blue episode

[joe integlia]

todays episode with the sometimes BLUE shots was a result of a tube that went out in one of the cameras. no circuits back then. each main color had a tube. 1 for red, 1 for green, 1 for blue. it probably went out just before taping and there was no time to fix it.

[Craig_Slocum]

Thanks for explaining that. Whenever I see that particular episode, I always think, oh this is the one where something is wrong with the camera!

[TERRY308]

Thanks for telling us.  I thought they were experimenting or something.

[doombuggy69]

I am surprised they went ahead and used the bad camera, it was very unprofessional. Couldn't they just get by with using two cameras instead of three, for one day?

There were other episodes besides this one that had bad cameras:

Episode 816, (1987) One bad camera that was used throughout had black lines running across the lens.

Episode 1230, (1841PT) another bad camera that had a "blue" tint to it in the entire episode.

Dan Curtis probably told the crew to let it go on, because "these shows will only be seen once"!

[Gerard]

Every once in a blue moon (pardon the pun), you see the one-camera-gone-kafooey shot.  I always thought it was kinda neat.  One angle normal - another angle color screwy.  It almost has a dream sequence quality to it.  

Gerard

[VAM]

Does anyone know if the camera crew was professional? Perhaps they were students enrolled at NYU or another institution and doing this as an internship or co-op program.

[Raineypark]

Seriously doubtful, Vam.....back then Unions still had teeth and the technicians who worked in television were VERY union!......still are, as far as I know.  Hell, even the writers are Union in the entertainment industry!

Raineypark

[Nancy]

You could not work in the industry on a show like that unless you were union.  Of course, your equipment can be total crap.

Nancy

Does anyone know if the camera crew was professional? Perhaps they were students enrolled at NYU or another institution and doing this as an internship or co-op program.

[VAM]

You could not work in the industry on a show like that unless you were union.  Of course, your equipment can be total crap.

Pardon me...

[Nancy]

I think there was more to your sentence VAM but you got booted???

Pardon me...

[petofi]

DS Cameras:

In 1966, the camera crew used the black-and-white RCA TK-60 Television/video camera, an industry standard from the mid-fifties until the mid sixties in some markets where the majority of sets were still B&W!  The TK-60 used a single 4 1/2 inch image orthicon tube, also known as a "black tube," for monochrome (black and white)picture production.

When the show switched to color in 1967, ABC-TV provided three Norelco PC-60 Plumbicon color cameras, which had been introduced around 1965, achieving industry standard status by the late sixties.  This camera weighed about 120 pounds, with 40 more pounds added from the large frontal zoom lens.  This weight did not include the power dolly, which made smoother the up, down and rolling motions of each camera. Compared with today's direct video cameras, these were massive!  From my sketchy sourches, I believe that each camera contained three tubes: one each for red, green and blue, for producing a total color picture. Each camera also had a remote unit, the camera control unit(also used in the earlier cams), which powered and monitored the fuctions, including picture output, of each camera.  You see these units and their video monitors in some photos of the control room at the DS studio.  I beleive it was from these CCU's that the signal cables (into phone lines?)went to ABC video recording facilities in downtown  NYC.

Anybody out there into old TV/video cams enough to fill in any holes I've left or correct any errors?
This info came from sales material which appeared in broadcast industry periodicals, such as "Television" magazine, in the sixties.


petofi

[VAM]

I think there was more to your sentence VAM but you got booted???

No, that was my response. I thought it was quite obvious that I mentioned about the amateur camera crew jokingly. However, it was not taken that way. I was given a crash course about unions by two individuals. Oh well...

[VictoriaWintersRox]

DS Cameras:

In 1966, the camera crew used the black-and-white RCA TK-60 Television/video camera, an industry standard from the mid-fifties until the mid sixties in some markets where the majority of sets were still B&W!  The TK-60 used a single 4 1/2 inch image orthicon tube, also known as a "black tube," for monochrome (black and white)picture production.

Was this a soap opera standard or overall TV standard? The reason I ask is that from all the B&W programs I've seen, DS is the only one that was taped instead of film. The only other time I've seen this is with six episodes of The Twilight Zone which were taped instead of the TZ standard of filming. From what I've read the reason DS and other soaps was taped was because tape was cheaper then film. I don't recall video tape on TV being used often other then on soaps until the '70s and '80s when most shows were taped, and then in the '90s it switched back to filming.

[Nancy]

You might want to make use of the emoticons in the future so you are not given information you don't want but appear to be asking for by others who thought they were answering a legit question.  There are a few of the emoticons that indicate sarcasm pretty well.

Nancy

No, that was my response. I thought it was quite obvious that I mentioned about the amateur camera crew jokingly. However, it was not taken that way. I was given a crash course about unions by two individuals. Oh well...

[Luciaphile]

Was this a soap opera standard or overall TV standard? The reason I ask is that from all the B&W programs I've seen, DS is the only one that was taped instead of film. The only other time I've seen this is with six episodes of The Twilight Zone which were taped instead of the TZ standard of filming. From what I've read the reason DS and other soaps was taped was because tape was cheaper then film. I don't recall video tape on TV being used often other then on soaps until the '70s and '80s when most shows were taped, and then in the '90s it switched back to filming.

I would be interested in this as well--the look with tape is so very different than film.

Luciaphil