2″ Videotape – What Was Pebble Mill?

Early editing of drama on videotape

Early drama editing on videotape from pebblemill on Vimeo.

The video above was recorded by Colin Fearnley on 23rd November 2004, which was the last night of editing at Pebble Mill before the building closed. In this video, Steve Critchlow talks about the early editing of drama on videotape. Thanks to Colin for having the foresight to record the editors reminiscing amongst the emptying of champagne flutes.

The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Keith Brook (Scouse): ‘It’s Steve Critchlow. He saved my glittering career a few times. He moved into management in the early 80s and was my boss after I went back to cameras.’

Ray Lee: ‘Sadly now deceased. He and John Lannin pretty much were VT at Pebble Mill in the early 70’s. John amazingly is still alive and I was at a lunch gathering with him yesterday, reminiscing about old times.’

Herbie Donnelly: ‘A gent of the first order and a pleasure to deal with.’

IVC9000 slant track 2″ VT machine

Photo by John Burkill no reproduction without permission.

This photo from 1976 is of a 2″ videotape machine, a IVC9000 machine.

Ray Lee added the following information: ‘I believe this was the IVC9000 slant track which was used extensively on Pebble Mill at One. Unfortunately as we only ever had the one machine, much time was spent transferring clips to the Ampex VR2000 format and back again, as although both used 2″ tapes, the formats were completely incompatible.
None of the early VT’s had pictures in shuttle. It was not until the 1″ C format VPR2′s came into use around 1976-77 that it was possible to see pictures while cueing.’

1″ Videotape Machine

Photos by Ian Collins, no reproduction without permission.

The photos are of a 1″ Videotape machine, in action.

1″ videotape was introduced in the mid 1970s, and was the broadcasting norm in the 1980s. 1″ machines took up much less space than the earlier Quad machines, and required less maintenance. You could also spool in vision on them, which was a great advantage when trying to locate a particular clip.

The following comments were on the Pebble Mill Facebook group:

Christopher Hall: ‘It is an Ampex VPR-6, 1″ C Format machine. VPR-2 machines were probably more widely used, and Sony BVH- 3100 machines were the last ones bought. ‘

Mark Davies: ‘Looks like VTF/MFA to me’

Alan Miller: ‘It’s funny to think how much we welcomed the arrival of the first “C” format machines. I seem to remember that we all thoughtt that at last VT could compete with film editing?’