Russell Parker – What Was Pebble Mill?

Merseybeat

Merseybeat was a police drama series which dates from the early 2000s. There were at least four series.

Thanks to VT editor Ian Collins for sharing these screen grabs.

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

Steve Saunderson: ‘I was DOP on a few episodes up in Runcorn.’

Fiona Stennett: ‘It was filmed in Runcorn and edited on site by Adam Trotman and John Rosser.
I tracklaid this with Kate Davis. Dave mason and Andy Freeth I think were the mixers.’

Janet Collins: ‘Ian Collins and Mike Bloore were also on site editors The exec producer was Mal Younge. Two of it’s stars were Haydn Gwynne & Leslie Ash.’

Ian Barber: ‘I did the first episodes with Michelle Fairly, later Hayden Gwynne, producer Ken Horn, originally titled Silver Command. Shot in and around Runcorn.’

Barrie White-Miller: ‘I was a regular PC ‘Extra’ way back then, had a chat with Chris Walker about Merseybeat a few months ago. The Police Station set was in Runcorn. Great memories, thank you for posting the photos.’

Anne Sweeting: ‘Celex provided alot of the extras it was filmed in Runcorn’

Daniel Klarfeld: ‘I was a runner on it for a bit’

Dave Rhodes: ‘Leslie Ash joined in series 3 – me and Russell Parker assistants.’

Paul Shuttleworth: ‘It was shot on location in Liverpool logged as a Pebble Mill production.’

Debbie Mitchell: ‘also shot in Widnes and Runcorn. The ‘police station’ was filmed in the old Golden Wonder crisp factory.’

Paul Shuttleworth: ‘I was an extra in a few eps at the crisp factory.’

Grease Monkeys

Grease Monkeys was transmitted on BBC 3 in 2003-4. The comedy drama featured Ace Bhatti, as Dave Dhillon, shown in these photos. The series tells the story of a dysfunctional Asian family in Manchester.

Will Trotter was the producer of ten episodes, and the editors included James Hey, Adam Trotman, Neil Roberts, Dan Wardle, Russell Parker and Mark Davies.

Thanks to VT editor Ian Collins, for making these screen grabs available.

Country Tracks

Country Tracks was described as an offbeat countryside guide. There were several series of the show in the 1990s, with different presenters. These included Ray Mears and Pete McCarthy. The show had very high production values, and came out of John King’s department. Many of the team who worked on the series had come from The Clothes Show, like Kath Moore and Colette Foster.

I’m not sure which series of the show this titles grab is from.

Thanks to Ian Collins for sharing the grab.

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

Adam Trotman: ‘This was my first full on VT assistant job…. moving up the ranks to actually editing the later series…. was first called Tracks….. not sure why they added Country.’

Nicola Silk: ‘I directed on Country Tracks with Pete Mccarthy. title grab could be from 1998 or 1999 which was the last series. great programme to work on. It was under John King then later Andrew Thorman. The days when you never really saw the execs. no idea why they added the word Country either?’

Russell Parker: ‘I loved Pete McCarthy, was overjoyed to get to speak with him once, and cried like a girl when I heard he’d died.’

Robin Sunderland: ‘Always enjoyed shooting for tracks. Remember filming an owl once, on a very blustery day. Owner was reluctant to let it fly, but the director persuaded him. He let it go and the wind just carried it away ….we never saw it again! Oops!’

Mahabharat

Mahabharat was a drama series which went out in 1988-90. It told the epic story of a family feud between the noble Pandava princes and their scheming cousins.

Thanks to Ian Collins for making this titles grab available.

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

Adam Trotman: ‘I tech reviewed hundreds of these …Often the quality was so bad It was impossible to pass them. I really got into it though I must say.’

Russell Parker: ‘I used to love this for its awfulness Adam, back when I first saw it as a student, knowing now what I do, I can only imagine (fairly and appropriately badly) what it must’ve been like to tech rev.’

Adam Cooke: ‘I hadn’t joined the BBC at that time but I do remember watching this on TV… I think it was on a Sunday morning. I just remember thinking how brilliantly weird the whole series was. As a young 16 year old at the time I enjoyed the whole ‘fantasy’ aspect of the show.’

Dharmesh Rajput: ‘It was a B R Chopra production that APU showed – I wasn’t working there then though. It’s one of two ancient Sanskrit epics in Hinduism. There’s lots of philosophy contained in it – though I’ve yet to read / watch it properly. However, I do remember I had just started working at BBC Asian Network and had my uher training when the cast of the series did a live show at the NEC and were hosted at a tea by The Lord Mayor. I interviewed the cast – including in Hindi which I didn’t speak fluently – and my first pieces were broadcast on radio.’

D3 and Beta SP machines

Photo by Ian Collins, no reproduction without permission.

The photo shows a Panasonic D3 machine, and an Ampex Betcam SP machine.

D3 was a 1/2 inch videotape format which lost very little information between generations, and was hailed as a great revolution. It was brought in, in the early 1990s. I remember how excited everyone in post production got about D3, because you didn’t lose picture quality in going down a generation – although some thought that it would make production staff even more lax in their editing, because it didn’t matter if you had to go round again! Ironically, the tapes did not stand the test of time well, meaning that much of the BBC archive had to be digitised. D3 tended to be an editing and delivery format, rather than a shooting format.

Beta SP was also a 1/2 inch videotape format, and was the standard tape used in the late 1980s, and early 1990s for recording portable single camera location pieces.

These machines were in post production – probably in the machine room between VTC and VTE.

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

Paul Vanezis: ‘We had three D3’s in VTE but 2 machines everywhere else. We did totally mad pre-read edits on Top Gear and The Clothes Show. But the maddest was a Motor Show Special. It was 10 minutes before TX on a Sunday afternoon in 1992. Steve Neilson was editing and dropped out of record in the middle of a pre-read edit. The look of horror on his face was something to behold. I got him to redo the edit as audio only and pick the vision up later! We did make it on air and there were plenty of examples of that going on.’

Alan Miller: ‘I believe the D3 saga has an interesting ending in that the BBC has thousands of tapes to archive but there are not enough D3 head assemblies in the world to copy them to another format!’

Adam Trotman: ‘And you had to line them up properly or you would get a hop in the picture. …’

Russell Parker: ‘They retired there, but I think this photo is either VTE or Edit 17’s machine room.’