Paul Vanezis – Page 5 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Memories of Peter Snow from Paul Vanezis

(Here are some memories from Paul Vanezis of Pebble Mill film editor, Peter Snow who died recently).

You know, I knew Peter so long ago it’s weird looking back and remembering the man. He always seemed older than he was for some reason. I can tell you he was a very accomplished film editor. But like many of the editors in the early days of portable single camera, he adapted to videotape editing faster than some of the VT guys who started as engineers. He had a pony tail and we would often meet up in the canteen for lunch at 1pm with everyone else. In those days, lunch was lunch. If you worked in VT you’d spend it in the bar. If you were Film Unit, you’d be in the canteen from 1pm, have lunch and then have a walk over in Cannon Hill park (spending Friday lunchtimes in the bar).

I used to race Peter up the main stairs at Pebble Mill; it was his idea. He reckoned that if you started suddenly, raced as fast as you could and didn’t stop until you reached the top, you wouldn’t feel tired. He was right… the tiredness in the legs kicked in around 3pm if you weren’t careful (and there was no way I could do it if I’d been in the pub the night before). It of course we were first in the queue for the best the canteen had to offer…

One thing that he worked on which I think people have forgotten about was the Kegworth air crash coverage. At the time flight safety was very much in the news because of the Lockerbie crash three weeks earlier. I am sure Peter told me that he was working at BBC Nottingham in news at the time (January 1989) and he had to travel to the crash site, walking over fields so he could retrieve tapes from the cameraman; or he was with the cameraman and had to walk the tapes back. The M1 motorway was shut, the tail of the plane had clipped the ground as it tried to make an emergency landing at East Midlands airport.

I recall he was very intelligent, well spoken with a dry sense of humour and a really very nice man.

Paul Vanezis

The following comment was left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Liz Munro: ‘What a Lovely tribute to Peter. He was a very accomplished editor, softly spoken, and lovely to work with. I’d arrive in the edit suite completely frazzled from a mad dash down the M6 to get the lead story to air. He’d be a sea of calm and all smiles.’

Nagra – photos by Ian Collins

Photos by Ian Collins, no reproduction without permission.

Video editor Ian Collins took photos of various pieces of post-production technical kit before the fixtures and fittings of Pebble Mill were sold off in auction in Autumn 2004.

These photos are of a Nagra audio recorder. They were used in the PSC (portable single camera) edit suites until the 1990s. They were very rugged and reliable.

Please add a comment if you can add information about how the Nagras were used.

The following comment was made by recordist Murray Clarke about location Nagras: ‘Of course the Nagra 3 and 4s were the standard sound recording machine for location recordists for many many years before DAT became more common. I bought my mono Nagra 3 in 1971 for a cost of around £3200. I took it up to Yorkshire for a couple of episodes of all Creatures Great and Small – and it rained solidly for a fortnight!!!. My ‘over-qualified’ boom op and assistant was Dave Baumber, then the Dubbing Mixer at the newly-built Pebble Mill studios.’

Christopher Hall adds the following information: ‘This is a Nagra T. T for twin capstan. They had a computer controlled synchroniser which could chase timecode from the VT machine in an edit suite at high speed. I went on a factory course for these in the late 1980s. We spent a whole day learning how to repair the motors, and when we asked how long they usually lasted for a discussion in French and German revealed that they didn’t know because none had stopped yet!’

Paul Vanezis: ‘I tracklayed 10 episodes of ‘Chalkface’ and 8 episodes of ‘Specials’ on a Nagra T…’

Peter Poole: ‘This must be the finest tape recorder ever made. I spent ages trying to get film unit to buy one for the transfer suite. It never happened. But after seeing the price I could see why!’

Pete Simpkin: ‘Totally agree with you Peter……I used one to great effect recording a nightingale for a Radio Birmingham programme in the 70s. The standard reporter’s Uher was not up to the job and the simple version Nagra gave level control, mixing of two mics AND ‘off tape’ monitoring!’

VT E – photos by Brian Watkiss

Photos by Brian Watkiss, no reproduction without permission.

The photos are of a studio recording in VT E between 1990-2. Editor, Nigel Evans is on the left, then Simon Bennett, with director, Philip Thickett on the right. You can see the machine room through the window on the left hand-side.

The second photo also shows Nigel Evans in VT E. The recording looks to be of a cookery programme, possibly ‘Hot Chefs’. You’ll also notice an owl soft toy on top of the monitor. The owl still exists somewhere. The owl has two eyes, a red and a green one. If it lit up red it would signify a non PAL edit IIRC!

Thanks to Paul Vanezis for adding information about these photos.

Casualty Saved My Life – interview with Janice Rider

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

This interview with costume designer, Janice Rider, is about the 2004 documentary ‘Casualty Saved My Life’. The programme told the stories of viewers who used information they’d learnt from the medical drama ‘Casualty’, and put it into practice, saving the life of themselves or others. The documentary used first hand testimony, reconstructions, clips and behind the scenes footage from ‘Casualty’.

Janice worked on the reconstruction of a motorcycle crash, which resulted in the rider losing his leg.

The directors on the documentary were Mark Scott and Paul Vanezis, the researchers Sophia Wollschlager and Caroline Ossowaskia. Sarah Costigan and Jo Gray were the production assistants, and I was the producer.

Vanessa Jackson

Small Town Gardens

‘Small Town Gardens’ was a garden design series which ran for three series, from 2001-3. The first series was produced by London and presented by Rachel De Thame, the programme was then handed over to BBC Birmingham. The second and third series were produced at Pebble Mill.

I really enjoyed being the series producer, they were great series to work on. The producer/directors included Mark Scott, Kate Dillon & Paul Vanezis. Sarah Wilkin, and Emily Rusted were researchers, Sarah Costigan and Joanne Gray were PAs.

The second series was presented by garden designer Joe Swift, with the final series presented by James Alexander Sinclair. The premise of the show was to re-design small urban gardens, employing professional garden designers, taking them and the garden owners on inspirational visits, and shopping trips.

The first photo is of Joe Swift with garden designer Annie Guilfoyle, who designed a garden in Brighton for the series.

The second photo shows garden designer Andy Sturgeon with one of the contributors and Joe Swift. The garden Andy designed was in East Sheen, in West London. Both photos date from 2002.

The series went out on BBC 2 at 8pm on Friday nights in autumn 2002.

Vanessa Jackson