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’.

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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.

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