CM2

Top Gear Rally Report

This titles grab dates from the 1990s. Rally Report was made by members of the Top Gear production team and presented by some of the same presenters as the motoring magazine show. The series reported on the Lombard RAC Rally.

Thanks to Ian Collins to making the grab available.

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

Peter Poole: ‘I did some location recording for this.’

Steve Lee: ‘I presented for a while…Denis Adams was the producer…Fun days !!!’

Ned Abell: ‘If this was the one on BBC2 we parked CM2 outside the Laguna Tandoori next to the Albany hotel, Nottingham. Off the air and sit down with chicken tikkas already waiting!!’

Adam Hartley: ‘I remember preparing some of the rushes & working with editors on some time around 1998… Also have a vague recollection of a viewer complaining because a certain rally car had the wrong engine noise synched to it on a wide drive past…’

Simon Edwards: ‘I think Jim Knights might have been involved?’

Paul Hutchins: ‘Yes Simon, Magpie crewed most of the rallies! Some great memories mate. Great team that went on to produce and film the world rally championship for years to come!! Happy days.’

Alan Jessop: ‘I was one of the cameramen on many of the Rally shows – great fun in the forest!’

CM1 and CM2 last OB

Photograph by Diane Reid, no reproduction without permission.

The photo is of the last outside broadcast from Pebble Mill, by the scanners CM1 and CM2. It was a live Sunday morning worship from Edenham. The day started with bacon butties made by friendly parishioners and riggers’ tea!

Included are l-r, Tim Konewko, Steve Pierson, John Allinson, ?, ?, Phil Wilson, JJ Moore, ?, Jack Rooke, John Brierley, Robin Sunderland, Dave Ballantyne, Colin the big strong rigger,John Kimberley (I think), Ron the rigger supervisor at the back, Rod Bach (blue jacket to keep you in sync!!), then a bunch of ‘don’t knows’ until we come to Ray Bradbury (or Bradley) in black jacket and open shirt, Ron Pickering, Pat Childs, Roger Sutton and finally Norman Macloud (sp) on the right.

(Thanks to Keith Brook (Scouse), Jane Maclean and Janet Collins for identifying so many former colleagues).

Salt on a Snake’s Tail – Come to Mecca

Photo by Tim Savage, no reproduction without permission.

This photo is from a drama outside broadcast, probably from one of the ‘Come to Mecca’ dramas, called: ‘Salt on a Snake’s Tail’. The Traffic Warden, with the rigger driver, Bob Few, is writing out a ticket for the scanner, CM2 – despite it having a parking permit!

‘Salt on a Snake’s Tail’, was transmitted in 1983, it was written by Farrukh Dhondy. Franco Ross was the director, Peter Ansorge the producer, and Ian Ashurst the production designer.

The cast included: Zia Mohyeddin, Andrew Johnson, Gill Dharminder.

The following comment was posted on the Pebble Mill Facebook Group:

Andy Bentley: ‘Last time I saw Bob (Few) was a number of years ago, I had just parked the car on Barmouth Sea front when someone shouted ‘Oi what the F*** are you doing here. It was Bob driving a coach full of passengers.’

Vanity Fair – Mark Hill

Polishing off an ice lolly on the left at the back of this still is yours truly.

I recall the ‘Vanity Fair’ shoot (with many scenes at Blickling Hall). It was toward the end of my time at Pebble Mill (fond memories) before I jumped ship to Central (ITV). I was working in G41 at the time (post production and OB maintenance). As I recall, I had been sent to Norfolk as a ‘guarantee engineer’, with the aim of minimising any downtime on the production should any of the technical kit on CM2 breakdown.

I well remember the night time scenes and trying to get the best pictures out of the Philips LDK-14 colour cameras and the Ampex VPR-2B videotape recorders that were fitted to the OB unit (CM2). I remember seeing the series on TX and wincing at the dreadful video lag evident on shots with candles in them; the noise on the low light scenes; and the occasional suspect corner registration. Not suprised that the BBC re-made ‘Vanity Fair’ as part of the move to 16:9!

Mark Hill

CM 2

Leigh Sinclair in CM2

Photos by Ben Peissell and Tim Savage, no reproduction without permission.

The lower photo shows VT Editor, Leigh Sinclair in CM2.

CM2 was an outside broadcast truck based at BBC Pebble Mill. It normally had two cameras controlled from it, and was used to record programmes like ‘Gardeners’ World’, before portable single cameras became the norm in the mid 1980s.

Mike Bloore was a VT editor who worked on CM2:

‘There was no edit controller on CM2’s VTR’s. There was only a button to start both machines at the same time and trust to luck! On ‘Gardeners World’ we often did “roll back and mix” which involved playing back the last shot of the previously recorded sequence through the vision mixer allowing the vision mixer(the person) to mix through to the live camera of the next sequence to be shot while recording the whole event on the other VTR. This enabled mixes on location to be possible with only 2 VTR’s. Then someone invented pre-read but thats another story!’

Mike Bloore