Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.
This grab is from the title sequence of the Pebble Mill Midland Region series ‘Look! Hear! – circa 1980. It was a youth orientated show, which combined music, entertainment and fashion items. It was presented by Toyah Willcox.
Thanks to Paul Vanezis for identifying the still.
Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.
Thanks to Ian Collins for making these grabs available.
I think these stills are from a ‘Look! Hear!’ special called ‘College Rags’. ‘Look! Hear!’ was a regional teen orientated music, entertainment and fashion show, presented by Toyah Willcox. The shows were transmitted on BBC Midlands between 1977-81.
The title card and catwalk shots were taken in the concourse outside Studio A, and I’m presuming that Studio A itself was used for the interviews.
The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook Group:
Stuart Gandy: ‘Look Hear was one of the first programmes I worked on when I started at Pebble Mill in 1980 in vision ops. On one occasion I remember we needed to get an overhead shot, looking down on one of the bands. Now these days that wouldn’t be too difficult with the small size of today’s cameras, but back in 1980 when the cameras were EMI 2001’s it was altogether more involved. The camera had to be mounted horizontally on a sturdy board with a mirror in front of the lens angled downwards. The whole thing was then lifted up above the stage using four hoists. The scans on the camera were suitably switched to get the picture the right way round because of the mirror. The shot worked though, so worth the enormous amount of time needed to set it up! ‘
Keith Brook: ‘I directed that programme!! It was full of problems during the planning and even more when a strike was called for the recording day. This will be a subject for one of my missives!! The recording went swimmingly and I finished at 4 seconds before 9. It took the whole of the following day to edit and just made transmission. I didn’t watch it go out, I went to the bar!!’
Photo by Tim Savage. Marvin is on the far right!
Marvin’s credit on Track One. Grab from Keith Brook.
VT editors are a singular breed, and sometimes curiously attached to inanimate objects! The VPR2 machine in VTC was affectionately known as ‘Marvin’. Presumably after ‘Marvin the paranoid android’ in ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. Not only was ‘Marvin’ the machine, named, but he was also credited – on at least one, and possibly on more programmes, for his creative efforts. ‘Marvin’ is the machine on the extreme right of top photo – not a very good shot of him!
‘Marvin’s’ credit was on ‘Track One’ a regional programme for the discerning younger audience. The credits for VT read: ‘Marvin – Mike Bloore – Ivor the Engine’ in that order. So Marvin got top billing as well!! Keith was the director of that episode, produced by Keith Haley, with executive producer, Mike Fitzgerald. (Thanks to Keith Brook for this information, and the grab!).
‘Marvin’ may also have enjoyed other credits – possibly on ‘Look! Hear!’
Photo by John Burkill, no reproduction without permission.
The photo takes from October 1980. It looks like part of an outside broadcast set up.
The portable 2″ quad recorder, in the briefcase on the side is an Ampex VR 3000. It was a specialist piece of kit designed for field recording, when it wasn’t possible to take a full 2″ machine. Even so, it was pretty heavy to carry around – weighing 55 pounds! It was capable of high or low band recordings, used 20 minute reels, and could be powered by battery or on AC. Visit this link for more information: http://www.oldradio.com/archives/hardware/TV/Ampex/VR3000.htm
The men in the photo are John Smith (multi camera director), Peter Hodges (sitting down) and Derek Price (engineering manager).
The shoot was almost certainly for a ‘Pebble Mill at One’ programme, since John Smith was one of the principal directors on the show.
Paul Vanezis added on the Facebook page that the ‘Pebble Mill at One’ titles, with the fisheye look, were in fact recorded on an Ampex VR 3000, as were some of the opening titles of ‘Look! Hear!’.
Please add a comment if you can add any information.
'Look Hear' Badge
Look! Hear! was a regional television music and arts show produced at Pebble Mill in the early 1980s which went out in the Midlands on BBC 1. The series featured genuinely live popular music performances with a studio audience. It was presented by Toyah Wilcox plus local radio presenters Ann Butler, Liz Cotton, John Holmes and Chris Phipps, who sat around on odd-looking chairs talking about the arts.
Copies of many studio programmes in the 1970s and 80s were not kept by the BBC; they were seen as disposable. Three episodes of Look!Hear! had been lost, but fortunately presenter John Holmes had kept VHS copies of the shows, and so Paul Vanezis from the BBC was to transfer them, and create copies for the BBC programme library.
Thanks to Ian Collins, VT Editor, who worked on the series, for making the badge available.