From: G.M.Suddes@newcastle.ac.uk (Gareth Suddes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.drwho
Subject: Re: daemons.
Date: 16 Nov 92 11:33:18 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, NE1 7RU

dale.clayton@canrem.com (dale clayton) writes:

>Graeme Nattress wrote:
>---------------------

>-> There is an article in the New Radio Times about the colourisation of
>-> the Daemons ....

> Would anyone that has a copy of that article be ambitious enough to
>type up a copy for this newsgroup?
> Yes, I know that that is asking alot.

 I did actually post that last week, but here it is again for those who missed
it...

Return of THE DAEMON.
---------------------

How one fan's forethought saved a classic Doctor Who adventure - and an evil
foe - from black-and-white oblivion. By Richard Jobson.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Technology was always a Time Lord's saving grace. Whether it was a sonic
screwdriver or a time control unit to project an intergalactic jackanapes into
his own time-loop, Doctor Who has had the appropraiate device since he first
materialised in 1963. Now technology has come to the Doctor's rescue once
again, by restoring The Daemons - a classic 1971 story starring Jon Pertwee.
  During the 70s it was common practice to make two copies of television series
- a colour version on videotape and a black-and-white version for sale to
countries not yet broadcasting in colour. With the rise of the Doctor Who cult
in the late 70s, it was discovered that the tape-lords at the BBC drama
department had junked the colour original of The Daemons.
  According to Adam Lee, archive selector at the BBC's film and videotape
library, "Video was never looked upon as a long term preservation format. And
television itself was seen as ephemeral, so some programmes weren't kept. Who
would have predicted that The Flowerpot Men would be a number one video 40
years later? Or, come to think of it, Doctor Who?"
  Former Doctor Who script consultant Ian Levine was one of the first to
realise what was being lost. "In 1978 I got wind of a Los Angeles TV station
that was going to transmit a two-hour version of The Daemons. I wired a fan the
money to hire a Betamax machine and buy two one-hour tapes- tapes only played
for an hour in those days. He changed tapes in the middle and did a compilation
for me. I went to the TV station a few weeks later to try to buy the original
but they had already wiped it."
  Levine, as it turned out, owned the only colour tape left in the world. But
the picture wasn't sharp enough to be broadcast. The black-and-white masters
were, but fans wanted to see The Daemons as nature had intended. Then, earlier
this year, BBC graphics designer Ralph Montagu worked out a way to restore the
series to it's full glory. He joined forces with James Russell, a videotape
systems designer, and used the American recording as a colour key for the
black-and-white original.
  "The problem was making the two versions line up exactly", says Montagu.
"Without computers it would have looked like a piece of rather bad printing."
By adapting existing technology, Montagu re-coloured the series. Where scenes
had been edited out of the American version, the pair coloured the
black-and-white film by hand. Taking 30 seconds over each frame, and with 25
frames in every television second, the five part series was a labour of love.
  For the BBC there are considerable financial rewards. Just ask Adam Lee. "We
rececntly recovered some missing film recordings of the Tomb of the Cybermen
from Hong Kong, and when they were released they went to the top of the home
video chart - selling more than 25,000 in ten days." So it's no surprise to
learn that the library is now busy restoring several series.
  With 110 episodes still missing, Ian Levine's work is far from done. He is
still chasing possible leads. "My phone bills are a good few thousand quid." He
has tried writing to television stations, but most don't even reply. "Iran
actually said, 'In the name of Allah, what are you talking about?' Then you
discover an episode in the basement of a Mormon church, or in a television
relay hut in the middle of the Nigerian outback, and it's all worth it."


Gareth
________________________________________________________________________________
\ "You are now entering the Justice Zone. Beyond this point it is impossible   /
 \  to commit any act of injustice."                                          /
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