking out equipment, videotape recording machines, telerecording machines, film section equipment – film cameras, sound equipment dubbing suites, transcription suites. All work is carried out normally in our own workshops at Television House or Wembley but sometimes at site, usually at week-ends in those periods where there is no production. This means that it may take longer to carry out a seemingly short job than it first appears because, no matter how far the engineer gets with the work, he has to remember that perhaps the equipment he is working on will be required the next day, therefore he can carry out just so much work without interfering with the normal function of the equipment. Temporary arrangements have to be made to enable the equipment to continue working, even in the throes of major alterations.

We are in the process of or intend to carry out: (a) Installation of four new VTR machines at Wembley; (b) Development and installation of a new project, known as Electronic-Camera – E-Cam for short – which will enable a production to be filmed at normal TV production speed using film cameras equipped with electronic viewfinders; (c) Installation of new cameras in Studios 2, 4 and 9 (Marconi Mk V transistorised); (d) Preparatory planning for new O.B. vans; (e) Overhaul and replacement of film section sound recording machines; (f) Investigation into the use of colour in television broadcasting; (g) Installation of two VTR machines for use in colour programmes.

We have at present some 28 projects in hand ranging in size from minor wiring modification of various units to a complete studio refit, all of which are being worked on concurrently. These projects are in various stages of completion ranging from, (a) quotations from manufacturers against our specifications, (b) equipment ordered but on long delivery, (c) equipment on the premises being tested and modified for acceptance to our broadcasting standards to (d) last minute tests and finished diagrams.

Since January, 1965, we have completed 29 projects. Since the beginning of 1964 we have carried out the first, second and third instalments of the first phase of the company’s re-equipment programme, this latter work having been carried out side by side with the normal project list.

All costing and estimating for the work is carried out within the section.

Among the major projects completed in the last year were: 1, Installation of new film dubbing desk in the film dubbing theatre (carried out in one Bank holiday week-end complete with re-cabling – a major feat); 2, Installation of new film transcription desk in the film transcription suite; 3, Modifications to Item 2 to provide special and extra-ordinary facilities for the film section; 4, Installation of new vision mixing equipment in Studios 1, 2 and 4; 5, Installation and development of two Pye 16 mm. telerecording machines rebuilt to the company’s specifications; 6, Installation of complete sound recording facilities for E-Cam and telerecording; 7, Re-outfitting of the film section with new film cameras and ‘location’ sound equipment.

The post Dispel doubt and ignorance appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

IN less than nine months the old Wembley Film Studios have been transformed into the Wembley Television Studio Centre, headquarters for the ITA programme-making activities of Associated-Rediffusion, Ltd.

Only last January work was still in progress at the old Wembley on the film “The Ship That Died of Shame,” but by September 22, the new Wembley was ready for the start of commercial television.

In that comparatively short period the original building has been virtually demolished, one large stage has been converted into four (which are, incidentally, about half as high again as the original), with their complementary multiplicity of control rooms and electronic equipment, involving the installation of close on 20 miles of sound, vision and control cables.

What can best be described as the “technical area” is partly a two and partly a three-storey structure within the main building. On the first floor are the operational control rooms for the stages, and on the second floor is the master control room and the remote control of the lighting equipment. The telecine room is a separate building, but immediately adjacent.

Floor Accommodation

Apart from the studios themselves, the ground floor is occupied by viewing rooms, camera and lighting control rooms, technical stores and work- shops. First floor accommodation includes further control rooms and announcer’s quarters.

The four stages so far completed (a fifth is planned for a later date) are rather smaller in superficial area than is normal in a film studio, and one, No. 3, is really no more than an insert stage.

All, however, are equipped with spot-rails and the flooring is of a special hard grade of rubber, which, it is hoped, will obviate the dangers of buckling and consequent bumping during movement by cranes and dolleys.

As it is common for a television studio to be made more acoustically “live” than the equivalent film studio, a large area of the original acoustic treatment of the walls has been covered by perforated hardboard.

An innovation that might well commend itself to film studios is the addition of visitors’ galleries. These glass-fronted compartments provide an adequate view of what is happening on the stages, but are so well sound-proofed that it will be possible to fit them with low-level amplifiers so that onlookers may hear as well as see what is going on.

Such an arrangement could be a boon to harassed film directors, especially those allergic to sightseers while they are working!

Marconi Mark III cameras, with 44 in. pick-up tubes are being used for studio operations, and similar cameras, but with 3 in. tubes are employed on outside broadcast work, for which there are two magnificently equipped self-contained vans that will, when necessary, have a micro-wave link with the studio. Altogether 21 cameras will be in operation or on call when programmes are going out.

The vision-mixers are of the Marconi relay-operated type, which handle eight inputs. All the sound-control equipment has been supplied by Marconi’s, with optical groove-locator turntables that allow the pick-up to be dropped on the precise required point on the record by an optical plotting system.

The telecine apparatus, made by EMI, is of the 16- or 35-mm. “flying spot” type, and a control system, claimed as unique in this country, has been devised so that the machines (once they have been loaded) can be operated from a remote position.

In addition, there are some RCA Vidicon apparatus similarly available for remote control. In this equipment, the projectors throw their outputs on to a small camera, via an optical multiplexing unit. It enables miniature slides and small opaques to be shown rather after the fashion of the epidiascope.

The master control equipment supplied by Marconi’s provides for the simultaneous switching of sound and vision from eight input channels to two transmission channels, with adequate pre-viewing facilities. Two monoscope cameras provide the setting-up signals.

Lighting Equipment

Of particular interest is the fully remote-controlled lighting equipment supplied by Strand Electric. The control console, a remarkably compact piece of apparatus, allows the whole of the studio lighting set-ups and changes to be operated by one man.

Lighting plans are pre-set and single buttons on the console control a maximum of 10 lamps each, so that changes are achieved with the great flexibility and almost infinite variety required for the televising of continuous live shows.

Dimming is also dealt with from the same console, again on a pre-set system. Lamps (with the exception, of course, of the fluorescents) can be dimmed either individually or in combinations on an infinitely variable period change ranging from 2 secs. to 45 secs.

The control also has a “memory,” which means that lighting plans can be repeated as required.

Because of the sensitivity of the Image Orthicon cameras less lighting can be used than is common in film studios. The lamps themselves are mainly Mole-Richardson incandescents. There are, also, at present in use a number of banks of fluorescents, but it is planned to eliminate these as soon as possible because their narrow spectrum is inclined to give a “noisy” picture.

As the studio is being used for a combination of film and live TV, conventional cameras are necessary as well. To date, most of the film work has been shot on Cameflex, but this is to be supplemented by Mitchells.

Other equipment includes Vinter Pathfinders, Mole-Richardson and Debrie dolleys and M-R booms.

The programmes from the studio go by Post Office land lines to Associated Rediffusion’s headquarters at Television House, Kingsway, and thence to the ITA transmitter at Croydon.

The post In Nine Months TV Transforms Wembley Studios appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

“Television is the art of instantaneously producing at a distance a transient visible image of an actual or recorded scene by means of an electrical system of telecommunication.”

The wording of the British Standards Institution’s definition of our work, gives a somewhat unimaginative description of an art form that has, perhaps, a most complex method of construction to produce small black- and-white shadows, yet also has a high degree of human attraction.

The first process in any television system the creation of an optical image of the scene to be transmitted. This optical image is formed in the case of cameras by the camera lens, and is focused by it on to the face of the pick-up tube inside the camera. It is then the function of the pick-up tube to convert the light image into an electrical current which varies in magnitude, in proportion to the amount of light reaching the tube from each part of the scene at any given time.

The exchange of light for an electrical current is the principle upon which a photographic exposure meter works. The tiny light-sensitive cell in an exposure-meter gives a small electrical current in direct proportion to the average light value of the subject which it is seeing and registers this visually on a scale.

This device, invaluable for photographers, is useless for television because it cannot convey information about the detailed structure of the scene. In the past many methods were tried, using the light-sensitive or ‘photo-cell’ as it is called, to break up the picture into small parts and to allow the photo-cell to look at one part at a time in strict sequence and to register a separate value of current for each. This is similar to the way in which the eye ‘scans’ a printed page, gleaning different information word by word and line by line.

Baird scanned his scene by means of an opaque rotating disc containing a series of holes in the form of a spiral placed in front of his photo-cell. The spiral was arranged so that, as the disc revolved, each hole in turn swept across the picture, allowing the photo-cell to see a small, continuously varying part of the scene. When the last hole had completed its scan across the bottom of the picture, the first appeared and started the operation at the top again. The current from the photo-cell was proportional at any instant to the amount of light reflected through the hole from the scene.

Another method reflected light from the scene by means of a revolving drum containing mirrors set on the outside in a staggered formation. When the drum revolved at high speed, each mirror reflected into the photo-cell light from a slightly different part of the scene each time.

These mechanical methods, however, suffered from extreme clumsiness of operation and poor definition because of their inability to scan the scene in small enough elements. A ‘major break-through’, as the popular press would now call it, was the innovation of a vacuum tube with electrical scanning.

This tube, rather like a large valve, was developed in this country in the early 1930’s and brought the first high- definition television system in the world into operation in 1936. The tube was called an Emitron or Iconoscope and was cumbersome, insensitive and, by today’s standards, somewhat crude in operation, but was in fact the parent of most present-day camera tubes.

In appearance it consisted of a cylindrical glass tube about 14 inches in diameter, one end of which blossomed into a bulb about 7 inches in diameter. The bulb had a flat window on one side and inside, parallel to the window, was mounted a ‘target’ upon which the optical image of the scene formed by the lens was focused. The tube joined the bulb at a slight angle and contained a device like a gun, which in effect fired a tiny stream of electrically-charged particles at the target.

This fine beam of charged particles called ‘electrons’, was made to sweep over the target in straight lines one below. the other, starting from top left of the picture through to bottom right and back to top left again. This sweeping or scanning could be achieved electrically at enormous speed and in fine detail because electrons are so small that they are almost weightless. At first sight this may appear to be unconnected with our original problem, which was the inability of the photo-cell to distinguish between the brightness details of a picture. In order to see in what way this can be useful, we must consider more closely the function of the target.

The target (so called because the optical image lands there as well as the electron beam) is made up of a sheet of mica covered on the front with a mosaic of many thousands of tiny photo-cells, each one insulated from each other and able to work independently. The mica sheet is then backed by a metal plate.

The situation is now that the optical image projected on to the target by the lens is not falling on one photo-cell but on many thousands so that each one is receiving an amount of light in proportion to the brightness of that particular element of the original scene. Part of our problem has, therefore, been solved, as the scene can now be divided into many small elements and each photo-cell can give a separate value of current.

As always, of course, there is a snag. What was an advantage at first sight now becomes a problem, because as soon as light falls on to the mosaic all the photo-cells merrily start to produce a current which they store rather like a battery. This current is not all required at once, and this is where the beam of electrons comes into its own.

As it scans the mosaic, it acts like a switch and touches each photo-cell in turn, causing them to discharge their stored current to the metal plate at the back of the target.

This current can be collected and forms the signal output of the tube representing at any given instant the discharged current of one photo-cell and, therefore, the electrical equivalent of one picture element. As this is changing extremely quickly there is a continuous output from the tube which is called the ‘video signal’. This signal is amplified and processed in many ways to become the transmitted picture, which when re-created by the receiver builds ‘a visual image of an actual or recorded scene…’ as in the definition.

This then was the first attempt at high definition tele- vision and many improvements followed fairly rapidly. Perhaps the most significant was the separation, in the pick-up tube, of the two functions performed by the target of electrical image creation and scanning. This was achieved by placing in front of the target a semi-transparent sheet having photo-electric properties which gave an electrical magnification and greater sensitivity. This type of tube was called an image iconoscope. The construction of the target was also modified to have a greater electrical storage, i.e. a larger battery, which was then scanned in much the same way as before.

These tubes were in use for a number of years and were in fact still used after the war.

Still further increases in sensitivity have been made and more efficient and complex tubes are now used by most television broadcasting organisations. The ‘image orthicon’ which is used for television broadcasting cameras, is perhaps the most versatile and widely used tube today. It has such sensitivity that in certain cases it will give a reasonable picture by moonlight. Its method of signal production does, however, differ from the image iconoscope but the same basic principles apply to both.

Another new tube, the ‘Vidicon’, is used extensively in telecine machines and industrial cameras and indeed some of the most significant developments of recent years have been in the field of vidicon tubes which, because of their small physical size and relative cheapness (£25 as against £450 approximately for an image orthicon), have been much favoured and will doubtless become increasingly useful in a wider field when certain fundamental snags are overcome.

Television cameras have many uses in fields other than broadcasting and one of the most significant has been their introduction into the field of medicine. Here, their use is obvious as a means of allowing many hundreds of students and nurses to view on closed circuit a major surgical operation, often in colour, which only a few at a time could normally watch in an operating theatre.

Additionally, because of their sensitivity under certain modified conditions of working, television cameras can be used to intensify an X-ray image in order to keep the ‘dosage’ of X-rays to a minimum for the patient while still providing a satisfactory picture under deep penetration conditions.

The use of television cameras in space-satellites is only just beginning and recent developments have been rapid indeed, as has been similar progress for the armed forces. So, from the humble photo-electric cell and Baird’s scanning disc of the 1920’s, has grown a world-wide industry employing many hundreds of thousands of people of varying skills which, I think it is fair to say, can give pleasure, entertainment, instruction and a means of research on a scale quite undreamed of even 30 years ago.

Of the future we can only make an intelligent estimate based on the rate of growth to date and the present state of the art and science.
That international exchanges of vision and sound will take place on a day-to-day basis and that trans-Continental networks will be available for world events is obvious from present indications.

That many future transmissions will be in colour and possibly stereoscopic as well would be a natural extension to the reality of today’s programming.

That more and more use of closed circuit viewing will be likely perhaps for specific programmes on a wired ‘pay as you view’ service, and eventually as an added facility to the telephone service.

Whether television could be made cheap enough for domestic use ‘See if junior is asleep in the nursery’ type of thing is debatable at present. Certainly a flat picture-frame type of viewing tube is possible and indeed in development at present.

That we shall explore, remotely at first, the outer edges of space and the depths of the oceans is again highly likely. In all these projects, however, the television camera tube has played and will continue to play a vital part in what is, perhaps, the most exciting medium of communications of our age.

The post How it works… Camera Pick-up Tubes appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

Television companies operate on different television standards throughout the world. A fundamental difference in these standards is the number of lines used to constitute the picture. In the United Kingdom 405 lines are used, in the United States 525, in Europe generally 625 and in France and Belgium 819 lines.

At the time of writing a Television Advisory Committee is sitting to discuss the whole question of television standards in this country. What are the reasons for different television standards being adopted throughout the world? All television companies operate a system of interlaced scanning. This means (see How it Works, No. 1) that two separate frames are transmitted in order to compose one complete picture. The interlaced scanning system requires that the number of lines shall not be exactly divisible by two. Thus, in our own system, 405 lines divided by two becomes 202½, and in the 525 system it becomes 262½. This gives the first reason why these magic numbers have been chosen.

With the advent of the cathode ray tube and the start of the BBC television service in 1936, A. D. Blumlein and other early television engineers, decided to use 405 lines to make up a picture. This was a tremendous step forward from the low definition system of the previous days.

To discover why Blumlein chose 405 lines, we have to consider the circuits and equipment available to him in 1936. First, the early cathode ray tube’s spot size, which determines the width of a scanning line, was quite big. It would obviously be nonsense to increase the number of lines so much that one line of picture was falling on its neighbour because of its width. Next, the large cathode ray tubes were then no bigger than 12 inches and as the eye can only register detail which subtends to it an angle of greater than one minute, it was obviously unnecessary for him to place the lines of the picture too close together. It was estimated that if a person sat approximately six feet away from a 12-inch tube, it would need approximately 400 lines for the line structure on the picture to become unobtrusive.

Obviously the more lines used, the greater the vertical definition of the television picture would be – in the same way as a greater number of dots in a newspaper photograph increases the definition or sharpness of the picture. But this is not the only consideration.

Definition has also to be considered in the horizontal direction, i.e. along each scanning line. In fact a line of picture is similar to the line of dots which makes up a newspaper photograph, each dot, which we will call a picture element, being spaced from its neighbours by a distance equal to the space that you can see between two lines on a television picture. If it were a square picture and the vertical definition was equal to the horizontal definition, the total number of picture elements would be equal to the product of 405 vertical elements and 405 horizontal elements, i.e. a total of 164,025 elements.

As 25 pictures are transmitted a second, the total a second becomes an astounding 4,100,625 elements. One cycle of alternating electric current can accommodate two elements and so a frequency bandwidth of approximately 2,050,000 cycles must be transmitted for a square 405-line picture. A correction must be made to this calculation because the picture was not square but a rectangle of ratio 5:4 and in fact 2,500,000 cycles had to be transmitted.

This frequency of 2.5 megacycles was exceptionally high in those days and it was very difficult to design electronic circuits capable of passing that bandwidth of frequencies without appreciable distortion.

The camera tubes in use then were high velocity devices manufactured by E.M.I. and called Emitrons. They were, however, insensitive by modern standards and produced
various spurious effects on the pictures, such as severe tilt and fuzz.

It was unnecessary to raise the number of lines above 405, because it would not have resulted in any apparent increase in picture quality due to small receiving tubes and insensitive cameras, and the fact that the large bandwidth would have had to be increased still further. Why were 405 lines used not, say, 401? The line frequency must be related to the mains frequency to avoid a hum disturbance on the picture (see How It Works, No. 1). The nearest number of lines to the calculated 400 that would meet this requirement was 405.

When American television started the number of lines could not be exactly the same as ours because the mains frequency in the United States was 60 cycles per second compared with England’s so cycles per second. Our experience enabled the Americans to increase the vertical definition of their system slightly. So they chose a standard of 525 lines. However, the overall definition of their system is still no greater than ours.

At the end of the last war the BBC television service re-started, using the original broadcast equipment at Alexandra Palace. While circuit techniques had advanced greatly, big strides had still to be made in camera tubes and receivers. So it was decided that no great advantage would be gained by changing the original line standard drastically. At that time television receivers were very expensive – it was not until one firm marketed a receiver which sold for approximately £45 that television really began to spread rapidly. Even so, this receiver had only a nine-inch tube.

In the early 1950’s the aspect ratio (i.e. the ratio of the height to the width of the picture) was changed from the original 5:4 to 4:3. This change was made to accommodate film more easily on television. But it resulted in the necessary bandwidth being increased to 3.1 megacycles, in order to get the equivalent definition. Even today there are still receivers which cannot resolve three megacycles. One dare not think what they would be like if it were necessary to resolve a still higher frequency associated with an increase of lines.

Within the last decade new and more sensitive camera pickup tubes have become available. These tubes, together with modern circuit techniques and components, coupled with the fact that television receivers have now progressed beyond the stage of a 12-inch picture, make the limitations of the 405-line system apparent.

When television services started on the Continent, they gained tremendously from the lessons learnt in both Britain and America and a standard of 625 lines was selected. This appears to give a superior picture to 405 lines, provided that receivers are designed to accommodate the increased bandwidth.

I believe the Continental countries have been right in adopting a higher standard. In France and in Belgium they developed a super-definition system of 819 lines. This has much to recommend it – it provides an adequately fine line structure to accommodate the very large picture tubes of the future, but unfortunately there is the disadvantage of an enormous bandwidth.

The question of bandwidth is a problem in itself. There is only a certain amount of spectrum space on the air available for television. As more and more transmitters come on the air it is vital that the amount of spectrum space they use is kept to a minimum so that they will not interfere with each other. The higher the line definition and the greater the bandwidth required by the transmitters, the smaller the number of transmitters that can be accommodated in the available spectrum space. Should more transmitters come on the air in this country, or our line standard change, it will be necessary to utilize at least part of the two remaining television bands, i.e. Bands IV and V.

The situation now is reasonably clear. In this country we have developed a high definition system of television which can produce as good a picture as any other television service in the world. But this may not be so in the future. Within the next five years our pictures may be inferior to those obtainable in many other countries. A common standard for all European countries is obviously desirable.

Programmes could then be exchanged freely without the difficulties and degradation caused by standards converters. However, a change from 405 lines to 625 lines would necessitate the modification of most of our studio apparatus and every television receiver in the country, at some considerable cost. This would not be a very popular decision with someone who had just bought a new receiver.

The alternative is to build more transmitters and radiate our pictures on 405- and 625-line standards simultaneously. If that were done, we could, over the next five or seven years, gradually change television receivers from one line standard to another. However, it would mean a big capital cost to both the BBC and the ITA as each of their present transmitters would have to be duplicated.

Further, as we would have to double the number of television transmitters on the air, the shortage of spectrum space would mean that bands IV and V would have to be used. The extent of the propagation difficulties to be met in these bands is still being studied. The range of transmitters operating in these bands would probably be much more limited than those at the moment. So it is not a simple matter of purely doubling the number of existing transmitters. It may mean that the number would have to be trebled.

To add to the difficulties a third or fourth television programme network is possible, each requiring a completely new series of transmitters. Colour must also come. It depends on the system of colour transmission used whether colour signals can be sent over the present transmitters or not. If not it would mean a further complete chain or chains of television transmitters taking the air.

The post How it works… A question of lines appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

This is the first of several articles to be printed in Fusion” about the engineering side of television broadcasting. Suggestions for future subjects will be welcomed. The word “genlock’ has been frequently used, perhaps far too often by people who do not really know what it means. Here the assistant head of engineering, basil bultitude, explains what it is, why it is used, and the advantages of other forms of generator locking.

To start with, the basic system of television transmission must be understood. A television picture is made up by one small spot of light travelling over the picture screen. It first starts at the top left-hand corner and rapidly travels across the screen in a series of straight lines. With each successive line the spot moves slightly down the screen, and eventually, when 405 lines have been completed, the whole screen has been covered and one picture is said to have been transmitted.

The time taken to transmit one picture is a twenty-fifth of a second. Because of flicker, inherent in this system, two half pictures each of 202½ lines, double spaced, are actually transmitted. Each half picture takes a fiftieth of a second to transmit and is termed ‘one frame’. The light spot varies in intensity related to the brightness of the original scene; although there is only one spot of light on the screen, it is moving so fast that persistence of vision of the eye enables us to ‘see’ a whole picture.

It is obviously necessary for the spots on all television sets to be in exactly the same area of picture at any instant. For this reason, at the end of each line and frame, synchronising pulses are transmitted. These synchronising pulses ensure that the spots in the receivers and in the cameras start a new line or frame at precisely the same time.

Because of interference from the electrical power mains which makes itself felt on the received picture, it is desirable that the frame speed be related to the mains speed (frequency), i.e. fifty per second.

To achieve this, the synchronising pulse generators (SPG for short) at the studio end are locked to the mains. One might think that if several SPGs were locked to the same mains supply, their outputs would be identical. Unfortunately this is not so.

The SPG mains locking system is not rigid but is in fact slightly springy. This means that two such generators locked to the same mains supply will be continuously varying slightly in speed, one with the other, depending upon the fluctuations of mains, and upon the ‘springiness’ of their lock.

Consequently, a picture generated by a camera fed from one SPG may be running at a slightly different speed from the picture of another camera fed from another SPG. This is insufficient to cause any noticeable mains interference, but it is sufficient to prevent superimposition or mixing of these two pictures.

This is, of course, a definite requirement for a television studio, and is achieved by driving all the cameras, etc, within one building from one SPG. At Wembley the SPG is situated in the central control room and at Television House in the master control room.

Sooner or later a situation must occur, when it would be desirable for a picture signal from Wembley to be superimposed upon a picture signal from Television House. The method of achieving this is ‘genlock’. In this system, the SPG at Television House is not locked to the mains but is in fact rigidly locked to the synchronising pulses from the Wembley generator.

Thus the degree of mains lock affecting the Wembley generator will also affect the Television House generator, and in consequence their synchronising pulses should be identical. The pictures from Wembley may then be superimposed on those at Television House. It is obvious that the Television House SPG may be locked to any incoming signal operating on British standards, but only to one at a time.

Thus, it would not be possible to mix pictures from Wembley, Television House and ITN together. If, when a Television House studio or telecine was on the air the SPG was then genlocked, a considerable disturbance would be seen on the pictures. In order to superimpose, one must genlock to a source before ‘taking it’, and because this cannot be done while Television House is on the air, a serious limitation is placed on its use. Attempts have been made to genlock more quickly by a system of automatic genlocking to reduce the picture disturbance. Nevertheless, a picture disturbance of up to four seconds may still take place. Automatic genlocking facilities are now available at Television House. The actual mixing or superimposition may only take place on the station whose SPG is genlocked.

It would be possible for Wembley to genlock its generator to ITN and Television House to genlock to Wembley, thus making a sort of ‘chain genlock’, then all three SPGS. would be running at exactly the same speed. This would mean extending lines from ITN to Wembley in order to carry the locking signal and would mean that ITN could only be mixed at Wembley.

This limitation occurs because of the different path lengths of the signals. The signals travel at roughly the same speed as light, i.e. 300,000,000 meters per second, and quite obviously a synchronising pulse that went from ITN to Wembley and then to Television House would arrive later than the picture signal that went from ITN direct to Television House. Within any television studio centre the path lengths of the various signals are carefully arranged to be the same, and this process is called ‘timing the station’.

From the above it will be seen that the genlocking system, automatic or otherwise, falls far short of the ideal of being able to mix anything anywhere. From our own company’s point of view, this imposes a very serious handicap. Our programmes may come from Wembley, Television House, outside broadcast vans and other programme contractors, all working, of course, on separate synchronising generators. The commercials always come from Television House, thus twice every fifteen minutes a different set of synchronising pulses are fed to the transmitter and of course to the home receivers. The receivers thus have to take up a new sweep speed suddenly, on the cut to and from the commercials and this nearly always results in a ‘frame roll’.

Towards the end of 1958, Associated-Rediffusion engineers attempted to rectify this situation by designing at new form of genlock called Slavelock. In this system the Wembley SPG was locked by a new method to the Television House SPG so that the two stations behaved, electrically, as one. This meant that the Television House SPG could then genlock to other sources, one at a time and the Wembley generator would automatically follow.

The necessary apparatus was built and in June of this year the two stations were locked for the first time by this method. Unfortunately the results were not perfect, the picture verticals from Wembley being slightly ragged. This was due to inaccurate timing. Work had to be stopped on this project because of other commitments, which is sad when we were so near our goal. However, perhaps in the future we may again start melting the solder on this apparatus.

The above is by no means the final answer, it only permitted sources to be mixed or superimposed at Television House and not, say, at Birmingham. Other broadcasting organisations throughout the world are working on the genlock problem. The BBC some months ago suggested that, if instead of locking to the mains, they locked their individual generators to a quartz crystal, they could simplify the problem.

Another idea of achieving a ‘synchronous network’ is that each incoming signal should go through a Standards Converter. A Standards Converter is basically a television camera looking at a television picture monitor. In this system the incoming picture is displayed on the monitor and the camera operated from the local SPG, thus the final picture from the camera is in lock with the rest of the station. This system has undoubtedly much to recommend it. The loss of picture quality in modern Standards Converters of good design is much less than is commonly supposed. However, it is certainly expensive; a Standards Converter costs approximately £20,000.

This is a complex story, and in order to try to explain it I have had to take some technical licence with the explanation, and for this I hope I may be forgiven by my engineering colleagues.

The post How it works… The Problem of Genlock appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

TWO double-decker buses rolled over my head. They were followed by three taxis, two cars and a lorry. I didn’t feel or hear a thing. But then I had just walked from outside Television House to Waterloo Bridge without crossing a road or dodging any traffic.

The answer to these feats is, of course, the ‘Strand Underpass’ which is due to be completed by the end of this year and which will take light traffic from the end of Waterloo Bridge and disgorge it just a little way up Kingsway from Television House after passing under the Strand and Aldwych.

Up above the sun was shining, but down there in the nearly completed tunnel it was cool. In Aldwych the traffic ground through its gears. Underneath a pneumatic drill clattered into the sides of the old tramway tunnel.

Down there a lot has been happening since work first started on September 8 last year. Apart from the ramps at each end and the arrival of the two-storey wooden building for offices in the road outside Television House not much has shown on the surface.

But by now the old tram tunnel from Kingsway to the Embankment (opened in 1908) is nearly ready for modern traffic. One of the biggest problems was tearing out a central wall which split the tunnel into two for the trams and which helped to support the road. This central wall ran under the curve from Kingsway into Aldwych where the tram tunnel follows the bends in the road.

As this supporting wall – 8 ft thick in places – was demolished (see picture), so girders had to be built into the roof and then the gap between them and the ground holding up the road was filled with concrete poured in under pressure. In some places this ground had also to be frozen chemically to prevent any chance of movement.

Meanwhile around 1,000 tons of concrete were used on the ramp in Kingsway alone. This ramp (heated to prevent icing) will bring traffic up from the tunnel to ground level at the corner of Kemble Street – the old tramway tunnel continues up to the top of Kingsway.

The walls of this one-third mile long under-pass will be lined with panels of aluminium with a backing of light grey which can be easily cleaned and which will provide the maximum reflection of light. The roof has been lined with asbestos to reduce fire risk and will have a suspended acoustic ceiling to reduce noise.

At the Waterloo Bridge end the ramp carrying traffic down has a gradient of 1 in 12. This comparatively steep descent (in Kingsway the ramp has a gradient of 1 in 15) is due to the fact that the ramp could not start descending until clear of Waterloo Bridge and it had to pass a few inches under a 4 ft 6 in diameter, main sewer below the Strand. The maximum headroom possible as a result is 12 ft 6 in, so precautions will have to be taken to stop tall lorries or vehicles entering the tunnel. This will be done by installing a photo-electric device. If a vehicle more than 12 ft high tries to enter, a warning light on overhead gantries will go on instructing the driver to rejoin the usual traffic lane.

Nothing of interest was discovered while building the underpass certainly nothing like the bodies which came to light when the original tram tunnel was being excavated. A short way up Kingsway from Television House an old plague pit was discovered where the victims of the plague had been hastily buried.

This story does not appear in the records of the time but was told by one of the two engineers who worked on the original tram tunnel and who came to see it before the walls were hidden by the new underpass.

One – an 84-year-old – came from Dublin especially and the other, who is now 82, came up from Surrey. ‘The younger one nearly cried when he saw the old tunnel walls upon which he had worked,’ recalls Mr R. Godfrey, site inspector for the consulting engineers.

More than 1,000 men worked on the tramway tunnel – practically all the excavation work was done by hand – whereas the conversion has been carried out by a labour force of around 150.

The figures are not quite the same when it comes to costs. The tram tunnel cost about £190,000 but the tender to the LCC for the underpass was £1,025,000.

For this sum London will get a bright, new underpass which should greatly ease the flow of traffic from Waterloo Bridge to Kingsway. At present it is intended that it shall function in this direction only but it will be possible to modify the approaches to allow for a ‘tidal’ flow in the reverse direction or even a two-way flow if necessary, but this will allow very little room between the two lanes of traffic in the tunnel.

But what happens, somebody will probably be thinking, when a grand, modern traffic jam sets in at the top of Kingsway and the whole tunnel snarls up? They’ve thought of that too. When the carbon monoxide level reaches a certain height an automatic detector will cause ‘switch off engines’ signs to be illuminated, the fans will work at maximum capacity and a ‘tunnel closed’ sign will operate.

Acknowledgements:

Thanks are due to the following for their help in compiling this article and for allowing our photographer to take pictures: The LCC; John Mowlem & Co. Ltd, the constructors; Frederick S. Snow and Partners, the consulting engineers.

Photographs by Jack Emerald.

The post T.V. House by-pass appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

It would be fair to say that in recent years television broadcasts have become more complex, more polished and operate at a faster pace; this process must continue and, so far as television studios are concerned, will probably culminate in the ‘Spectacular’. Spectacular drama and light entertainment broadcasts have been shown in the past only via the film medium in this country. They have never been televised ‘live’ due to the lack of studio space and facilities. It is to remedy this omission and to present Spectacular British Broadcasts that Associated-Rediffusion has decided to lead the way by building Studio 5 at Wembley.

The Studio and its associated service areas are to be built on a site at present used for car parks and film vaults. The building will contain a studio of approximately 14,500 square feet floor area, production, camera, sound and lighting control rooms, a new canteen, entrance hall, visitors’ lobbies, dressing rooms, make-up rooms, etc.

The main feature of the Studio is to be a partition which may be lowered or raised, thus enabling the Studio to be divided into two studios of approximately 6,700 square feet floor area each. These studios will be known as Studio 5A and 5B, and will have their own associated control rooms, make-up rooms, etc. If the partition scheme is successful it will represent a major engineering achievement.

One great difficulty in planning any enterprise of this magnitude for television is the fact that production techniques and demands will most certainly have changed by the time the installation has been completed. Many traditional broadcasting practices have thus been discarded and new ideas put in their place. One example of this is to be found in the production control rooms, where the control desk is to be curved following the principle of the round table. This idea has two particular advantages to recommend it; no matter where a person sits the rest of the company is always in front of him, and also his immediate neighbours do not obscure his view or that of any others at the desk. Seated on the outside of the curve the control room personnel look inwards towards the picture monitors. The picture monitors will be 21-inch screen diagonal, because in the 1960’s it is estimated that 21-inch receivers will be the most usual for British homes, and it will be essential for the director to get the same sensation of perspective and impact as his audience.

The control room monitors will all be below eye level, so minimizing the angle between script and monitor, and avoiding the usual neck stretching which is a feature of the traditional design.

The control of the production lighting will be very comprehensive. The lamps will be raised and lowered by remotely controlled motorized hoists and the intensity of the illumination controlled from lighting consoles. The installation is designed to cope with any production likely to be brought to the studio. When the studio is used as one, the control of all the production lighting will be from one console position. Eight modern television 4½-inch Image Orthicon cameras will be available for the studio as a whole. These cameras will be a little more than half the weight of the present cameras and will open a new avenue for our cameramen in handling techniques. Two studio zoom type lenses will be available for the whole studio. When the partition is lowered, four cameras will normally be associated with each studio but it would be possible to have, say, five in one and three in the other. The design is such that should a camera channel fail in Studio 5A it will be possible to have a replacement from Studio 5B and vice versa within a matter of a minute or so.

By the time Studio 5 is completed, tri-alkia Image Orthicon camera tubes will almost certainly be available, this in simple language means that the cameras will be much more sensitive than those of today and will enable directors and lighting supervisors to create new visual moods and effects. An Inlay desk is planned for each production control room. This will have the facilities for inlay, overlay, scanning of 2 × 2 transparencies and roller captions.

Two separate sound control rooms are planned, each with a newly designed sound desk, four multi-speed gram units and a tape recorder. The sound installation will give maximum flexibility, and with very little alteration will give facilities for stereophonic sound. It is hoped that a new type microphone zoom will be available giving a full 360° rotation, and a seat for the operator.

A fully equipped make-up room will be situated adjacent to each of the two studios. This follows modern practice by getting make-up as near to the studio floor as possible. Each is to have seven make-up positions, with all the necessary wash-basins, hair dryers, etc.

By 1960 it is envisaged that the scenery will be of relatively lightweight construction, and a great deal of this, on the faster type productions, will most probably be ‘flown’. For this purpose eighteen power-operated hoists will be available plus the usual skids, etc. The hoists will be operated from a control panel on the studio floor, or from a portable handheld control board.

It is planned to have a maximum audience of 500 in the studio on certain productions, and it is hoped that 27-inch monitors will be available enabling them to view the televised show. The strain of television inevitably tells on the studio operators after a period of time. In planning Studio 5 considerable thought, time, tears and sweat have been expended in trying to reduce the operational fatigue experienced by the studio personnel today. It is hoped that this will be repaid by better and more polished productions, for although Studio 5 will, without doubt, be the finest television studio in England, it will rest with the operators and artists as to whether this venture will be a success or not.

The post Associated-Rediffusion’s new studio appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

The first use of the word telecine seems to have been lost in the mists of television antiquity. It indicates the conversion of any type of film picture to a television signal suitable for transmission.

It may surprise most people to learn that the one thing that television cannot do is to transmit a complete television picture.

This may sound utter nonsense until it is remembered that the television picture we see only really exists in the mind of the viewer because of nature’s foresight in providing the human eye with a degree of persistence of vision.

Once this faculty of the human eye was recognised it became possible to evolve a number of systems capable of producing animated pictures from a series or sequence of completely still pictures – each picture had a slight positional displacement of image corresponding to what would produce normal movement.

As practically everyone must know, the projection of a picture with movement, whether it is through a home movie or a cinema projector, is the result of a series of transparent still pictures being shown in sequence.

Each time a picture is flashed on to the screen it is a complete picture in every sense of the word. But with our present television system it is not possible to transmit at any one time a complete picture, so an alternative method had to be evolved. In this television system a picture is continuously being built up on the viewing tube, by a very fast-moving, single spot which sweeps from top to bottom in a series of horizontal lines. The brightness varies according to the picture information it carries.

The television system, therefore, examines the picture being televised in a systematic manner by scanning every point of it and at the same time sending out a signal corresponding to the tonal value of that part of the picture being examined at that particular instant.

So cinema film projectors and their television counterparts have, for the most part, little in common with each other.

The name telecine has now become synonymous with the transmission of all film material, and all film transmission equipment is now known generally as the telecine machine or film scanner.

At present there are two alternative methods of transmitting a film picture.

The first is known as a ‘Vidicon Storage System’ and the second as the ‘Flying Spot System’. Without going into too much technical description, the Vidicon Storage System basically consists of the normal type of intermittent motion film projector which throws its optical film image on to the face of a small, special television camera pick-up tube called a Vidicon.

The optical images formed on the Vidicon tube face instantly form an equivalent electrical image on a photo-conductive layer called the target, and from then on the electrical image is examined or scanned in practically the same way as an ordinary television studio camera tube transforms a live studio scene into a television picture.

The telecine projector shutter has to be modified from its usual method of operation so that the optical image of each film frame is flashed on to the vidicon tube face during a very short period – called the frame blanking period. This is the precise period of time allowed for the fly-back of the electronic scanning beam.

The vidicon target has the fortunate property of being able to retain its electronic image long enough (hence the term storage system) for one complete scanning sequence to take place and thereby produces all the necessary information to build up a television picture.

While the retained electronic image is being scanned within the vidicon tube, two other important operations are simultaneously taking place. They are: 1. The shutter is being made to cut off the light source completely, and 2. The projector mechanism is utilising this longish period of scanning time to move the film forward on to its next stationary frame position so that it can be subsequently flashed on to the vidicon tube face.

The second method utilises the flying spot principle and here we use a very much more straightforward scheme. Basically we illuminate only a very small part of the film picture at a time. This is done by passing through the film a small intense point of light produced by a special type of cathode ray tube called a flying spot scanning tube.

This intense spot of light scans the film picture area completely and emerges on the other side of the film with a variation in brightness corresponding to the density of the image it has had to pass through.

The modulated spot of light is then directed on to a device known as a photo-electric multiplier cell. This device reacts to light by generating electric currents directly proportional to the strength of light falling on it.

It is these changing amounts of electrical energy which, when transmitted in proper sequence, tell the home television receiver when and where to produce whites, greys or black tones.

The Associated-Rediffusion telecine section is very versatile in that it can handle practically any combination or type of film material available, be it either 35 mm or 16 mm. At present the telecine section is equipped at Wembley with one Cintel, two E.M.I. flying spot scanners and one R.C.A. vidicon film channel, known respectively as Cintel 6, E.M.I. 1, E.M.I. 2 and R.C.A. 4 machines. Television House is equipped with one E.M.I. and two R.I. flying spot scanners, besides one R.C.A. Vidicon film channel. These are known as E.M.I. 5, R.I. 7, R.I. 8 and R.C.A. 3 machines.

The standard or professional film is 35 mm, while 16 mm is generally known as substandard.

The 35 mm film can be either married, that is with picture and sound all on one film, or double-headed, sometimes called unmarried. This means that the picture and sound information is on two separate film reels but, of course, carefully synchronised. The separate sound track can be either magnetic or optical.

But now we are moving away from our subject. I hope the above has helped you to understand telecine a little better.

The post How it works… Telecine appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

‘Maintaining all the electrical equipment and installations at Wembley and Television House could be compared with the old story of looking after the Forth Bridge: when you finish, you have to go back to the beginning and start all over again’, says Bernie Finch, electrical supervisor. There are 62 electricians, 16 covering maintenance at Wembley and Television House. The other 46 cover all studio production lighting.

To many people the world of electronics, or just plain electricity means no more than being satisfied when the light comes on at the flick of a switch, or the television warms up and presents its picture without problem. Bernie Finch’s world, however, covers far more than just looking after light switches. ‘In the section, we’re responsible for ventilation, air conditioning, supplying power to outside broadcast units, and for all lighting, both for offices and studios. Really, we’re supplying a service to everyone.’

The power which Bernie and his team watch over, totals 2,800 kilowatts – enough to meet the needs of a small town. The intake of studio 5 alone accounts for 1,500 kW, which would supply a medium-sized village with light and heat.

‘When a company such as Rediffusion depends so much on electrical power, you have to be prepared for any emergency. For instance, when a recent power cut blacked out Television House and a large slice of the city, it was only the fact that there is an emergency alternator installed in the basement of Television House that saved the day. Within 40 seconds of the power cut the alternator was switched on, programmes could continue and essential lighting was restored. The alternator itself runs on diesel fuel, and can supply power for two days. Fully loaded, it could run for weeks.’

A little known aspect of the electrical section’s work is the supplying of special effects – especially explosions. Bernie himself has been responsible for many of the explosions that have wrecked cars in some of Rediffusion’s series.

It could be said that where the work of Bernie Finch’s section finishes, Jim Crossley’s begins. Jim Crossley is supervisory engineer (maintenance), and his men service the company’s technical equipment.

Says Jim Crossley: We look after the internal workings of cameras, sound, telecine, and film department equipment, monitors and master controls. We also maintain the outside broadcast equipment.

‘Outside broadcasts are perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of electronic maintenance. During the last general election, we converted a railway carriage on the train bringing Mr. Wilson back from Liverpool into a control room and video taped an interview which was shown during the election programme before the train had arrived in London.

‘The outside broadcast coverage of the World Cup series brought special problems as for Eurovision, all programmes have to go out on the 625 line system. Our equipment is, of course, 405 line, and we had to do a conversion job. I think that it’s to the credit of our people that the coverage went so well.’

Many programme gimmicks are designed and made by electronic maintenance. Requests vary from a simple clapometer (applause level indicator) for ‘Double Your Money’ or cues and communications for creepie-peepie cameras to the very complex. These have included designing and making a whole range of special sound equipment in a month for ‘Ready, Steady, Go!’ and rigging Studio 9 for a general election programme with all the hundreds of extra facilities required.

The main job, however, is to maintain the technical equipment. The company has probably lost less air time and had fewer faults on transmission than anybody else and that is the highest tribute to the work of the maintenance sections.

The post Wired-up for service appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

The basement of a business establishment compares, of course, unfavourably with the domestic cellar. It lacks the latter’s cosy intimacy, there are no dust-covered souvenirs with memories of the past, and the chance of finding a hidden treasure is about as remote as that of finding water lilies in the desert.

Nevertheless, when the Editor of Fusion asked me to write about Associated-Rediffusion’s ‘basic’ activities I was more than usually ready to oblige, and if you have so far lacked the time or the excuse to go exploring down below, perhaps you’d care to join my conducted tour.

It could be said that both the beginning and the end of Television House are to be found below the level of Kingsway, since its basement floor contains both the first essentials of its elaborate household (supply of water, heat, light) and the very last stage of its function in the transmission of programmes from the two studios. Perhaps the best place to start and get warmed up is the BOILERHOUSE which is approached by a special entrance and a steep stone staircase, so narrow that only boilermen with the lean and hungry look, totally disinclined to obesity can possibly be considered for the job.

The enormous size of the boilerhouse is likely to surprise those who vaguely visualised an enlarged version of the domestic boiler supplying TV House with heat and hot water. There are in fact no fewer than four boilers, three of them so huge that ladders have to be used to reach the top shutters. Two of these are in constant use day and night during the winter to supply our central heating, while the third one is cleaned and kept in readiness for use in case of breakdown in any of the others.

Electric pumps drive the water heated by these boilers into the radiators throughout the building and special booster pumps operate to reach the top storeys.

The fourth boiler, a slightly smaller oil combustion unit, supplies our domestic hot water.

In addition the boilerhouse contains cold and hot water tanks (chlorifyers) the height of an average room and diameters to match, as well as spare pumps in case of break downs, but the most predominant feature is the network of pipes of all sizes up to a foot in diameter, painted in vivid red (for central heating) and green (for domestic water).

They add a touch of unexpected gaiety to the spotless place, while the familiar roar from the fire in the boilers makes you feel quite drowsy….

The boilermen, Mr Coleman, Mr Jones and Mr Poole, who work in day and night shifts on a rota system are also responsible for our impressive VENTILATION PLANT ROOM where air is sucked into the building by a Plenum fan, driven through ventilating shafts and filtered through a panel of water sprays before it is allowed to disperse into the building.

The sprays can be seen in action through large glass panels and the dirt particles collecting in the side tanks are proof of the effectiveness of the filtering process. Stale air is ejected from the building by means of extractor fans.

From the ventilation plant room we also operate a secondary (warm air) heating system, which is supplementary to the central heating for exceptionally cold days.

Twice a day the boilerman on duty takes thermometer readings in all areas from the basement to the roof of TV House. This is not as exhausting as it sounds, since he has at his disposal an up-to-date thermo control unit in the ventilation plant room, and he merely has to move the hand on the dial to whichever area of TV House he wants to check and jot down the temperatures indicated. Outside temperatures are also taken twice a day. These readings govern the setting of the thermostats on the automatic central heating boilers.

Next we come to the domain of Victor O’Brien and his staff of three electricians, Reg Turner, T. Hurley and Peter van Hamme. Usually behind well-locked doors I was allowed to take an ‘Unauthorised Persons’ view of the MAIN SWITCH ROOM which is about 10ft wide and 30ft long and houses the Siemens Supply Company intakes, control box, fuse boxes and long rows of master switches controlling the supply of power to the various areas of TV House.

The main supply to the technical area is fed via the Diesel Control Unit. This unit has two sets of contactors which feed the distribution buzz-bars, one for the London Electricity Board main supplies and the other for supply from Stand-by Diesel.

Should a fire break out in the main switch room -where water cannot be used, the heat will melt the soldered links which in turn causes a chemical solution (CO₂) to be released and automatically ejected into the room to extinguish the fire.

The Stand-by Diesel is housed in what looks very much like a ship’s engine-room complete with vertical metal stairs and the pungent smell of oil, a large Diesel AC Alternator stands ready to cut in automatically in an emergency rather like an understudy waiting in the wings for her chance to take over when the star falls ill.

Only once – two years ago – did the stand-by diesel fail to cut in during a power breakdown and on investigation it was found that a workman who was cementing the switchroom floor had unwittingly touched the tripswitch which is permanently set to bring in the emergency supply.

The electricians put matters right and viewers got their picture back. The guilty workman protested: ‘All I did was this…’ He demonstrated and TV sets went blank again.

A little farther down some pipe-lined corridors I encountered the headquarters of the MAINTENANCE DEPARTMENT which comes under the jurisdiction of Mr Hurley and Mr Chater. It is an enlarged version of the domestic workshop crowded with tins of paint, cans of turps, brushes, tools of all descriptions and broken items of furniture waiting to be mended.

A team of two carpenters, Stan Cracknell and Tom Sanderson, who are the handymen around the house, attend to all minor casualties such as broken window sashes, locks which won’t open, drawers which won’t shut, chairs with missing legs, in fact anything that crops up, while the two painters, Arthur Thompson and Bernard Anns, are permanently engaged in brightening up the place with fresh coats of paint, a job which is never done because by the time they’re through, it’s time to start anew.

A few years ago a minor flood disaster hit the basement of TV House of which we in the upper storeys were blissfully unaware. It was caused by ITN film cuttings being washed down and blocking the waste pipes, with the unpleasant result that waste water mixed with a dark photographic chemical solution came up through the drains from underneath, covering the whole of the basement floor and causing considerable damage.

THE CARPENTER’S SHOP is just round the corner and we briefly call on Phil Holder, our master carpenter, who shows us round the SCENE DOCK where hired scenery is stored in readiness for imminent transmissions. A special hoist with a capacity of 25 tons was built at the back of the garage to transport the often cumbersome items of scenery from the delivery van into the basement scene dock.

Phil and his assistants are responsible for checking in each item, making any necessary adjustments or alterations, fitting and setting up scenery in time for camera rehearsal and for returning everything intact to the hire firm.

But bare scenery is not enough. Props of all kinds and descriptions are needed to give realistic and authentic backgrounds to the programmes. That is where Frank Newson and his five prop men come in. They have just about everything, including the kitchen sink, stored in the five prop rooms at their disposal.

The ARCHIVES, more than any other part of the basement, resemble the traditional cellar in as much as they are used for storage of documents which have long outlived their usefulness. The shelves are laden with out-dated correspondence, files and scripts which have had their moment of glory a long time ago.

Also stationed in the basement are the FILM CAMERA AND SOUND CREWS. They are headed by Ted Lloyd, the senior film cameraman, who discusses filming projects and difficulties with the directors concerned, and Dave Davies who fills in the inevitable forms and is responsible for correct camera allocation.

Among the camera men who have been with the company a number of years are Adrian Cooper, Ricky Briggs, Gilbert Knight, Harry Hart and Ron Osborn, and on the sound crew side we have mixers Stan Clark, Basil Rootes, Bill Welch and Don Alton.

An interesting character attached to the film camera crews is Ernie Beard, the only grip in the company. To the uninitiated the grip is the chap who pushes the dolly or operates the crane on which camera equipment is mounted and if you think there isn’t much to it then you ought to have seen Ernie operate the 40-ft crane for the film shots at the opening of Studio 5 when he had no less than three men on the front and a big camera and 4 tons of weights on the back to balance and manoeuvre about.

Last, but not least, there is the area more directly concerned with the transmission of programmes, the rehearsal rooms, the wardrobe department (where Phillis Crisp makes last minute costume alterations), the rows of makeup and dressing rooms, and finally the studios where the perennial first night atmosphere reaches its climax every time we are on the air.

You’d have to go a long way to find another basement quite like it.

The post Down in the basement… appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

However, the day comes when they have been more entertained or more infuriated than usual and an idea grows that it would be interesting to see ‘how it works’, or ‘how human are the people in television’ or ‘whether they are all morons’. Then a letter is written by a club secretary, or a father pestered by a son telephones, and another group of people go down on the evergrowing waiting list for visits to Wembley.

The idea of such visits is not to preach to the converted but to inform those that are uninformed, to answer the criticisms of the critical and to allay the fears of the fearful. An explanation of how everyone and everything joins together to overcome the problems surrounding the recording or transmission of a programme, calms even the most heated.

About 50 requests a week reach me from a cross-section of our own and the BBC’s audiences. As only about six visits are made each week hard pruning is necessary. It is then that one begins to see the groups of people who are interested and why they want to come.

It is easy enough to cut out those who are obviously out for an evening’s jollification, drink and anything else that amounts to a night in London, taking in the Victoria Palace, Buckingham Palace and the Strand Palace. Studio 5 is palatial in size, but the work behind the scenes is altogether too serious. An offer of tickets for a show is all that is necessary here and about 50 per cent can be given these.

It is the other 50 per cent who are more difficult to sort out. They range from groups of solicitors, through Polytechnic, engineering societies, political study groups, overseas visitors, young wives’ clubs, to school children with all their mothers, fathers, pastors and masters.

No one group of people reacts in the same way to what they see and hear. The most critical and questioning are the professional groups. They are also the most uninformed. Many of them freely admit to having either no set or to only watching BBC programmes. Their complaints are based on what their patients or colleagues have talked about on the golf course. They talk only of quizzes and the excess of advertising and are therefore a little hurt to discover that quizzes are minimal, that it is us, not the BBC who produce ‘This Week’ and that advertisements are subject to control.

Because of their reaction and change of outlook, they are the most rewarding, and although many come to sneer, very few leave with their noses in the air. The guilds and study groups think they know everything but after a few minutes it becomes very obvious that they, too, are woefully ignorant. They need much convincing before they will accept a point of view and there is always somebody in their parties who tries to slip in an answer to a question, almost before it has been asked.

Children are open-mouthed and open-minded. They ask innumerable questions, but in the end admit that they have come in the hope that they will meet some star or other.

Occasionally one loses all faith in human nature. This happens with those who are able to do nothing except giggle or blink at the lights and exclaim, ‘It’s too hot’. They always drift along at the back aimlessly swishing at metaphorical daisies like Mr Stillbrook in ‘The Diary of a Nobody’. Invariably they belong to clubs affiliated to either Her Majesty’s Government or Her Majesty’s Opposition.

The tour of Wembley runs on roughly the same pattern. Studio 5 is looked at in its entirety. Its vastness impresses everyone. The scoffer, the informed, the gigglers are mercifully silent for a short time. All are surprised that we should have taken the trouble to build a large new studio when we are ‘commercial television’. It is from now on that one begins to see a change of mind. Eyes light up and different people look at each other as if to say: ‘They do take trouble after all’.

Vision Control (‘worse than flying an aeroplane’ said a lady the other night who had never flown one, but had a vivid imagination), sound (‘Oh! It’s here they drown the singer with the orchestra’), lighting (‘Where’s Harold Smart?’) bemuse people, but make them realise that there is co-ordination behind every programme.

Old ladies, young technicians become filled with unholy fire so that questions rush out like those from satisfied, and dissatisfied, shareholders at an annual general meeting.

Now is the time to get everyone into a viewing room, give them a drink, watch a rehearsal or transmission and answer as many questions as possible.

These run to no fixed pattern. Every side of television is covered as well as a good deal of general knowledge.

‘Does Eric Lander like mauve ties?’ This was from a middle-aged lady ‘passionately interested in clothes’. A straightforward statement of fact from a 16-year-old girl was, ‘Jango’s better than Elvis’.

Advertisements, colour and violence raise many questions, I presume because these are the problems about which the Press exercises itself so often.

People by now are less hostile and although they still naturally do not agree with everything we do they are open to reason. The power of Wembley is working. Then to end a visit and crystalize their ideas they go to see the old studios and the service areas around them. ‘In Studio 5’, their minds seem to work, ‘everything looked reasonably easy. In Studio 1 all is obviously difficult, yet the results are comparable. The ever mysterious THEY are human after all.

Another visit comes to an end. In the two hours or so we have been open to the public, no half-crowns have been taken but the impressions made are better than any gained in a stately home. We are progressing all the time, not standing still in the past.

The post Gigglers, gogglers and gumption appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

‘The newest and exactest Mapp of the most famous Citties London and Westminster, with their suburbs, and the manner of their streets’, published in 1654 shows houses sprouting out from St Clement’s Church towards the Strand. The gardens of a circle of houses appear to occupy the land on which Television House and its surrounding buildings now stand. Lincoln’s Inn Fields are still enclosed but Butcher’s Row and Clare Street have appeared in the area.

Butcher’s Row came into existence during the reign of Queen Elizabeth on the site of a meat market between the bottom of what is now Kingsway and St Clement Danes Church.

The houses were mostly built of wood and plaster with overhanging storeys. Here in the stench-laden streets the plague ‘frowned destruction on the miserable inhabitants’ each summer.

Here, too, in one of the multitude of houses was later hatched the Gunpowder Plot by Messrs Catesby, Percy Wright, Winter and Guy Vaux.

Near to the present site of Television House once also stood Clare Market, built and opened by John, Earl of Clare, in 1656 in what was a spacious field to the west of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The streets which grew up around the market all bore the family names of Clare, Denzil, Holies and Vere.

The Earl of Clare himself built a large and stately mansion, which he shut in with a high wall no doubt due to the fact that Charles I had, in 1640, granted a licence to Thomas York to erect as many buildings as he thought fit upon St Clement’s Inn Field ‘to be of stone or brick’.

The market was held there three times weekly and the Earl enjoyed ‘all the emoluments thereunto appertaining’. It quickly became noted as one of the best markets in London for all kinds of provisions, both flesh and fish.

At one time there were 26 butchers there who slaughtered from 350 to 400 sheep weekly and 50 to 60 bullocks. Near the market was a tripe house and in a separate yard the Jews slaughtered their cattle according to their religion.

The butchers were a rough lot, taking a deep and lively interest in two theatres near by … ‘cramming the galleries, and with their sweet breaths applauding or damning a piece; they were a factor to be reckoned with in theatrical management.’

The galleries were empty, however, in 1664 when the Great Plague of London swept through the population in the autumn of 1664. It started not far from the present site of Television House in the upper end of Drury Lane.

A cargo vessel had carried it from Holland, where 20,000 people had died in Amsterdam. Rapidly it spread through London. A frost for three months from December, 1664, stopped it for a while, then as the warmer weather arrived it broke out in full force. In August and September 1665, 50,000 died, 12,000 in one week. During the whole year the plague claimed 100,000 victims.

Grass grew in the main streets, churchyards were choked and large pits had to be dug. Carts rumbled through the streets to the cry ‘Bring out your dead’.

One survivor was Nell Gwynn, who was living in the fashionable part of Drury Lane in 1667.

On May 1 of that year, Pepys records:

‘To Westminster; in the way meeting milk maids with their garlands upon their pails, dancing with a fiddler before them; and saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodgings’ door in Drury Lane, in her smock sleeves and bodice, looking upon one: she seemed a mighty pretty creature.’

Violence was always around the corner. On July 21, 1683, Lincoln’s Inn Fields saw the execution of Lord William Russell, it being the nearest open space to Newgate. Crowds flocked to the fields for the occasion.

Lord Russell sang psalms for most of the way there, then ‘he laid his head on the block, without the least change of countenance; and it was cut off at two strokes.’

By 1706 the whole district had been built over as is shown by ‘A New Mapp of the Citty of London, much enlarged since the Great Fire in 1666, in which are several Streets, Places and Buildings of Note, which hath been added since any other Mapps of London hath been published.’

Lincoln’s Inn Fields is now enclosed, probably with wooden palings; the Strand has a maypole at its eastern end; Wych Street and Clements Street occupy ground now covered by the Aldwych and the bottom of Kings-way; the King’s Theatre stands on a site nearly in the same place as the present Drury Lane Theatre.

Lincoln’s Inn Fields had been used as a dump for rubbish, besides executions. This graphic description of the place # was written at the beginning of the eighteenth century:

‘Great mischiefs have happened to many of His Majesty’s subjects going about their lawful occasions, several of whom have been killed… many wicked and disorderly persons have frequented and met together therein, using unlawful sports and games, and drawing in and enticing young persons into gaming, idleness and other vicious courses; and vagabonds, common beggars, and other disorderly persons resort therein, where many robberies, assaults, outrages and enormities have been, and continually are committed.’

No wonder the area was levelled, laid out and iron railing erected around it in 1735… more than 100 years after a Commission from the King had laid down that Inigo Jones should be responsible for laying the area out, thus disproving the fable that Inigo Jones planned the size of Lincoln’s Inn Fields to equal the base of the Great Pyramid.

Not far away from the fields public houses and eating houses abounded in the Clare Market area during the eighteenth century. It was in one of the eating houses near Television House that Boswell probably found Johnson. The historian Oldys reports having seen Johnson at Clifton’s eating house in Butcher’s Row. He records that Johnson and an Irish gentleman started arguing about why part of mankind was black.

‘Why Sir, [said Johnson], it has been accounted for in three ways: either by supposing that they are the posterity of Ham, who was cursed; or that God at first created two kinds of men, one black and another white; or that by the heat of the sun, the skin is scorched, and so acquires a sooty hue. The matter has been much canvassed among naturalists, but has never been brought to any certain issue.’

Apparently the argument became somewhat heated, ending with Johnson stalking away. Afterwards the Irishman was heard to say: ‘He has a most ungainly figure, and an affectation of pomposity unworthy of a man of genius’.

The houses around were also ungainly, as this report in a publication of the time shows: ‘The following melancholy accident happened yesterday morning in Houghton Street, Clare Market: two houses suddenly gave way and buried their 16 unfortunate inhabitants. At noon, 13 were got out, and conveyed to the parish workhouse in Portugal Street. Of these, three had been dug out, shockingly mangled, without the least symptoms of life: two children, apparently dead, were restored to life by the means prescribed by the Humane Society in cases of suffocation; the rest received, some of them slight and others severe, contusions… The landlord of one of the houses, it is reported, received notice of the insecurity of his house two days ago, but did not apprise the lodgers of their danger, for fear of losing them.’

Also in the neighbourhood in Blackmoor Street (running westwards almost opposite Television House) at one time was the Hope Tavern Concert. Here appeared the top singing stars of the day. ‘The noted Miss Toplis, and the scion of Comus, Bill Percy, here delighted auditors with their mirth-provoking, side-cracking comic duets and humorous mimicry. Here Miss Frazier James, the fascinating Queen of Song, poured forth her native wood notes wild.’

Here, too, the young bucks entertained their lady friends at ‘the famed chanting saloon’.

This was the beginning of the music hall in this country, for it was from these taverns (within a stone’s throw of Television House) that the halls developed.

By the 1820s another public house in the area-the Black Horse in Old Boswell Court – had taken over the mantle of the Hope Tavern. There was even a raised stage. It was one of the most popular entertainment places of its kind in London.

In 1868, when music halls had arrived, one historian wrote: ‘Considering the style of the building, and class of entertainment of the period, in many respects it is doubtful if our gorgeous and expensive music halls are much of an improvement upon the Boswell Court Concert room, except in affording greater scope, and giving greater facilities for intrigue, and the exuberances of masculine and feminine “fast life”.’

Life was by no means slow at the ‘Black Horse’. The celebrated Miss James used to perform in her favourite character of the Dashing White Sergeant.

‘Such was the attraction of this fascinating vocalist, that she drew to this Concert Room, nightly, a number of the fast men of her day… Occasionally the room would be visited by some sparkling, rollicking sporting men about town, upon whose entry additional devilry and life would be thrown into the scene.’

As another writer reports: ‘The visits of noble bloods were but the foretaste of future frolics, and but a slight sip at pleasure’s fountain; for were there not, in this neighbourhood, deep and dangerous wells, overflowing with enticing charms, ever attended by beauteous, but fallen nymphs, whose voluptuous attractions gathered around them the noble and wealthy, the poet and the painter, the swell and the rogue; and all fast London life assembled here to make a night of it.’

Down in the basement of the pub was another room in which thieves, pickpockets and cracksmen used to meet. They had a kind of club towards which each used to contribute so that funds should be available to pay for legal assistance if any member needed it.

They lived life to the full in those days. Perhaps it was because the threat of a sudden death was never far away. Today we live under the cloud of atomic extermination. A century or so ago disease was the fear.

Epidemics mushroomed through the dirty, overcrowded streets. One such epidemic in 1849 resulted in strong complaints against the use of St Clement Danes as a burial ground. A vault, known as the Rector’s vault, was the cause of many of these complaints.

Steps led down into it from the aisle of the church and when opened the gases from the decomposition of the bodies was so strong that lighted candles were put out. Nobody could go down into it until two to three days after the door had been lifted.

This overcrowding applied to most of the churches of London in the forties of the last century. Action was taken in 1853 when St Clement Danes and other churchyards were closed as burial grounds under a Nuisance Removal Act.

One source of pollution had been removed. Others remained.

Not far away, Newcastle Court (off Newcastle Street leading up to the present Aldwych) was labelled ‘a den of iniquity’.

This is how one writer described it:

‘It consisted entirely of houses of ill-fame of the worst description, stored with the foulest moral pollution. …The scenes enacted at night were of the most horrible description and at last its abominable notoriety became so glaring the parish authorities were compelled to indict the occupiers which they did and the vicious inhabitants were turned out, but only for some of them to resume |heir shocking mode of living in Wyck St.’ (The upper portion of this street is now covered by Australia House.)

The post A den of iniquity appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

But how do the rest of the staff at Television House feel about their food? On the general assumption that they buy what they like best, we did some research into the best sellers.

From Fusion 31, published August 1963

Cold weather is the time for more substantial meals, but sausages are always the best seller at lunchtime, and even more so in the evening.

(This sausage addiction is not just confined to Television House. I quote from a May edition of the ‘Daily Mirror’: ‘Although “sausages are losing their individuality”, and only one butcher in ten makes his own, Britons eat 9,000 million of them a year. Housewives spend £3 out of £100 housekeeping on sausages.”)

All cheese dishes (egg mornay, macaroni cheese and variations) are very popular, generally selling about 60 portions when they are served at lunch. (When it is not known whether anything from 200 to 400 will use the canteen, a sale of 60 portions rates as a ‘best seller’.)

A recent arrival – Quiche Lorraine -after a slow start at 24 has now been judged ‘non-poisonous’ and rocketed to the 50 mark. ‘It takes time before people trust a new dish,’ says Miss Ellis. People are always in a hurry; mixed grill when it is featured is usually a top seller (about 50), but the ‘Grilled Lamb Chop (to order)’ only sells about two a week. In the evening, people cannot be bothered to wait for omelettes, except for odd evenings when everybody seems to want them. Another fairly new arrival, which is climbing in popularity, is Chili con carne – about 30 sold at its last appearance.

Salads are a best seller. With the warmer weather and the club no longer serving food, they often top the 60 mark. All these figure-conscious girls?
Not at all. It is the men. Yoghourt also usually sells out. Once upon a time, men asked for chips to be piled on their plates and then went on to collect some steamed pudding; now they go easy on the chips, or simply avoid both – ‘have to watch the figure you know’.

The sight of ‘soup so rich and green, steaming in a hot tureen’ was obviously too much for the staff last winter – the daily consumption averaged six gallons. The ‘green’ soup, or ‘green pea’ soup, is the least popular – tomato, minestrone and lentil are much better sellers. But now the summer soup consumption has dropped to an average of two and a half gallons a day.

Biscuits and cheese are the most popular second course. Steamed puddings always go well, often hitting the 60 mark. Apparently the post boys are good, reliable customers on that section. All milk puddings are very popular except semolina, but there is little sale of fruit juices.

Imagine the washing up all this entails. Eight people are employed in Television House who do nothing but wash up. After morning coffee there are no less than 1,000 cups, saucers and spoons to be washed, and this is repeated after the afternoon tea . . . lunchtime washing-up is inestimable.

At Wembley, the canteen menu works on a different system from Television House. They have an extensive ‘à la carte’ menu which never changes plus a shorter menu which changes every day; the latter includes one ‘composite’ meal and about three ‘à la carte’ dishes. The best seller by far is steak and kidney pudding. The second favourite is escalope of pork, which usually sells about 60. This is also a favourite with Fanny and Johnnie Cradock, but they do not like the spaghetti with which it is usually served.

The chef’s (yes, a real male chef) speciality – chicken risotto – is very popular, normally selling about 40 portions. Other favourites given to Wembley clientele, though not too often for them to become bored with, are ‘chicken supreme’, which sells about 40 and ‘braised ham California style’ (i.e. with peach), at about 55. Curry Madras is very popular in winter, but sales drop in the summer. Pudding popularity also varies with the season. The top winter pudding by a long way is Dutch apple tart, which sells about 120. Steamed and milk puddings also sell well, but jellies and cold puddings do not reach the top until the summer. Girls are the more figure conscious sex at Wembley, though a few of the men from telecine and sound who do not get so much exercise, also watch the calories. They go for grilled fish or egg dishes without rice. The actors apparently have enough exercise. The face of the Television House club-room has changed vastly over the last few months. The queues waiting for the ever-popular sausages and ‘coleslaw’ have disappeared and nothing has replaced them. Nor, incidentally, has anything replaced the four dozen wooden trays which gradually, mysteriously vanished, and it is a fairly common sight to see flowers in sugar containers around offices. What remains of the club, namely Betty and her bar, are still thriving. She does a tremendous trade in wine, closely followed by bitter draught beer.

The arrival of the humming monster whose fragrant aroma graces the sixth floor has started a new trend in drinking – hot chocolate. The chocolate sales far exceed all the black/white/with/without sugar coffee sales combined. During the week, this machine has a turn-over of about 800 cups, and an added 200 at the week-end (presumably ITN likes hot chocolate as well).

Cigarette machines vary with their best sellers, although the weekly takings usually amount to around £60. Staff have a choice of nine cigarette brands, but Senior Service seems to hold the steadiest high market.

The friendly British ‘banger’ once again wins on the trolley stakes – this time in the form of a sausage roll. Cheese and its various compounds are very popular in roll form, but the customers vary. On the second floor, the trolley can barely nose its way through the tea-point door before it is besieged by hosts of hungry post-boys who consume vast quantities of rolls every day. The fourth floor trolley does not do very good trade, partly because there are fewer people per square office and partly, as Miss Ellis puts it: ‘You can’t imagine those people sitting at their desk in the morning, munching sausage rolls.’ (Perhaps ‘they’ are also figure conscious.)

At Wembley, there is no need for machines as the canteen is open from 8.30 a.m. until 10.00 p.m. However, they do operate a sixpenny slot machine which sells two bars of Kit Kat for every one of Cadbury Snack. (Cadbury Snacks are the most popular at Television House, closely followed by Dairy Bar.) Everyone goes to the Wembley canteen for the morning and afternoon tea breaks (or coffee if they prefer it). Hot toast and butter is served and sells about four times as well as all the filled rolls combined. At tea-time, there are homemade cakes, but way, way above anything else, the favourite is bread pudding. This is described as being as ‘solid as rock’ – in popularity not necessarily in composition.

From time to time, odd waiters carrying rare things like silver coffee pots can be seen around Television House. That probably means there is a Board luncheon on that day. About this subject, Miss Ellis says: ‘Mr Adorian is one of the most appreciative gourmets for whom you could ever cook.’

This was the menu at the last one:

Cream of Mushroom Soup

–

Fresh Scotch Salmon with Hollandaise sauce, garden peas, new potatoes

–

Pavlova*

–

Selection of fresh fruit

–

* (For non-ballet connoisseurs, this is described as a ‘Meringue affair de luxe with whipped cream, laced with Kirsch’.)

Incidentally members of staff may be interested to know that the general manager’s room has exactly the same food as the canteen.

The catering firm at Television House is even used as a general store if the shops are shut when people want eggs and bread. Michael Miles has the longest list of odd requests: a chicken carcass ; a sardine tin and one currant (no prizes for guessing the reason). Other requests trolley girls have learnt to take in their stride on day-to-day rounds include things like a fruit salad for a baboon, a milk pudding and even some old bones.

Are you a constructive criticiser? If so, both catering firms (Wembley and Television House) are open to suggestions for new, practical and economical recipes. But please on paper, stating ingredients, time involved and method – no telephone calls. The ideas should be sent to the canteen manager at Wembley or Miss Ellis, Room 330a at Television House.

Drawings by Geraldine Spence

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From Fusion 19, the Associated-Rediffusion house staff magazine, published June 1961

Why, only the other day in the lift, I distinctly overheard a shorthand-typist remark to a sales executive, ‘I suppose they must fetch the elephants and things in at the Aldwych end.’ Well, really!

Obviously, this is a state of affairs which must be remedied without delay. It would be quite impossible, within the confines of a short article such as this, to attempt to explain to the Great Uninformed everything that goes on down at the works, but I can at least try to throw a little much-needed light on some aspects of Wembley life.

The prime reason for the existence of the Wembley Studios is, as the name may suggest, studios. There are at present five operational in the block, namely Studios One, Two and Four, and two lesser stages, Five A and Five B, which for some reason best known to themselves the company prefer to keep rather quiet about.

Immediately you will ask, ‘What about Studio Three, then?’ What indeed! Answers to this interesting poser vary, but I have it on reliable authority, that it was the victim of a successful take-over bid by Telerecording some years ago.

Each studio will very probably house two, or even three, different programmes in a week; for instance, Studio One may be a mass of Ancient Greek pillars and steps for the school-children on a Monday, represent one of those ultracosy, ultra-chummy village shopping haunts on a Tuesday, and by Thursday have taken on an entirely new aspect to support Messrs Lockhart and Baxter as yet another villain is brought to justice. That the geography of each studio can change so completely, so rapidly, and so often has never ceased to amaze me; the story of the Second Palace Guard who popped out of Studio Four to wash his hands, and returned a few moments later to be handed the Key to Box 13, still raises a grim smile in Wembley circles.

I do not intend to deal individually with all the people connected with getting a show on the air studio-wise, nor to mention specific personalities. However, a brief summary may be made under the following headings:

(a) STUDIO-HANDS – they wear buff overalls

(b) WARDROBE – they wear blue overalls

(c) MAKE-UP – they wear pink overalls

(d) TECHNICAL PERSONNEL – they wear surprisingly well

(e) DIRECTORS – they wear out the Floor Manager

(f) FLOOR MANAGERS – they wear out everybody else

All these will I imagine, be self-explanatory, with the exception perhaps of (d) TECHNICAL PERSONNEL. Under this heading are to be found, on the first floor, camera control operators or racks, sound balancers and gramophone operators, and vision mixers or smooth operators. On the ground floor we encounter cameramen or videoperators, and boom operators or microphone operators. All in all, you will note, quite an operation. In addition, hovering somewhere in between the two levels, are the electricians or sparks, on whose work I confess I am completely in the dark.

Naturally in an organisation which employs all the aforementioned, as well as sundry administration staff, cleaners, livestock and actors, food and drink are a major consideration. The canteen at Wembley caters admirably for its variegated clientele, and only rarely comes up with such eccentricities of diet as ‘Faggots Lyonnaise’, ‘Lover and Bacon’, or ‘Place on the Bone’. (Originals may be seen in the Office on request.)

A popular pastime at meal breaks is to play ‘Get the Set Meal for the Set Price’, a highly fascinating game which I admit I am unable to master.

Normally the canteen service is swift and efficient, except of course, on a ‘Hippodrome’ day; then it is by no means unusual to queue for an hour, while a troupe of little Chinese tumblers, a round dozen dancing girls often disturbingly attired, the entire Norrie Paramor orchestra, three inarticulate trampoline experts from Zagreb, and a performing seal, vie with each other to obtain fish and chips, from flushed, rushed but ever well-meaning counterhands.

‘A boilerhouse attendant to Studio Five immediately, please!’ yells the loudspeaker: a reminder that we must get back to work.

As well as the studios from whence live productions originate, there are, scattered throughout the building, a variety of isolated departments, all in their different ways equally important to the smooth running of programmes.

Departments such as telecine, telerecording, maintenance, VTR – it was here that the expression ‘Someone isn’t rolling Ampex’ was first used – schedules and props.

From the last-named one can obtain anything from a signed line-drawing of the Emperor Haile Selassie to a 1 concrete replica of the Taj Mahal by moonlight, but often, funnily enough, not a dining-room chair. That’s, as someone once said, Show Business.

That’s Show Business – a phrase which sums up perfectly all that is Wembley. Enshrined in the vast hulk of, TV House, you might just as well be employed by a company manufacturing chair castors or strained vegetables, as television programmes. (In the interests of free speech I allow this gross exaggeration and travesty of the truth to be printed – Editor, TV House.)

But here at the Studios, things are very different: the smell of the greasepaint – or is it those Faggots Lyonnaise again? – is strong, you rub shoulders with household names: whether you operate a camera or an everlasting hand towel, a boom or a broom, you know from the word ‘Go’ that you’re in Show Business.

Having read so far I am certain that most of you will be eager to drop those typewriters, adding machines and promising clients, that you may find out for yourselves more of what occurs in this throbbing, vital heart of London’s Television.

If this be the case, then my labour has not been wasted: I suggest the Metropolitan Line from Baker Street – there is a fast service of the latest LT rolling stock – to Wembley Park. Turn right outside the station, proceed onwards for some two or three hundred yards, and you will arrive at the main entrance to the Studios. You can’t miss it-it’s right opposite the Wimpy.

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