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Old 22nd Nov 2017, 8:03 pm   #21
PaulM
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Default Re: 1973 Colour TV showroom

Alan, thanks for that - I'm proved wrong, but it must have been very unusual circumstances. A cooked-up deal between Currys and ATV by the sound of it as the cost for a simple scene in a budget comedy such as that would have been horrific! The rigging time/cost alone would have been shocking relative to a studio shoot for the same scene. Presumably it was EMI 2001 cameras?
www.golden-agetv.co.uk/equipment.php?ExhbtID=44

The first picture still looks like film to me - were there any film cameras too? Hard to tell from a still like that but it has that 'flat' look of 16 mm film compared to tubed camera and videotape.

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Old 22nd Nov 2017, 8:37 pm   #22
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Default Re: 1973 Colour TV showroom

re: 1973 colour tv showroom

Hi PaulM, From looking at your link the EMI 2001 camera could well have been the ones used here. Did not see any 16mm film cameras that day. I agree this was proberbly a publicity stunt between Currys and ATV. It certainly pulled the crowds in.

Alan
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Old 22nd Nov 2017, 8:52 pm   #23
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Default Re: 1973 Colour TV showroom

The costs may not have been as great as all that - an ATV scanner may have been idle and it was just a question of squirting the video back to ATV MCR. I suspect it would have been something of an experiment to assess the practicalities.
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Old 22nd Nov 2017, 8:55 pm   #24
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Hello Alan, if you click on that picture you will see one on a studio pedestal (Vinten HP 419) and me alongside in period costume! I would suspect that they just had the cameras on OB tripods/skids rather than studio gear. It could have been a ride-on OB unit like this:
http://www.golden-agetv.co.uk/equipment.php?ExhbtID=27

Do you recall at all?

Ha! I bet it didn't half pull the crowds in! Not sure what the IBA would have had to say about such a stunt as this - there were some very strict rules about 'in programme' advertising and features, disguised or not. Trying to make it look anonymous to the good people of Birmingham was probably never going to work and they knew it.

Having one of those cameras on the pavement would have been a real hazard, I would have thought. A film camera would have been rather smaller and much less tricky.

I do recall a stunt similar to this that I helped a (late) friend of mine called Alan Watson pull in Scunthorpe High Street in the early 1970s. That was outside a branch of Telefusion and we had one of his Pye MkIII cameras (as in the ride on pic) piped through to every TV in the shop! This was under the British Amateur Television Club banner and despite it being black and white we caused a massive disruption to Saturday shopping! That was just closed circuit, so I can imagine the effect that this had!

What an interesting thread this has turned into!

Somebody had to pay for this - possibly not the programme budget, but it would have been a large bill somewhere, whether it was properly accounted for or not.

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Old 22nd Nov 2017, 9:51 pm   #25
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Default Re: 1973 Colour TV showroom

Wow, how amazing that Alan was actually there on the day of the recording and what an extraordinary coincidence that he should see this thread and share his memories. Thank you Alan!

And Paul M, yes the shot outside the shop is most definitely on videotape. It cuts to an interior view of the front door as the actor comes inside and the camera pans to follow them. It does look like the 'manager's desk' is just a simple prop plonked by the seating in the viewing lounge. I guess Currys would have benefited from the crowd-pulling spectacle of having ATV colour cameras in the shop right next to their colour tv display.

Steve
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Old 22nd Nov 2017, 9:52 pm   #26
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Default Re: 1973 Colour TV showroom

I get a "Bad Gateway" error message when clicking the link in #24. I have tried several times.
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Old 22nd Nov 2017, 10:04 pm   #27
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Default Re: 1973 Colour TV showroom

Try this:

http://www.golden-agetv.co.uk/equipment.php?ExhbtID=27

That seems to work here, but our website does seem a bit flaky tonight - no idea why, host issue probably or perhaps the hotel room Wi Fi I'm working from . . .

If all else fails, go to the website at www.golden-agetv.co.uk and put 'Vinten OB Dolly' in the search box and click on 'Equipment item 1'.

You can click on the picture for a larger view.

Best regards,

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Old 22nd Nov 2017, 10:41 pm   #28
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Default Re: 1973 Colour TV showroom

Quote:
Originally Posted by AJSmith625 View Post
Re: 1973 colour tv showroom.

"Hope this has been of interest.
Best wishes Alan"
That's marvellous, Alan - yes it added a real sense of 'depth' to the entire thread - thank you!
Best wishes
Guy

( P.S. all three links worked OK for me )
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Last edited by Nymrod121; 22nd Nov 2017 at 10:46 pm. Reason: post-script
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Old 22nd Nov 2017, 11:07 pm   #29
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Originally Posted by Richard_FM View Post
The BBC used portable OB cameras when making the Dr Who story The Sontaran Experiment in 1974.
I remember one of the early Dalek episodes showing Daleks moving over a totally deserted Tower (Or was it London) bridge to give the impression that London had been deserted. When asked how it was possible to get the street so empty for the filming the reply was simple. It was shot at 5am just after daybreak.

I doubt even at 5am the streets would be so empty these days in the area to pull the same trick.
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Old 22nd Nov 2017, 11:10 pm   #30
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Default Re: 1973 Colour TV showroom

Depending on how things fell into place, it could have been the case that they were already planning a more ambitious location filming project, and a throwaway scene in a low-budget entertainment show was an opportunity to experiment a little with not too much lost if it went wrong.

Central certainly had a few bob to chuck about pushing the bounds of possibility. One little scene in a comedy programme might well have been a misuse of advertisers' money; but if there was already a future idea floating about that would have required filming somewhere like a department store, then it would have been easy enough to slip it in on the back of a feasibility study into the logistics.
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Old 22nd Nov 2017, 11:42 pm   #31
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Default Re: 1973 Colour TV showroom

Putting my cynical historian's hat on over this, I'm actually beginning to think that it was a pretty contrived, planned and possibly risky (I'm thinking IBA) ploy to advertise colour TV to the masses in the ATV area. '73 was the colour boom and the industry (both broadcast manufacturers/programme makers and set-makers/retailers) were on a roll. After years of huge expense rolling out colour in the UK, it was pay-back time!

Who could blame them (ATV/Currys) for capitalising on the public's desire for that 'must have' item of retail consumption? I wonder if there's anything in the ITA/IBA records about this (if they survive)? The plot in the comedy seems to feed the commercial world's need - accident, design or just innocently topical?

I must locate a copy of the DVD - it's a wonderful example of companies feeding their own mutual interests. Nothing wrong with that really - but what's in the archives in terms of corporate memos, I wonder? With regard to the production method, experimentation as a motive is possible, but it doesn't take much imagination to work out that EMI 2001s on hundreds of yards of G101 isn't very economic (or even sensible) for a low budget comedy produced on a busy high street. So why, unless it was a commercial exercise? Anything in the local papers from the time, I could ask?

I don't recall the programme at all (we had Anglia TV and then later Yorkshire TV from Belmont) - was it ever networked or was it just a parochial ATV production?

Best regards,

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Old 23rd Nov 2017, 1:15 am   #32
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Default Re: 1973 Colour TV showroom

Someone correct me if i'm wrong, but assuming the three programmes shown on the TVs in the shop were genuinely off air, it would have been impossible to gen-lock a 16mm camera to more than one programme at a time. It was this alone that led me to believe it could not have been shot on film, even though I knew that video drama location work was almost unprecedented.
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Old 23rd Nov 2017, 9:01 am   #33
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Default Re: 1973 Colour TV showroom

Hello Graham,

Up to point, that problem would apply equally to using video cameras - they also need to be locked. The Plumbicons in the cameras are sluggish, so don't see too much if not locked, but you do still see 'pulsing' of the image if it's not. Film cameras, of course, produce a solid roll bar.

At that time the three channels ran a third of a frame stagger between them so they would have been locked, albeit not quite together! I can't see that it would have been a show-stopper as to what was actually on the TVs (other than the ATV logo on prime view!). It wouldn't have been a major issue and it could have been 'fixed' if it really was. My conjecture about film was just for the opening exterior shots - the use of video was not in doubt inside. It's just whether it was a studio set up or in the actual shop.

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Old 23rd Nov 2017, 10:38 am   #34
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Default Re: 1973 Colour TV showroom

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Originally Posted by MonochromeMarc View Post
Brilliant post Steve, some nicely captured screen grabs there
By the way have a look above the black and white portable stand on pic 7 'rrys' of the Currys logo.
That green triangle with 'Portable TVs for the Caravan'.
The first set looks like a GEC 2114 Junior Fineline 240AC / 12V DC.
We had one as a bedroom TV. The bridge rectifier went, or one of the diodes causing a noticeable hum bar on vision. I used four BY127, though I think I ought to have used something higher rated.

Those radiograms as well, that you can't give away nowadays..............
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Old 23rd Nov 2017, 11:32 am   #35
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Default Re: 1973 Colour TV showroom

I note the comment on "those radiograms", anyone looking at the online auction sites will get a shock to see what people are trying to sell these for - £300 or more, working or not.
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Old 23rd Nov 2017, 2:51 pm   #36
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Default Re: 1973 Colour TV showroom

I was working in Curry’s in 1973 as a school holiday job and some of the items in the film are exactly the same as we had on our shelves in Coventry. Indeed the shelves and the multi-coloured cardboard around them look very familiar. We had the same gold stars and handles on our store’s doors as well. Coventry Prencinct branch.

In those days we received commission on everything we sold over £30 on a sliding scale. Selling a colour TV would get you up to £3.50 each, which is more than I earnt on a Saturday! I don’t remember much of a hard sell by us though, if a customer bought a TV it was because they wanted one in the first place. Of course we may have been tempted to push the higher priced ones....

Peter
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Old 23rd Nov 2017, 6:27 pm   #37
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I note the comment on "those radiograms", anyone looking at the online auction sites will get a shock to see what people are trying to sell these for - £300 or more, working or not.
What the seller asks and what they get are two very difference things. Most go unsold.
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Old 24th Nov 2017, 9:45 pm   #38
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Default Re: 1973 Colour TV showroom

I've heard of the programme but never saw it originally. Surprised for an ATV series the original colour VT transmission tapes have survived seeing most, if fortune to survive in any form, survive as black and white export film recordings such as, "Timeslip", "Tightrope" and "Escape Into the Night" as examples.

I wonder if the James Paul McCartney special from 1973 still exists. Remember it very well watching on a piano keyed tuner Ferguson 1500 chassis set that year.

Back on topic: A 1971 episode of "Public Eye" features a TV showroom with sets displaying Test Card F.

There's also the colour "Coronation Street" episode showing Hilda Ogden polishing her colour set, looks like a GEC 2028 type, displaying the Granada Television Test Card "F".
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Old 24th Nov 2017, 10:16 pm   #39
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Default Re: 1973 Colour TV showroom

What episode might that be then?.


Cheers
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Old 24th Nov 2017, 10:24 pm   #40
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Default Re: 1973 Colour TV showroom

The entire first episode of this series has been uploaded to youtube, and features a B&W tv in the kids' lounge showing some programme. (someone care to name it ) When they cut to the street outside, it's on 16mm.

At least the video hasn't been 'filmized'.
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