Ray Lee – Page 2 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Little Red Book – Safety Regulations

Photo by Peter Poole, no reproduction without permission.

This little red book contained the BBC Safety Regulations for Engineering staff.

Thanks to Peter Poole for sharing his copy of the book.

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

Pete Simpkin: ‘Somewhere I have the big green folder containing among other things the correct balance and control settings for audio levels…. Obviously no longer issued!!’

Stuart Gandy: ‘I still have one of these too somewhere. Funnily enough I am at Wood Norton this week almost 35 years to the day that I started my BBC career there, where I was presented with the little red book!’

Alan Jessop: ‘Still got mine in the loft, you used to get a pack of new pages now and again with updated regs, you we’re suppose to replace updated pages and chuck the old ones!’

Malcolm Hickman: ‘Mine went west years ago, but I do have my Comms Data Sheets’

Ray Lee: ‘I think I’ve still got mine somewhere!’

Dave Baumber

Photo by Peter Poole, no reproduction without permission

Dubbing mixer, Dave Baumber, sadly died on Wednesday 6th August, of a brain tumour.

Dave was a legendary dubbing mixer, and one of the best in the business. He had great skills, and if he said something couldn’t be done, it couldn’t be done. Anyone working in any production team was always delighted if Dave was available to mix their programme. Dave worked originally for the BBC in London, and was head hunted, when Pebble Mill opened, to move up to Birmingham and work primarily on drama.

I was talking today to Phil Thickett and he told me a story of working with Dave. Phil, was seconded from cameras to find out more about different departments and spent a couple of weeks with Dave, in dubbing, on Boys from the Blackstuff. Apparently what used to happen at the beginning of each day of the mix was that director, Philip Saville, would come in to the dubbing area and run his hand along the entire collection of BBC sound effects on disc, and select one at random. He would then hand the disc to Dave, and give him a side and track number. The challenge was for Dave to incorporate the chosen sound effect into the final mix. Dave was extremely creative about how to use the sound effect – sometimes slowing it down or speeding it up, or even playing it backwards, but he always managed to get the effect in, and for it not to stand out to anyone listening to the mix – the sign of a real professional!

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

Peter Poole: ‘Dave was at the top of his craft. He was a lovely man and a perfect gentleman. I will never forget his help when I joined the BBC. He was an inspiration to me. He will not be forgotten.’

Andrew Godsall: ‘I worked with Dave on and off between 1978 and 1981. He was a positive, ‘can do’ person who had that great mix of positive criticism of the institution we all worked for. He was forward thinking and looking, and respected by all his colleagues. He knew about team work and knew when to work and when to play. The dubbing theatre at Pebble Mill was a creative and fun place to be around.
Around that time Dave had just moved out to the country and loved growing veg and living the Good Life. What a great guy. May he rest peace.’

Philip Morgan: ‘I was honoured to work in the record room for Dave at Pebble Mill and at Oxford Road when he came up to mix a dub there as well. He was a real professional and always helpful and (reasonably) tolerant of my mistakes and lack of knowledge. In the 1970’s film dubbing was very much a mechanical and analogue process. The bays (Perfectone) would rock’n’roll and stop and start with a “graunching” sound – the Assistant Recordist in the record room hoping that all the splices on the mag tracks held and that ‘drop-ins’ on the record track would be imperceptible. When Dave was faced with inferior soundtrack materials he would grumble that editors would go out with the same standard they came in with – but then he would somehow work his mixing magic and raise the standard anyway!’

Ray Lee: ‘I first met Dave at Lime Grove when I was in Film Maintenance, and I believe Alan Dyke was the senior dubbing mixer. Dave one day rang down to say the fuses had blown in the “Keller” a flatbed 16mm trnasport with 6 sepmag tracks and two optical tracks. It was a 50min programme due to be aired later, that day, and about half way in. I went armed with a pocket full of fuses, powered down and replaced them. Fortunately when repowered all appeared to be well, and the tracks still appeared to be in sync when the transport was relocked. If they had had to wind back to the top and resync on the leaders, there was some doubt as to whether the programme would be ready in time for transmission.’

Lynn Cullimore: ‘I remember particularly working with Dave on location in Morecambe bay. He was fun and professional. Great guy.’

Eurwyn Jones: ‘I also worked with Dave in the Dubbing theatre as a projectionist along with Stan Treasurer. He was a true professional and perfectionist and tackled heavy drama dubbing with such skill. Film editors came from different regions just to have him dub their productions. If Stan was still with us I’m sure he would agree with all the comments here wholeheartedly . It was a pleasure to know him.’

Murray Clarke senior: ‘So very sad. On my first television drama All Creatures Great and Small, Pebble Mill gave me Dave as a BOOM SWINGER – just to keep an eye on me and advise me!!! He’d been a Dubbing Mixer for years by this time. A lovely gentle man.’

Sony BVE 900

Photo by Paul Vanezis, no reproduction without permission.

These Sony BVE 900 edit controllers were used extensively in tape edit suites in the 1990s at BBC Pebble Mill.

The following information was added by Ray Lee:

‘This was the standard edit controller control panel used in all the News Betacam edit suites. Normally it controlled 2 players and a recorder, although as can be seen from the picture there are 6 source select buttons on the top right and it could control the recorder, up to 3 betacam players, and 2 other sources. The numeric key pad could be used to enter specific time codes, and there were keys to enable the capture of timecodes as edit points on the fly, and also to trim them up or down. It allowed spilt edits where pictures and sound were edited in different places as a single operation, so for instance the outgoing sound could continue with the incoming picture and then switch to the incoming sound a few moments later. It enabled rather more complex editing than could be acheived with the Betacam front panel, and could use EDL’s (Edit decision lists).The control panel shown connected to a 4U rack controller that connected to the other equipment in the edit suite. In the late 80’s and through 90’s it was the workhorse of news and regional editing.’

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

Gerry King: ‘A bit of kit I liked because it worked constantly, reliably and made editing that bit easier til computers took over.’

Pebble Mill Peelable

Two Point 4 Children, photo and design by Lynda Kettle

A special paint was developed to paint on the floor of Studio A, the television drama studio – it was called ‘Pebble Mill peelable’ and was available commercially.

The following comments were posted on the Pebble Mill Facebook Page, about this special paint, what it did, and whether it was a good thing – or not!

Raymond Lee: ‘Before Pebble Mill peelable the studio floor was painted in water based paints, which ran if anything got spilt on them. Also it required a day between productions to wash the studio floor and let it dry, before the next painting could take place. One of the downsides of of the peelable paint was that after a number of layers the floor became quite uneven, so tracking shots became increasingly wobbly! I’m fairly sure it was only used in Studio A, and not the foyer. A base coat was put on the studio floor, which involved closing the studio for a couple of days. The fumes were quite pungent. Then the special floor paint was used to create the required floor using rollers, as previously. When a new drama went in the next floor scene was just painted on top. This continued for a number of productions, and then the paint was peeled off a bit like lino back to the base layer.’

Lynn Cullimore: ‘Yes, I remember it and it was a company headed by a man called Terry Field – I would think he is long retired now. It was really rated apparently. I knew Terry as he was a friend of John Woods in the press office when I then worked. They did use it in Studio A I believe but I am not sure if they did in the foyer.’

Guy Heselden: ‘The paint used at the London studios sounds similar. It goes on with a roller and can be touched up or painted over as and when and then when required gets washed off back to the bare brown coloured studio floor, ready for a new coat of paint!’

Gerry King: ‘Pebble Mill Peelable existed for many years totally dependent on Pebble Mill studios for income. They had premises on the Hagley Road close to the Plough & Harrow. For the life of me I cannot remember the name of their MD.’

Keith Brook (Scouse): ‘It was the most awful invention ever to fall on the lovely lino floors of Studio A. The original water paint system could be sucked up immediately after the sets had been removed and the new floor painted soon after. That system had the added effect of cleaning the floor and so we were left with a smooth surface to do our famous tracking shots. Pebble Mill Peelable often had it’s thick base coat put down without the floor being cleaned first. To add insult to injury, subsequent layers weren’t cleaned off either and the build- up was horrific. Many of the camera crew carried a Stanley knife and cut out the offending items which annoyed the manager who had introduced the paint. A short lecture on camerawork shut him up until the next time he wanted to flex his muscles.’

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.’