Photo by Tim Savage, no reproduction without permission.
Sometimes recording on 2″ videotape did not go well, and the programme ended up literally on the floor!
The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook Group:
Lynn Cullimore: “but you brilliant VT men always sorted it out didn’t you? Little geniuses…when often it was directors and producers who got the credit.”
Keith Brook: “I bet that was a stunt to scare the xxxt out of a director. The accompanying words were ‘Ah, I think the machine has chewed the only copy of your programme’.”
I have never seen this happen with VT tape, so I guess it’s quite unusual. It looks a bit like a mock up to me. I have however on two occasions experienced a similar lack of take up on the Cintel telecine machines. Once while I was in London where a whole 50 minute film of “Horizon” sprang out of the door when I opened it, and once in Birmingham, where again it was a 50 minute programme. However the Birmingham one was spotted about 15 minutes in, and Jim Gregory arranged to get a film bin to scoop the film into, to avoid it getting too dirty.