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Nick Flowers

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Posts posted by Nick Flowers

  3. Royal Rota

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    When Prince Charles went off to Australia during his youth - I think he was attending a finishing school there (!) - one of the headlines over in the UK was 'Pommy Charlie's noo awa". [cf. The Scottish song 'Bonny Charlie's noo awa].

    Aeroplanes containing Royals above a certain rank have what is known as 'Purple Air Space' all around them and no other aircraft is allowed anywhere near - this in addition to the usual safety area. We were filming him in Hull (sniggering, Molesworth?) and afterwards our 'plane was held back quite a long time until his had cleared the area. Actually, he seems to be OK. Unlike his brother Andrew.

    I seem to remember that when the Queen is either ascending or descending stairs photography is limited in case flash photography causes her to miss her step and go a*** over t**.

  4. Royal Rota

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    In the UK, when the Queen or any senior member of the Royal Family appears in public in an event that the press think is newsworthy, in order to avoid an unseemly scrum of vermin, one TV crew is selected to cover the event and their footage is made available to all outlets. I have been on a Royal Rota, as it is known, a few times and sometimes it is an interesting experience. One common thread that runs through nearly every time is their tardiness. If Punctuality is the Politeness of Princes, our lot are a singularly ungracious bunch and the Heroes of the Press, who always turn up early, are left cooling their heels for a long time past the scheduled time. Protocol is quite strict. In a line up of worthies being glad-handed by the Monarch, it is preferred that the recipient of Royal Favour be featured rather than a close up on Her Majesty; this frequently does not happen as it is more newsworthy to have a close-up on the Queen in case SOMETHING happens. Likewise you mustn't get the boom in close enough to hear what is being said, and I have been ticked off by the Royal Minders for getting the 416 too close to the Royal presence.

    There was an occasion when the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was doing a tour of the Cinque Ports (foreigners look it up) in her capacity of Lord Warden. We were the Royal Rota crew (camera, sound and sparks) and we were being very careful not to intrude. During the morning a flunky told us that the hand lamp our spark was using was dazzling HRH. He extended the pole to get it higher and all was well. In the afternoon we were backing down a corridor ahead of her and as planned we turned off down a side corridor so the Royal party could continue on. To our great consternation she turned off and followed us. We were gibbering with concern that we had done the wrong thing but she addressed Gerry, the spark, to thank him for making the hand lamp higher. Rather nice.

    The final part was when she left Dover harbour on the Royal Yacht Britannia. She was standing on the rear platform and we had gone out to the end of the harbour wall. There was a Marine Band playing Sunset; the sun was setting behind the white cliffs, and Her majesty turned and waved to us and mouthed Thank You.

     

     

     

  9. On My Radio

    in The Daily Journal

    Posted

    Thanks Rachel - so nice to know that one is not just chucking stones into the tar lake! This below is Vaughan Williams arrangement of Old 100th. I believe that this arrangement was composed for Queen Elizabeth's Coronation in 1953. That reminds me of a very interesting book, A World in your Ear by Robert Wood, now I fear out of print, written by the Chief Engineer at the BBC back in those days. If you come across a copy it is worth snapping up. Here's the blurb:

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/40718050/BBC%20Engineer.pdf

    And here's All Creatures... I love that between the pomp and glory of the first and last verses, there is quiet beauty of the choir and the trumpet in the middle .

     

     

  10. Please Post SIlly Things

    in The Daily Journal

    Posted

    An Interesting Fact about Varley (see above). This is from the Dictionary of National Biography:

    Varley had two sons and two daughters with his first wife, Ellen Rouse, whom he married on 4 October 1855. On returning from a trip abroad on cable business, Varley found that she had gone off to live with Ion Perdicaris, a wealthy Greek-American, whom she had met at Malvern in 1871. After the divorce was granted in 1873, she and the children settled with Perdicaris at Tangier. In 1904 Varley's elder son, also named Cromwell, was kidnapped along with Perdicaris by Moroccan bandits, precipitating an international incident before both men were released unharmed. 

    Varley's initials, C.F., stand for Cromwell and Fleetwood. His parents were convinced that they were descended from Oliver Cromwell and Major General Fleetwood, both having starring roles in the English Civil War. He was brought up as a member of an obscure religious sect that also counted among its members Michael Faraday.

  11. Please Post SIlly Things

    in The Daily Journal

    Posted

    I was doing a little trawling about the history of the electric telegraph, and on this page

    http://www.mikeholt.com/mojonewsarchive/All-HTML/HTML/Grounding-and-the-Modern-Telegraph-System~20050607.php

    I came across this

    Varley - A unit of electrical resistance prior to the use of the unit Ohm. The Varley was later determined to be equal to about 25 ohms. The unit was named for C. F. Varley, an engineer working for the Telegraph Company in Great Britain, who devised a method of locating faults by comparing their resistance to that of good wires http://www.sizes.com/units/varley_unit.htm and http://sd.znet.com/~cdk14568/mpet/chap10.html#para189.

    and in particular this

    http://sizes.com/units/varley_unit.htm

    So in future I shall of course be referring to a 24 Varley line instead of a 600Ω line.

    PS: More Varley fun and frolics:

    http://www.mikeholt.com/mojonewsarchive/GB-HTML/HTML/That-25-Ohm-Rule-Revisited~20050505.php

  13. Camera crews friendliness indirectly proportional to number

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I thought that it was just my own experience, but recently another soundy made the same observation to me: that when working with just one camera person on a small production, they are helpful and friendly; but as the number of people in the camera department increases, so their friendliness is replaced by a distant, selfish and dismissive attitude to the sound department. Obviously there are notable exceptions to this, but very generally this seems to me to be the case. Has anyone else noticed this? All other factors put to one side, I had far rather work with one camera person on a docco, than with a camera crew of 3 or 4 on a drama or feature.

  17. Nagra Stories Sound-men won’t ever tell

    in Images of Interest

    Posted

    Just a quick note to say Thank You for this continuing wonderful source of information about Nagras.

    Nick.

     

    PS (added two hours later) I thought I would add a little memory about the operation of Nagra IIIs. I was on a commercial in the late 1960s and the mixer was operating the Nagra. He pressed what he thought was the Tape/Direct button and was surprised to hear a beep of tone. Not believing his ears, he did it again, with the same result. He had of course mixed up the two buttons, the other one being the tone injection. So that was THAT take ruined!

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