Ray Lee – Page 8 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Telecine – Ray Lee (Part 4)

Jim Gregory & Dave Schoolden in TK in 1976

As with most of the equipment in the programme chain, TK needed regular alignment and adjustment to get the best pictures. There were daily alignment procedures, normally left until the machines had been on for at least half an hour, and long term alignment done periodically to make sure everything was working in the right range. The TK Machines used discrete electronic components, i.e. individual transistors, rather than integrated circuits.(As did pretty much all the electronics in the ’70’s). As a result temperature drift, and voltage variations, had quite a marked effect upon the performance, and so most circuit boards had quite a lot of adjustable trimmers, to enable the system to work properly at standard levels. There was a SMPTE test loop which we ran in the machine in order to correctly set the image size, linearity, and focus, and other slides for setting afterglow correctors, photocell gain, etc.

A daily line up would normally take only a few minutes, up to perhaps 15 if things were a long way out, whereas a full lineup would take more like a couple of hours.

Some parts of the full lineup required boards to be put on extenders, which meant switching off, extending the card, switching on, waiting for things to settle, then finally making the adjustment. Then the machine would be switched off again the card returned to its slot and the machine re-powered. One then hoped that when the elecronics had stabilised, that the adjustment that had been made had stayed “in range”, otherwise the procedure would be repeated until it did.

The flying spot telecine tube ran at a voltage of 30kV and as such produced some “soft” X-rays so there were warning notices all over the area round the tube, warning of X rays and High voltages.

As an engineer one needed to be aware of the dangers posed by the machinary, and there were a lot of safety intelocks designed to prevent accidents of electrocution, or being caught by moving parts, but often needing to be overidden when making adjustments or repairs.

In those days the engineering department was a totally male preserve, it took a further decade before any female engineers appeared at Pebble Mill.

Ray Lee

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

Pete Simpkin: ‘Good to see Jim Gregory in the TK picture. We were at Evesham together in the 1960s.’

Keith Brook: ‘That picture could have been taken at any time because whenever I went into Telecine, Jim was sitting just like that!!’

Mark Ray: ‘I knew Dave from Midlands Today traffic in PSCB during the 1980’s. Dave sadly passed away some years ago.’

Peter Greenhalgh: ‘Interesting note about the x-rays, I seem to remember the cabinet doors were lead-lined to keep the x-rays in?’

Telecine – Ray Lee (Part 3)

Photo by John Kimberley, no reproduction without permission.

One aspect of telecine operation involved tariffing the film. TARIF was an acronym for Technical Apparatus for the Rectification of Indifferent Film. (There were other translations). The problem was that standard film prints have too high a contrast range and too variable a colour range to translate well into TV pictures, and so some means of correcting this was required. Where films were shot specifically for TV, special low contrast prints were used, but news items on reversal film had no opportunity to be graded other than by the camera operator getting the exposure right in the first place. The TARIF unit worked in conjunction with the TK processing chain, and was usually operated by a pair of joysticks. The left hand one affected the blacks, and had green red and blue on 3 axes at 120 degrees apart, and a twist control to alter the overall black level. The Right hand one was similar but affected the whites, with the twist control setting overall signal level (or brightness).
There was a display which showed the red green and blue signals just below the transmission monitor, to help guide the operator, and a greyscale light box above the monitor to allow for both monitor calibration and a guide to the operator for overall colour balance.

The tarif control panel also had a set of rotary switches which could be set to fix a specific colour axis and then just use a master lift and gain. This was rarely used, as it could not be changed quickly and was only really of benefit where a properly graded print had a particular colour cast which needed correcting without the need to be changed. The joystick control provided the quickest means of correcting the errors, but relied on the quick reactions of the operator.

Ray Lee

Telecine – Ray Lee (Part 2)

Photo by Ivor Williams, no reproduction without permission. Photo from 1971, of the Rank Cintel 16mm Flying Spot Telecine Machine.

The majority of inserts to Midlands Today, and Pebble Mill at One were on film in those days (mid 1970s), as this was before lightweight cameras, and film cameras were at that time the best means to obtain location shots. Studio inserts were often recorded on VT then played in live quite often without editing. Film was much easier to edit then.

The process of getting a news story involved a film camera crew going out, shooting on film with sound onto tape. The tape also recorded a pilot tone from the camera to allow re-syncing of the sound after editing. The film (usually reversal film) then went into Film processing while the tape was transferred to Sepmag using the pilot signal to lock to the sepmag bay, thereby giving the sound track frame for frame correspondence with the film. The two parts then came back together in the film cutting room, where the film editor selected the parts he wanted using a Pic Sync ( basically a set of about 4 sprocket wheels on a shaft, with an illuminated mini projector on the far end to see the film images. The sepmag track (or tracks) would be on the nearer sprockets. On either side was a film bin. Often a “wild” track sound was recorded (not sync to pictures) in order to add additional effects and bridge edit points. The Clapper board was used to sync the sound and picture together with giving details of what item this was. The film editor would look for the first frame on which the clapper was completely closed, and align that with the clap on the soundtrack, thereafter the sprockets would ensure that the sound and picture remained in sync.

With news stories there was not usually time to go into dubbing, so the edited film and sound track then came straight to TK and one hoped that the edits on the sepmag would hold together.

Where time permitted a dub the sound was often tracklaid. This allowed sound to be carried over an edit to smooth the effect. In this case the sound was edited into 2 or more rolls with film spacer being used to make all the rolls the same length. Each roll would have a leader spliced onto it with the familiar sync cross and then a 12 second count down.

At the dub, the film projector and the sound rolls on the sepmag bays would all be locked together electrically so the they ran synchronously. The machines would be laced and set with the cross in the projector gate and on the sepmag sound head, and then the lock button pressed which linked everything together. Due to the nature of the electrical locking, very occasionally the sepmag bay would go into runaway, and one needed to hit the stop button fast, otherwise there was a danger that the film sprockets would be damaged, and a lot of film could end up very quickly on the floor!

Dubbing involved balancing and mixing the soundtracks together, adding any voice overs, commentary, and spot effects, and recording the whole sequence onto a new continuous sepmag track. At the end of the process there would be a single continuous sepmag track and a single edited picture track, which could then be played by TK into the studio.

The process was the same for network programmes on film, although in this case the film was usually shot on negative film, and a rushes print made. This is what the editor used to compile the required shots and soundtracks. The edited rushes were then returned to the lab for a print to be made from the original negative, using the rushes edit to align the required shots. The lab also graded the pictures at this stage to match the exposure and colour balance to some extent. This print was termed the “answer print”. This was usually the one used be dubbing, and sometimes also for transmission, although some programmes had a Transmission print made as well. The answer print basically gave an opportunity to the producer to change his mind, and for the lab to further trim the grading of pictures, although as it entailed quite a lot of expensive processes, in later years the answer print was quite often the transmission print as well.

By the time it got to TK there was usually a picture roll, and a sepmag sound roll. In a few cases (usually prints of commercial films) the sound was an optical track on the picture roll, in which case there was no separate sound. However this gave rise to problems if ever the film needed to be cut and spliced as the sound head was separated by 16 frames from the film gate so the picture would change, and the sound continue, only to change about half a second later.

In the case of news it was not uncommon for the editor to rush in with the film and sepmag rolls with very little time to get it on the machine before transmission. The one occasion I particularly remember involved me, and I think Jim Gregory, lacing the sepmag and picture rolls simultaneously, hitting the lock button and running the machine without even pausing on the “10” while Tom Coyne padded until the film hit the screen. Usually there was a little more time, and quite often we had a quick rehearsal, prior to the programme going out.

R. G. Lee

Telecine – Ray Lee (part 1)

Photo by Ivor Williams, of Pebble Mill TK 1971, no reproduction without permission.

I joined telecine (TK) in 1974 having transferred from telecine in Television Centre. At that time there were 2 Rank Cintel flying spot telecine machines. There was a 2 storey block to the rear of the main office area and Studio A. Much of the first floor level was occupied by Telecine, Video tape (VT) the Dubbing theatre, film processing and an assortment of film cutting rooms.

TK and VT shared a common area, with a corridor down the middle. There were 3 rooms /cubicles on each side TK on the left, VT on the right as approached from the main door. TK A, TKB, and an expansion area, likewise VTA, VTB and an expansion area. VTA, and B had a large sliding Marley Door between them where the common wall would have been, so that they could be worked as an edit pair by sliding the door back, or as individual machines working to separate areas, with the door closed.

Just inside the entrance, was the film transfer area, where 1/4” tape was transferred to Sepmag film in order to be edited synchronously with the film pictures. There were a number of SepMag bays some of which could be linked to the Dubbing theatre in order to dub additional sounds onto the film. This area was reorganised shortly after my arrival, so the detail is hazy.

Working in the area at that time were Paul Richards, Jim Gregory, Graham Winter, and Peter Hodges, and myself (Ray Lee). Peter soon moved on to become VCMS in Studio A, and there were a number of other people moved through TK in the time I was there. Charles Osborne, Peter Greenhalgh, Keith Salmon (who moved into News), Tim Savage, and some others whose names have been lost in the mist of time.

Ray Lee