Nick Flowers

From left to right: Sound Recordist, Electrician, Cameraman, Camera Assistant and Reporter. This was the Southern Television Brighton crew before Southern lost the franchise and TVS took over (and TVS were a bunch of jumped up barrow boys with delusions of adequacy). Thames Television (London based) had dedicated drivers, but that was understandable given the traffic problems in the capital. In the South the assistant usually drove with the spark and the cameraman sitting up front. The recordist lay across the back seat, usually in swinish slumber. I know of one soundy who had a screaming cushion, into which he used to scream his frustration on the way to the next job; I never took life that seriously.The reporter had his own car as he would take the film back to the studio for processing, while the crew went on to the next story. Very happy days indeed, strictly governed by union agreements. A book needs to be written about those times, so different in every way from work now, both technically and in working practices. And it just so happens that on my hard drive is a masterpiece just waiting for the right time to release it upon the unsuspecting world....

I don't know whether sympathy or admiration is in order here!

That is an Auricon mixer/amplifier and you can see that it is plugged into the camera. There was a recording head inside the camera for the magnetic stripe on the edge of the 16mm film, and a playback head too which sent a confidence signal back to the Auricon. That camera is a Frezzolini and it sounded like a sewing machine. The little silver box wedged under the neck strap provided 12 volts T power for the Sennheiser 805 that is gripped in my manly hand. The bearded phase I was affecting did not last long after I was told that I resembled a house fly. The camera assistant, Rick, is holding a clapper board for no real reason except self importance. We only used the board when we were shooting double system (that is, with a Nagra). When the sound was being recorded on the edge of the film it would be in sync with the picture, if Rick had laced the camera up rightly. About the only positive thing that can be said about single system is that the sound will be in sync - the quality, as you can imagine, was appalling. The great thing about shooting with film was that film stock was expensive and the reporter couldn't go on and on for bloody hours asking his questions in the interviews. Two mags were the limit for ordinary stories, and that's 20 minutes in total. Try and get a journo to keep to that now.

When I was working on a news crew in the 1980s the newsroom told us to go to the Savoy Hotel in London to record an interview with some faded starlet or other. So we duly arrived, but the hotel knew nothing about it. Assuming that the newsroom had neglected to inform them, we insisted that it had all been arranged, so the hotel gave us access to a room to set the gear up, which we did. Unfortunately one of the lamps burst its bubble and spat molten glass all over the floor, where it set light to the carpet. While we were stamping on the smoldering bits and moving the furniture to cover the worst burns a message reached us that in fact it was The Ritz hotel that we were to film in, the newsroom had got confused. Silently, smoothly we wrapped our gear and stole away giggling, I am ashamed to say, not deeming it necessary to own up to our misdemeanours. All this happened in the days when we traveled as a crew in a Ford Transit van, parking for which in London was arranged with the police by the production team. Hah! I can just see that happening now. Below is a photo of our heroes, posing in the manner of a Victorian fire brigade beside their engine. Film Crew.pdf

Re: The Third Man, I remember reading somewhere that some of Anton Karas's zither tracks were recorded in a hotel bedroom...not sure what on: would tape recorders have been available then? Probably a disc recorder. Or maybe a sound camera?? Anyone have any info on this?

All examples have minimal editing and virtually no sync dialogue, We're doing ourselves out of a job!

Joe Brown plays the ukulele at George Harrison's Celebration gig. Count the chords...rather nicely played, I thought.

Even if you haven't seen the whole film, I reckon that this final shot is one of the most moving. From The Third Man.

Things I wish I hadn't done. On Joseph Andrews we were shooting in an old mansion on a Woodfall production of Henry Fielding's book. I had amused myself by putting together a lead that took the off tape output of the Nagra IV-S, and fed back into the mixer to give an echo effect which Peter Handford, my boss, would fade in when the clapper went on to make life interesting for the editor. He and I loved little japes like that - on one scene he ask me to lay out a microphone to a flock of hens in the courtyard of a scene and he fed that into the dialogue (on a separate track) to produce wonderful background atmos. ANYWAY, after the board had gone on (with appropriate echoes on the clap) the dialogue began and to our horror (I was monitoring off tape from the Nagra) we heard a little of the echo remaining there even though it was faded down. We regarded each other with expressions of incredulity, horror and amusement. Quietly I removed the link after that and as there were further takes of that scene, it was not a disaster; but that particular take was printed. At rushes Tony Richardson the director complimented Peter on the echo saying that it brought the atmosphere of the old house to life. Phew!

I was going through some piles of old documents (having just cleared the Cretaceous layer I am entering the Jurassic: when will I ever reach the Cambrian?) I found this. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/40718050/Nagra.pdf It might be of some interest? Apologies for repetition of the first SN page - my mind wandered as I was scanning and I really couldn't be bothered to re-scan.

I love it, Mike!

Back in the 1960s I was a junior sound technician working for BBC News at Alexandra Palace. Although the details are now gone from my memory, I do recall that when news stories went sent over from the USA on the cable (although Telstar was there, its use was quite restricted) we in sound department received the audio with about a minute of tone on the front...I am assuming 60Hz, but I could well be wrong, to help us synch it up to the pictures. The pictures were sent separately, and it might be of interest to you all if I quote from a message I got recently from an old pal who was a VT technician there in those days. We had been reminiscing about the Good Old Days when he pulled this out of his memory: Yes, pictures from the USA either arrived as film or came over the Trans Atlantic phone cable. We had a piece of equipment called the Slo-scan which built up a frame from the incoming video signal which had bandwidth limitation of a few KHz. There was a film camera, looking at the monitor, which moved on to the next frame when the picture was complete. I seem to recall it took about 8 seconds per frame. Consequently the sound had to come as a separate feed which was no doubt where you chaps downstairs came in. At the tender age of 19 I was left in charge of it on the night shift for Kennedy's election in November 1960. You had to monitor the incoming video on a loudspeaker, which drove me up the wall. As far as I am aware the equipment existed until we went to TVC in1969. Needless to say it was totally unique, and probably no longer exists. At the time it seemed like a genius idea.

A regular insert in a BBC early evening programme featured the presenter spending a night in an unusual location, for instance a lighthouse or a stately home, or a haunted room. On this occasion it was Sigmund Freud's house in London, now a museum.We rolled up the following morning having had a comfortable night in a nearby hotel and found the presenter rather bleary eyed, but ready to go. The Head Honcho of the museum appeared and asked the presenter what sort of night he had had, and the reply was: "I slept like a baby". I heard myself saying: "What, you cried all night and soiled* yourself?" One of many occasions upon which I wish that I could select rewind and erase; the comment went down like a cup of cold sick, as we say in the Garrick Club. And I wonder why the work dried up. *I didn't say 'soiled', but another word beginning with S. I am really quite coarse.

External crystal sync generators for Nagra III that I used and remember (and there were certainly others that escaped me) were both by Kudelski. One was as long as the width of a Nagra III and lived in the bottom of the Nagra's leather case, and the other was a neater device very approximately the size of an SN which you just shoved down the back of the case. Two flying leads emerged from them with Tuchel plugs, one went into the accessory socket on the Nagra and the other went into the pulse input socket. I once used one of these to sync up a multitrack recorder that was recording an orchestra in rehearsal - the OP from the 50Hz generator went onto Track 8 to provide a reference and the generator was powered off a 9 volt battery. My memory is a little hazy on how we got clapper boards on to the 8 track machine without messing up the audio: perhaps the editor had to match up the multitrack audio with the audio on my Nagra, which got its clapper ID from a radio mic on the board; the clapper/loader had to announce the takes sotto voce and do a quiet clap. We should have used a QRRT!

No Bulgarians, agreed...but there have been Albanians. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/27/two-britons-plead-guilty-smuggle-albanians-into-uk

Thank you, Olle. You speak for me as well. I sincerely believe that this referendum went the way it did because a large amount of the voters did not bother to vote. I understand that Australia and perhaps other countries have a law that obliges people who have the vote to use it. If that law applied in the UK I think that the result would have been different. But there we are: we shall see what happens. I hope that in the future politicians will not look at what happened to Cameron's decision to hold the referendum and think to themselves when next a thorny problem presents itself: "Heavens, we can't ask the voters to decide on this, it is far too important. They might give the wrong result. Better to impose our will on them. We know best".

Vae Victis

Response time back to normal! Looks like the healing shelf has worked again.

That is so kind of you, Jose. I have done as the video instructed and I got a result. I am ashamed to admit that I can make neither head nor tail of what it says! I have tried to copy and paste it here without success - I couldn't even do a screen shot. I must seem a terrible dunce. It took 14 steps to get to JW and the whole event took about 15 seconds, rather like the time it takes to get a result from a normal click. I really do appreciate your helping me out here Jose. Alas, I began to get out of my depth when thermionic valves (tubes) went out of fashion and I am now rather like a laboratory rat pressing buttons for a food pellet. It works but I don't know why.

Optical telegraphs are indeed of great interest to me. Although I am more familiar with British Admiralty system that stretched from Plymouth, Portsmouth, Deal and Great Yarmouth to London (and there is a preserved tower at Chatley Heath of a slightly later system), The French (God it hurts me to say this) had a better and lengthier system stretching as far as Dalmatia. It features in 'The Count of Monte Cristo'. http://www.johnhearfield.com/Radar/Chappe.htm Here is a picture of Chatley Heath tower.

Dear Matt! You are substantially over estimating my ability - when I looked up Tracert it seemed that I had to go into Command mode (with the black screen and typewriter font), which is Terra Incognita for me. Having learned the hard way in the past not to mess with things I don't even partially understand I am content to submit myself to the slings and arrows of outrageous computers, with no more than a few muttered curses!

Thanks for the advice, Matt. I looked up Tracert and I was very confused by the result, which seemed to me best left alone by a bear of little brain, like myself! As Malcolm is getting normal results, the problem must lie closer to home. Nick.

Looks like it might be a trans-Atlantic thing, if Jamie is suffering the same problem as I am. Yes Jim, still an issue this morning (Sunday). I click on a thingy and it will take 10 to 15 seconds for the action to take place. Not really a problem, but a little irritating. It seemed to start (for me) about a week ago. There are so many links in the chain I should think that it is very hard to pin down the cause. Nick.

Don't know if it is just my coal-fired computer, or whether the trans Atlantic lines are playing up...but the site is VERY slow in loading each button press I make. All other web sites are OK. Nick.