Hoping that members of the forum might be able to help with this new history project.

The ADAPT TV PROJECT is a 5 year project run by Royal Holloway of London University and has been funded by the European Research Council to create a contextualized archive that aims to explain to future generations of film historians/media academics/ TV producers or those generally interested in broadcasting, how equipment worked, and how and why TV was filmed in a certain way at the time it was made.

As part of the project we aim to bring retired (or some not retired) technicians (such as camera people/sound/ engineers/editors etc) back with the equipment they once worked with and to film sequences that capture the working practices and processes, discuss physical routines and instinctive habits as technicians demonstrate how and why they interacted with the available tools of the time. It seeks to explore how individuals looked beyond the confines to seek innovative solutions to create the TV programmes and shows of the day.

We are first reaching out to those who worked in the 1960’s and 1970’s first and foremost and will move onto later dates further down the line.

We are particularly looking at 16mm filming at the moment and priorities include how a film crew would have worked within a domestic space and on location to acquire 16mm film sequences (a) for use in television news and (b) documentary/ assignment led filming using ‘standard’ equipment and practices of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

We would also be looking to expose some 16mm film and which we would subsequently follow through to laboratory processing and to telecine.
We will also be covering areas such as: live OB for VTR/post trial ENG news gathering (80’s)/drama on betacam/Digitbeta/multi-skilled self shooting. We will also look at early avid editing/harry work/electronically aided manual editing with video/fully electronic video editing and computer based non linear editing.

So should you be able to help with any of these areas in terms of helping to locate technicians of the day who are still around and able to discuss their methods with us (off and on camera ideally), locating old working TV equipment for filming (and even clearable footage to go with our sequences though this may be out of your realm!) it would be most appreciated.

If you are able to help you can contract Amanda Murphy directly on:
amanda.murphy@rhul.ac.uk
07976 815174

Five years (and a lot of European funding) does seem rather excessive to find answers to questions that most of us could provide in a couple of hours. And I understand that none of this grant money will go in the direction of the people providing the answers.

Questions such as:


Why are interviews so formal and so short? Why do people often seem rehearsed or ill at ease? Where are the probing conversational exchanges that we are used to today?
Why was so much fiction shot in studios?
Why does so much old fiction seem so slow? Why do the settings seem so cramped?
Why is the sound so ‘hollow’ or so ‘muddy’?
Why is there so much news footage with no sound?

And they seem to be ignoring studio productions!

Long Live Meeja Studies.