User:Keoka/sandbox

BBC Film Department (Main title)

The BBC set up the BBC Film Department in 1955 having purchased the Ealing Film Studios just off Ealing Green in West London. At that time film was the television storage medium of choice although 2 inch videotape had neen in use for some years in the BBC Television Centre and elsewhere in the BBC.

Film was an easy medium with which to source programme material and editing film was much more straightforward than editing videotape. Film cameras were much more portable that video cameras and were self contained, needing no ancillary equipment to record the output. Handheld cameras were available and new types which were "self blimped" - in other words which needed no sound absorbing cover - were developed by various manufacturers such as ARRI, Éclair and Aaton. Simultaneous sound recording was thus possible on location, and in conjunction with portable tape recording manufacturers such as EMI, Perfectone and Nagra, "sync pulse" recording was developed with which simple quarter inch magnetic tape could be played back exactly in step with the camera's sprocketed film, frame for frame.

Thus a small film crew could be deployed, often at short notice and including overseas deployment, which could source TV programme material of a quality to match the electronic TV output of the more sophisticated television Studios and Outside Broadcast Units. An era of television film was launched which lasted three decades before portable videotape became as flexible a medium for shooting and editing as film cameras and sound.

BBC Film Department

Film Department Operations

Film Camera

When the BC film department was first formed, 35mm film was the only gauge which was considered professional and of high enough quality for TV use. In the 1950's and into the 1950's a common use of film was for exterior drama "inserts" which were played into television productions in Television Sentre studios which were either live or recorded on 2 inch videotape.

blimped cameras huge two persons lead lined self blimped handheld

Zoo Quest (qv) was an early documentary series which hastened the development of mobile filming. Initially it used a camera which had no soundproofing which made it impossible to record clean sound with the picture. Initially filmed on 35mm, zoo Quest pioneered the use of 16mm for documentaries with the Camerama Charles Lagus which greatly reduced the cost of film stock and increased the practical running time per camera roll to 10 minutes. david Attenborough became the in-vision presenter of zoo quest and introduced and described the wildlife using synchronous sound.

(List of early cameras)

Blimped cameras

A Bolex H16 REX-5 clockwork 16 mm camera

text

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic-range_imaging

Self Blimped cameras

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_documentary