‘It happened, as most good topical TV features seem to happen now, on ITV’s “This Week”’ – Daily Mirror.

Fusion thought it might be interesting to learn just how these eulogies about a “This Week” item on Santo Domingo were earned. So here programme director PETER ROBINSON tells how bullets stopped him mowing his lawn.

Emotionally, at least, it all began with a satellite called Early Bird, a tune called, ‘Hey, Look Me Over’, ‘whooping’ red Indians, a New York restaurant where the waitresses didn’t wear too much, and my lawn at home in Epsom.

Early Bird was my reason for crossing the Atlantic on April 21 – to film and make technical arrangements for Rediffusion’s first programme via the satellite. It was called ‘Tonight in America’, and was transmitted on May 3, at 6.00 p.m., New York time, 11.00 p.m. in London.

‘Hey, Look Me Over’, was the title music for the show – a catchy, exhilarating tune, chosen by Cyril Bennett, the producer.

The ‘whooping’ red Indians were what we heard every time we cut to George Ffitch, on the steps of the Capitol in Washington during rehearsals – a totally inappropriate noise, funny at first, then more jarring and frightening as we came nearer and nearer to transmission time. We were connected soundwise to a Western being screened for early evening viewers! The American Broadcasting Company who provided the technical facilities did a swell job, including laying on the OB unit in Washington at 3.00 a.m. that morning, but things go wrong in the best regulated families. So we heard George’s voice only during transmission.

The restaurant with the sexy waitresses was where we went to celebrate the successful transmission of the programme in a great wash of relief and self-congratulation. It was also the place where Russell Spurr, Bryan Fitzjones and I were asked by Cyril Bennett, sober, whether we’d like to do a film piece on Santo Domingo for ‘This Week’- transmission May 13.

My lawn in Epsom was my conscience, and my therapy for the last two weeks’ work in Washington, Philadelphia and New York, the scenes of the Early Bird programme. That programme had also contained the latest news film from the Dominican Republic – a distant nebulous place, now looming large as my lawn receded.

Tuesday, May 4 – Russell took off for San Juan, Puerto Rico, the nearest airport to Santo Domingo to which the airlines now flew. I spent the day in New York buying suitable clothing for the location and trying to obtain a film crew from ABC. In the evening Russell phoned – San Juan was lovely, big hotels, swimming pools, beaches, palm trees, but Santo Domingo didn’t sound so good. Please purchase water bottles, tin plates, knife, fork, and spoon for the crew and ourselves.

Wednesday, May 5 – Bryan and I had a long conference with Jeremy Isaacs in London about the storyline and the plans for the location. Bryan was to stay in New York and do the dull and thankless job of maintaining contact with London and San Juan (whence we would send messages and exposed film), arranging interviews if necessary in Washington, and searching out historical library film. Then Jack Busch of ABC called to say that he had a crew. It had been difficult finding one – Morgan Smith (sound), Manny Longueira (camera assistant) and Ralph Mayher (cameraman).

Thursday, May 6 – at 6.30a.m. Russell and I met the crew at the naval air base at San Juan. As well as finding out the latest news from Santo Domingo and the conditions in the city, Russell had arranged with the US marines for a flight in one of their Navy Transport DC 4s. We met in a hangar together with three press men, one of whom was Roy Perrot of The Observer, and several members of the Organisation of American States, who were to travel with us. It was a self-conscious meeting. We were all tired, breakfastless and unshaven – none more so than Mayher, who had the beard as well as the stature and visage of one Fidel Castro. He wore an American field uniform and flashes on his shoulders labelled Vietnam. Apart from Russell and I none of us knew each other, or quite what we were in for. The marine colonel, Buffkins, informed us that we were going to a city where a ‘shooting war’ was going on, did we understand? Yes, we were beginning to. Here were our travel documents, which would entitle us to pass freely in the American security zone when we got there. They were important and should be carried at all times. On the one hour and 20 minute flight I tried to get acquainted with the crew, and to explain our methods of working. Ninety per cent of our shooting would be hand held, nothing would be set up or staged, and there wouldn’t be time for the usual pleasantries of light readings and sound levels. They understood. Mayher was used to it that way, Morgan Smith less so. We had three cameras, a 400-ft Auricon (for sound filming) with shoulder pod and a 100-ft Arriflex and a Bell and Howell for silent; also a small tape recorder for wild tracks. The two cameras not in current use must be kept loaded at all times, each film roll must be slated, and I would keep rough continuity sheets. ‘All righty.’ But had we got a script? No, we hadn’t got a script, but Russell would fill them in on the situation. From 1930 to 1961, the country had been ruled by the dictator, Rafael Trujillo, who, backed by the army and the big landowners, made millions for himself and his family. He was feared, hated and eventually assassinated. Chaos reigned and the rest of the Trujillo family were thrown out. A series of stop-gap governments followed, but in 1962 democratic elections were held for the first time in 30 years and Juan Bosch won a landslide victory. Bosch, a left of centre reformer, had been exiled for 25 years – now he was President. But the vested interests which prospered under Trujillo cried ‘communism’ – a military coup and Bosch was out, exiled again to Puerto Rico. A military junta took over and, in 1963 a motor car salesman, Donal Reid Cabral, backed by the army, and principally by General Wessin y Wessin became boss. On April 25, a group of younger officers, including Colonel Caamano, rebelled. They overthrew Reid Cabral and captured Santo Domingo, the capital. On the following day the Dominican air force under orders from Wessin y Wessin bombed the military barracks and the Presidential Palace. Several civilians were killed including a six-year-old child. This more than anything else probably accounts for the hatred that the Dominican people felt for Wessin y Wessin and his junta.

The biggest airlift since Berlin brought thousands of American airborne troops into the Dominican military base at San Isidro, and from there they linked up with the seaborne marines. Already there were more American service men in the Dominican Republic than in Vietnam. We had heard President Johnson in a television broadcast while we were in New York say: ‘We support no single man, or no single group of men in the Dominican Republic. Our goal is a simple one; we’re there to save the lives of our citizens, and to save the lives of our people. What began as a popular democratic revolution moved into the hands of a band of communist conspirators.’ However, the impression of the Dominican people and of the majority of the press was different. They felt that although the Americans had undoubtedly prevented a massacre they were patently siding with Wessin and the military junta against the ‘rebels’, or the ‘Constitutionalists’ as they call themselves.

The Americans had carved a military corridor which connected San Isidro airbase (where we were to land) with the Security zone around the new diplomatic quarter on the other side of Santo Domingo. This corridor cut straight through the rebel-held part of the city and the bulk of the rebel forces were penned into about two square miles of the business quarter. Already about a thousand soldiers and civilians had been killed and another thousand wounded.

When we landed at San Isidro the evidence of what Russell had said began to confront us – planes of every type; hundreds of American troops on foot and in jeeps and many others, just flown in, dossed down in the nearby hangars. We decided to try to reach the El Embajador Hotel, about 15 miles away on the other side of Santo Domingo, where we were to be accommodated with the rest of the press and television, as soon as possible. We spoke to a young US lieutenant … there would be no transport for at least two hours … OK, we’d start filming here … how about some food and a jeep in which to get round the airbase? Grab what you can – we did.

The bus to take us to the hotel was a beat-up old vehicle with all the outward appearances of a colander – it had been shot up two days before. As we moved off, Ralph saw an American pick-up, and confirmed that it was going to the hotel, jumped into the open tray in the back and filmed all the way into and through the city. The scenes were fantastic, soldiers everywhere, every kind of equipment from artillery to field hospitals, and then more troops and the occasional tank or armoured car on the shanty town street corners … the poor Dominicans trying to lead some sort of day-to-day existence, and children playing with the spent shells of yesterday’s sniping. At the hotel, the scene was equally bizarre. Surrounded by soldiers and guns, refugees, with their children and odd belongings, shacked down on the patio and in the central lobby. We went to the reception desk … there were no rooms. On to the military press office just down the corridor. We explained who we were. Yes, we could have one room for the five of us and our equipment … they would try to find others. They needn’t have bothered, Russell was in his element. Familiar faces appeared everywhere, old press friends from Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia … he’d been around the trouble spots of the world. Within half an hour he’d got promises of four more rooms by nightfall … requisitioned half a hundredweight of American ‘C’ rations and, since everyone else was drinking the hotel swimming pool, six Coca Colas – there’d be more later. As well as being an admirable quartermaster, Russell had also made his contacts to get filled in on the story on the ground. He set off into the city, and the crew and I filmed scenes in and around the hotel, ending with a military press briefing, one portion of which sounded ominous: ‘This morning at approximately 10.30 Al Burke and Doug Kennedy of the Miami Herald were wounded when they were caught in the cross fire between a US and rebel outpost. They were returning to the US line from the rebel-held section of the city when the rebels commenced firing … I want to say that all members of the American press here have repeatedly risked their lives in an effort to report fully to the people of the world all facets of the political and military situation. The tragic and unfortunate wounding of these two men should point out to everyone in the world who listens to a radio, reads a newspaper, or watches television, of the outstanding job that you courageous people are doing.’

That evening, we sat in a bedroom in the semi-darkness – the electricity flickered on and off – canning up the day’s exposed film, writing continuity sheets and deciding what to do next day. Russell had made several contacts, including one in the rebel sector, who had agreed to take us to Caamano, the rebel leader. The crew did not show immediate joy at the prospect of this. What safeguards did we have? What about the two press men who’d been shot that morning? True, but many others hadn’t been shot. First we must get a car, and write ‘press’ all over it in large letters, then, when we’d got to the rebel zone, we’d drive very slowly, five miles an hour, to the place where we were to meet our contact. Once with him we’d be OK. The crew were happier, but still sceptical. Two would go, one was doubtful. OK, sleep on it. We arranged with one of the taxi-drivers outside the hotel for a fat price to have him and his car for the next three or four days.

Friday, May 7 – we met William, our driver, at 7.00 a.m. – all of us. He drove us to the edge of the rebel sector, explained how to get to our destination, got out and suggested that we drove ourselves from now on. Russell drove, we smiled and waved out of the windows at the suspicious looking civilians and scrappily uniformed rebels standing about in doorways and at street corners. After five minutes we were lost. We decided to stop, and I got out and spoke to a rebel holding an old carbine. He looked no more ferocious than any of the others we’d passed, but he never actually took his finger off the trigger. After a short conversation in pidgin-Spanish, many protestations that we were Inglese and not bloody Yankees, he ordered two youths to come with us and show us the way. Beside the building which was our rendezvous, the two boys pointed proudly to an American jeep which had been captured the day before. The three Americans who had been in it were now prisoners, they said. We were shown up and met Russell’s contact, who thankfully spoke English. After much palaver and explanation that we were from English Television and wished to present both sides of this unhappy story equally fairly, it was agreed that we should see Caamano in the afternoon. The fact that the three members of the crew were obviously not Inglese (although Ralph had now shed his conspicuous field uniform which we had persuaded him would be a sure target for every rebel rifle) proved something of a drawback to begin with. However, once it was understood that they were merely a technical crew working for English Television, all was well. We were welcomed warmly and asked what we would like to film during the remainder of the morning. First we would like to look around the rebel sector, film whatever scenes seemed interesting, and interview our English speaking contact.

The poverty of the place at the best of times was obvious and shameful. Add to that days of accumulated rubbish piled high in the middle of every street … a grotesque charred body lying on a pavement (they couldn’t bury all the dead) … battle-scarred buildings … shot-up or burnt-out vehicles standing about like so many deserted waifs … children of 14 carrying rifles (the new-found symbols of their manhood) … starving dogs and sounds of intermittent gunfire … and you have a Caribbean city under revolution. We turned a corner near the sea-front. A hail of shots surrounded us. Our contact, Hugo, was first out of the car and into a nearby building … we followed. We were greeted by our hosts with peels of laughter … there must have been a funny side to it … and, as we were soon to find out, the population had become so used to gunfire that they no longer considered it worthy of much excitement. Several times we poked our heads out of the door in an effort to see who was shooting at whom, but without much success. We decided the situation was too good to miss, and after finding a way out of the back of the building, we clambered over a wall and into a street running at right angles to the one where the firing was going on. We were protected by the buildings on our left and could see the bullets striking another building with a Red Cross flag on it about 20-30 yards away. The marines, it appeared, were firing at some rebels in the building and one had already been shot in the stomach. I decided that this was the time and place for Russell to interview Hugo. The result was unusual – Russell and Hugo in the foreground, Hugo protesting violently that he and the other rebels were not communists but Constitutionalists who only wanted free elections and a return to democratic government. In the background there were American bullets hitting the Red Cross building, and on the corner, just behind Russell and Hugo, a little cluster of rebels firing back. Every now and again another rebel would run across the street to join them, and across the way, one over-exuberant Dominican was carrying on a private war running backwards and forwards firing from behind a tree. The interview continued for about eight minutes, including two magazine changes, and then Russell also did a camera statement crouched down on the pavement beside the rebels.

In the afternoon we went to see Caamano. We had to pass six guards on the way into the dingy headquarters, and were frisked twice. We had a drink, some dreadful pink liquid, tried to collect our senses, and filmed a few minutes of the shambolic press conference which was going on. Eventually, when it had ended, we got our interview with the rebel leader – an extraordinary interview punctuated by the personal interpolations of his Minister for State, who was also acting as Caamano’s interpreter.

News travels fast in situations like this, and that night at the hotel there was much envious rumour and gossip of our scoop of an interview with a rebel under fire that morning. We were all delighted, and felt that while we had been lucky, we had got it because we had gone it alone, rather than filming with the main pack of camera crews who stayed together most of the time. The crew were as delighted as we were, but felt that we’d pressed our luck far enough. Russell and I agreed that we seemed to have covered the rebel zone and that there should be no need to return.

Saturday, May 8 – Manny, the camera assistant, went down with ‘gyppy tummy’. Russell went off to arrange interviews with the American Ambassador and the head of the local Peace Corps. I took Ralph and Morgan filming along the corridor and in the security zone – Junta troops, US marines and strongposts, military convoys, checkpoints, a mobile Red Cross unit. On the way back Ralph sat on the bonnet of the car hand-holding the Auricon, for a 10-minute tracking shot through the centre of the town.

We met Russell at the American Embassy. The Ambassador was unfortunately engaged. OK, we’d do the Peace Force. Robert Satin, the local head, had set up his HQ at a school two miles away. He’d be delighted to talk to us, but some other time. He was on his way to the rebel zone to relieve three captured American service men. Could we go, we asked? Yes, but only three could fit in the car. It was decided that Russell, Ralph and myself would go, taking Morgan Smith’s sound gear and leaving him to guard the remaining equipment with the driver. Satin, a romantic Pimpernel figure in a large Spanish straw hat and yellow cape to make him easily distinguishable, was the only man in Santo Domingo whom both sides trusted, and who could, therefore, undertake a mission of this kind. An American himself, it would be fair to say that he was not entirely uncritical of the American position in Santo Domingo. We were soon with the rebels, but not until our papers had been checked and our purpose explained would they lead us to the prisoners. On the way, as we walked through one of the rebel-held streets, one of the leaders tried to explain the rebel cause to Russell in Spanish. Satin interpreted, and we filmed as we went. The rebels here were so courteous and obviously sincere that one could not feel other than sympathetic towards them. Perhaps my early West Indian upbringing – I lived in Trinidad till I was 14 – made for a certain affinity.

The three prisoners, two petty officers and one private would say little to us, understandably. They gave us their names and confirmed that they had been well treated. The atmosphere between them and their captors was friendly, and one of the rebels complained that the only trouble they’d had was that the little fat petty officer ate too much. We stayed there at Cuccaraca 20, the name of the rebel headquarters, for about three hours, while they tried vainly to contact their main headquarters for permission to release the prisoners to Satin. The lines were blocked, no communication was possible. We suggested sending a runner, it was only two miles away. That would mean their man crossing the security zone, a risk they were not prepared to take. Could we do it for them? ‘No’, they said, it was too risky, and it was getting dark. We should really return to the security zone at once. The prisoners would have to wait for their release until the next day. As we were filming a final camera statement outside Cuccaraca 20, a rebel arrived to say that a junta 50mm machine gun was trained on the street where we were, and that a large number of rebels were ready to return fire from a building just across the street … we really should go. We did, but after 20 minutes’ driving we still could not get out of the rebel zone, barred everywhere by road blocks. Eventually we came full circle, and the members of Cuccaraca 20 undid a road block to let us out. That really was our last visit to the rebel zone, but not the end of the excitement for the day. As we neared the American Embassy, we ran into some sniping, which caused Satin to take to a side street. At the Embassy, American troops were active, kneeling behind trees, and taking up positions of advantage. It seemed mild compared to the events of the last two days. I sat on the Embassy steps investigating a blistered toe. A medical orderly insisted on disinfecting and bandaging it. The humour of the situation did not strike him.

That night, Russell and I took stock of what we had, and decided that next day he would film the re-arranged interview with the American Ambassador, and an opening camera statement on the border between the security zone and the rebel zone. I would catch the morning plane to San Juan and thence home to London to help identify and assemble the film. Russell would catch the evening plane, film an interview with Juan Busch, the ex-president, in Puerto Rico and then follow on to London too.

Sunday, May 9 – I missed my plane, the arrangements for transportation to the airport had been changed. When Russell returned to the hotel, having completed his filming, not without further incident (during his camera statement firing had again broken out, but he’d completed it nonetheless, and so filmed what must be the most unusual camera statement on record) we agreed that we would all take the evening plane. Back in our luxurious hotel in San Juan that evening, a bath, clean clothes, and a good meal at last in the penthouse restaurant from which there is a view of the whole city.

Monday, May 10 – 7.00a.m. call. ‘Breakfast is nerved by the swimming pool.’ What am I going back to London for?

3.00 p.m. – ABC New York – where all the in negative film was processed before shipment to London – ‘It’s good quality, you’ve got a humdinger’.

6.00 p.m. – a drink and a chat with Bryan FitzJones. ‘New York’s been in the nineties, Jeremy wants me to stay here till tomorrow. I’ve booked your flight, a BOAC VC 10, take off Kennedy Airport 9.30 tonight.’

Tuesday, May 11 – 9.45 a.m. – landed London Airport. I still had a wife – or perhaps she still had a husband.

11.00 a.m. – back at the mill (TVH) … rushes at 3.00, everyone delighted, but feel flat.

Wednesday, May 12 – more rushes – rough cut – script conference – rough cut. Jeremy and I left Peter Mills and Roy Jordan, the editors, to it at 3.00 a.m. on Thursday – transmission day. They worked all night.

Thursday, May 13 – 8.00 a.m. See another rough cut. Russell back … discussion … another cut … Jeremy asks Cyril Bennett for an extra five minutes on the running time … OK, 31′ 30″ it is. Finalise picture, Russell writing commentary … recording commentary … laying tracks … dubbing … Freddie Slade has to do it without rehearsal, take first time. Somehow the him gets on the air with five seconds to spare. Thirty-one minutes later we’re on the Hollywood Crawl – roller caption in American jargon – and that’s where it all began.

Saturday, May 15: I still have a lawn – I’m mowing it – a friend calls. ‘How’s the telly?’

‘Fine.’

‘What are you working on?’

‘This Week.’

‘That’s on a Thursday, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘What do you do the rest of the week?’

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Now on a six-month exchange visit to KYW-TV 3, a TV station of the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company Inc. in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is researcher JEREMY TAYLOR. In this article, he writes about television in America and his life there. As always in Fusion, the views expressed are those of the writer and not necessarily those of Rediffusion, London.

There is one major difference between television here and in Britain. In America the competition for advertising makes programme people become more aware of markets, ratings and sales.

Philadelphia is the fourth largest market in the USA, after New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. We have three VHF stations affiliated to the three networks, NBC, CBS, and ABC, an educational channel and three UHF stations.

Since the advertising rates for each station are based on the ratings it means that we get more programmes with mass appeal and comparatively little with a limited interest. There are no plays at all now on any of the networks, and increasingly each day’s viewing becomes more and more filled by feature films. Watching television here can be one film after another, and it is surprising how many ‘B’ feature films from the 1950’s are now getting their ‘Philadelphia TV Premier’. But it really is not so surprising when you remember, for example, that WFIL TV, the ABC affiliate in Philadelphia, is on the air 21 hours a day.

KYW TV, the Westinghouse Station, and NBC affiliate, does three major news programmes a day – 12 noon, 6 p.m., and 11 p.m. The noon programme is local and aimed at the housewife, 6 p.m. is the major local news of the day, and 11 p.m. is local, national and international. At 6.30 p.m. there is Huntley- Brinkley, with NBC’s national and international news. So each night between 6-11.30 on any Philadelphia network channel there are at least one-and-a-half hours of news. The increase in the length of national and local news programmes to half an hour, and in some cases to an hour, has meant the virtual disappearance of the weekly background news and feature programme, since both interpretation and background reporting are now in the newscasts themselves. Additionally Westinghouse, and some other stations, have editorials twice a week after the local news. These are done by the general manager of the station on local issues. They also give time to opposing interests to the editorial. Despite the lack of regular weekly programmes the air is thick with network and local ‘specials’ on every sort of subject from comparing education in Britain and the USA, to politics in Pennsylvania.

The current fashion, this season, is what a National Educational Television programme on ‘Television in the USA’ called, ‘quiz shows for adults’ – the testing programme. This is a new concept in television which enables the viewer at home to take an active part in the programme. In the past three months we have been tested by the networks on our perception and observation, income tax returns, and politics.

You sit at home with the TV Guide, the equivalent of TV Times, and fill out your answers on a specially printed page. Before the programme national surveys are carried out and printed so as the test goes along you can tell if you are brighter than attorneys in Chicago, or stupider than New York cab drivers. At the end of the programme you count your score, compare it to the national survey figures and you can see instantly if you are an average American or not.

These programmes grow out of an American desire for, and awareness of, education. For example, the income tax test was held the night before the deadline for the returns this year. As part of the programme they showed a film of classes being held in High School on how to fill in returns. The questions put to the class were also the questions put to the viewer in one section of the test.

It was easier to answer the income tax questions because KYW Newsradio, for three weeks before income tax day, carried a series of public service announcements giving advice on how to fill up the return. But this is only a fractional part of what Newsradio does; it covers the news live for 24 hours a day non-stop for ever. Working there you feel guilty because you can never arrive to start the day, and when you leave there are always others carrying on working.

But at the present my favourite programme is ‘Batman’. This is the serialised adventures of disguised millionaire Bruce Wayne, and his ward, Robin, who dedicate their lives to fighting all criminals and wrong-doers. Their crusades against the evil ‘Joker’ and ‘Penguin’ and other terrible villains who threaten the safety of the good people of Gotham City make great adventures. The ‘Dynamic Duo’, Batman and Robin, are based on the comic strips of the early 1950’s and they have now become quite the rage here.

In the end America is the country where it matters to a psychiatrist what people write on a display typewriter outside Olivetti in Fifth Avenue. It is the country where computer engineers are now starting to move in and live with their machines complete with their pet poodles and alligators. It is the country where ‘What’s My Line?’ has been running for 17 years. And it is the country where, when the Huntley-Brinkley show went to colour, there was an increase in viewers with black and white sets.

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‘Three Roads to Rome’ was the composite title of three separate plays, starring Deborah Kerr and with a glittering cast including Celia Johnson, Isobel Dean, Anthony Newlands, Jeremy Brett and Alan Cuthbertson.

Associated-Rediffusion provided the full technical facilities of Studio 5, and the whole of its production resources for the 525-line video tape recording. It was soon obvious that the entire 14,000 square feet of floor would be required to house the biggest sets since ‘An Arabian Night’, including a full-sized ‘practical’ carousel in an Italian market square.

Ronald Marriott, aided and abetted by his P.A., Helen the Best, became thinner but wiser as director, while the Americans sent a colourful quartet of producers to assist him. In order of meeting they were:

enter (at ceiling height) briskly: John B. Green (Executive Network Producer) quickly known as ‘Big John’. This could be because he was at least nine feet high and came from Texas. (Why doces he never stand still? Is the weight too much for the floor for more than a minute? ‘Hush dear, he’s thinking!’)

enter (legato con moto) ‘Beau’ Goldman (bow-tied associate producer and musical adviser): ‘Say, Beau, have you met Steve Race? He will write your music.’

exit Both (Control Room left) together with scripts, stop watches, blank music sheets, frowns and a brace of P.A.s.

enter (quietly, politely, inquiringly) Arthur Penn, legendary film, Broadway and television producer and other half of COE PENN production partnership. He is small, tweedy, bespectacled, but with an air of intent. ‘You say we can have eight cameras, all on two-shot? – That’s just fine!’

exit — with Ronald Marriott to floor, in a hurry.

enter – Bold Fred (Coe), fresh from Paris and preceded by his ‘you-name it — he’s done it and at the moment he’s television adviser to the President and they don’t come any bigger than KING SIZE’ – reputation. ‘Good morning’ (formal introductions) and, quick exit to his private viewing room (with telephone to gallery) calling over his shoulder: ‘Arthur, I want to talk to you about the lighting, and another thing, that scene where we are’ … A pause, quiet descends, the gallery settles and from the studio the pleasantly Welsh voice of floor manager Eric Cooper calls for quiet. Fred Pusey’s delightful Forum and Rome hotel balcony set appears on camera 1.

The cultured American voices (how beautifully Deborah and Celia have slipped into character) engage in the opening dialogue of ‘Roman Fever’ – the first play.

It is Monday morning. Vic Gardiner’s five cameras cluster above, below and all around the hotel balcony balustrade, sections of which are being continuously moved, just in case one of the five cameras can get a better two-shot, or maybe a small trench for the crane would give … a … better …

Before we had finished in the studio some four days later we had all learned a great deal about American production techniques. Quickly we found how to live with and interpret their methods and techniques to their satisfaction, while at the same time bringing our own individualism to the finished product.

Did I say finished?

The V.T.R. Room at Wembley looked like a first feature cutting room with a world premiere brought forward a month. From this do-it-yourself drama kit, Jim Runkle’s recording team, Harry Baker in charge of V.T.R. and Theo Duka in charge of tele-recording sound, worked like beavers to cut together a rough working copy from the dozens of ‘takes’ and bits of tape in order that the producers could have some idea of the production as a whole on the following day. (Perhaps even a timing.)

This was done on Friday and Saturday while Steve Race, with copious notes, a buzzing head and the prospect of a heavy week-end was charged to write the incidental music by Monday morning’s 9 o’clock band call. The American technique for major productions is to record the music and any effects required, post-sync sound, as in feature films. This was an innovation in live television production as far as we were concerned and considerable knitting of facilities was required to achieve it. It was, as far as I know, the first time that the techniques of live television, film sound and video tape had all been combined in this way.

On Monday morning, we assembled in Studio 5 to view the final cut working copy and to record the musical backgrounds required at intervals throughout the 90-minute production. Tony Bristow kept a firm hand and his urbane disposition visible throughout and the session was successfully concluded just as the last over-coated musician left the studio.

With, it seemed, an ever-increasing kit of parts, we ascended on the Tuesday morning to the dubbing theatre at Television House where George Willows and his crew bade us welcome, while Freddy Slade sharpened his chinagraph and his wits for the master mix. Sound tracks wild and sound tracks sync were combined to sound track master and while a fascinating series of numbers flashed by on the projection screen, the V.T.R. picture from Wembley appeared, as if by magic on cue from the dubbing mixer. (Sheer fantasy this!) Tracks were moved, cut, laid, wiped, stretched, blooped, padded, blanked and generally administered by ace cutter, John Butler, who was able to remove ‘dead air’ not by a fan, but by moving music tracks to cover dialogue pauses.

The prospect of replacing the theatre carpet was causing George Willows some alarm (Why can’t John B. Green sit down?). Ronald Marriott was down to his last set of finger nails and now had pins and needles in both legs. Faces various, looked in, paled, and left rapidly; but by Wednesday afternoon, it looked as if we had won. Thursday saw the happy wedding of track master sound, to track V.T.R. vision, while Friday morning saw the first-off replay of the entire production to most of the principals and cast.

The quality of all aspects of the production were the subject of very considerable praise from the Americans and the occasion for not inconsiderable sighs of relief from us. The impeccable lighting of Bob Gray gave Don Furness, in charge of racks, the opportunity to produce some of Studio 5’s finest pictures. During the production it was fascinating to see how the expert make-up, under the direction of Mary McDonough, coped with the changes in age and character of Deborah Kerr, who although rarely off the set for more than a few minutes at a time gave a shining example of patience and sweetness which charmed everybody. Her casual asides during the inevitable moments of tension reduced the floor to near hysteria on several occasions.

Much of the great success of this operation was due to the enormous co-operation given by everybody and the mustering of Associated-Rediffusion’s production facilities under the supervision of programme coordinator, Lloyd Williams. A complicated operation? Expensive? Time-consuming? Yes, possibly all three. But for first-class quality and guaranteed results on a national network where these factors count above all, come to Associated-Rediffusion, as ABC did.

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