DIRECT TELEVISION from ALEXANDRA PALACE
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by Arthur Dungate |
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DIRECT TELEVISION from ALEXANDRA PALACE
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The BBC Film Unit |
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The Lime Grove theatre had a row of three gram desks, known as TD/7s, each unit comprising
two Garrard variable-speed 78rpm turntables. The pick-up on each turntable was an
EMI type 12 with a sapphire stylus, and was mounted on a parallel tracking arm which
allowed accurate cueing of discs. | 
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If you were on the 4th floor waiting for the lift, it would often go by without stopping, but it was possible to reach inside the cage and activate the stop lever just before the lift reached your floor. One day when the Dubbing Mixer at the time, did this, and the lift stopped, there inside was the Archbishop of Canterbury wondering what was happening..... |
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The Hoffnung Concert |
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It was in November 1956 that the first Hoffnung concert was given and BBC Television relayed it from the Royal Festival Hall in London. A colleague in the Dubbing Theatre (who I will not name.....), wanted to record the music on 1/4" tape, so he asked C.A.R. to give him a feed of Television sound. Now as it happened the tape recorder in the dubbing theatre had a fault we didn't know about and sent high frequency recording bias back down the input line. Unfortunately, the engineer in C.A.R. hadn't isolated the sound feed but had tapped it directly off the main output to all transmitters..... So, whenever the tape recorder was switched on, bias went back down the line, upsetting all the line amplifiers and tv sound went rather quiet and distorted. Of course Presentation tried to compensate by bringing up the level. However, at the end of each piece of music, the tape recorder was switched off, so consequently the sound level of television suddenly roared up again to everyone's consternation. I don't think they ever found out what had happened, ---- and we kept very quiet about it..... |
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Fortunately, EMI, subsequently issuing the concert on a Columbia LP, had a separate feed. |
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Films for free In the 1950s there was a severe restriction imposed by the film industry on which films were available for a tv showing. Many notable films remaining "out of bounds" to television. However "compilations" of excerpts were allowed and Daphne Turrell produced these. On the other side of the corridor on the 4th floor leading to the Dubbing Theatre mixing and recording rooms were several small Preview Theatres and often in one of these Daphne would view a feature film to take notes of which excerpts she might possibly use. She graciously allowed a few staff members if free at the time to sit in during these viewing sessions. And so it was that I was able to see such notable films as The Dam Busters and the famous 1936 MGM film Mutiny on the Bounty. It was after running the latter film that I heard her remark that she was surprised at how good a film it was, not having seen it before. One of her compilations was of the songs and dances from the RKO Rogers and Astaire films, another the numbers from MGM's Singin' in the Rain. She also made compilations from the Paramount "Road" pictures with Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour. In the 1950s films of the 1930s and 1940s were rarely seen, except occasionally in specialist cinemas, such as London's National Film Theatre. With the later relaxing of the restrictions, films such as those could be shown on television in their entirety and so such compilations became unnecessary and were discontinued. |
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First published 1999 Second edition 2002/2003..... Page created by Arthur Dungate
In 1955 the BBC Film Unit wanted to expand. Up to then it's small staff had come
mainly from the film industry, but new jobs were advertised internally and I became one of
the first three to go into film recording.