ColinB Guest
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Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2010 7:53 am Post subject: Happy 50th Birthday to TVC |
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BBC Television Centre opened 50 years ago today. For anyone (I guess that's most people) who haven't been to the building it's a lovely old place; you really feel the ghosts of the past when you walk around the corridors, into the studios and behind the scenes. All those famous shows and familiar long-gone faces. The first time I ever went there was during the 60s in the days when the BBC offered public tours of the centre; we went into the viewing galleries and looked down into a studio where rehearsals for Z-Cars (which used to be transmitted live) were taking place. I was really shocked to see only the cab of the famous white Ford Zephyr (or was it Zodiac) with no engine compartment or boot and no glass where the windscreen should be. Studio-hands used to gently shake it on its frame in order to simulate street movement.
We also saw the Tardis on a trolley in the prop store out the back ready for an edition of Dr. Who (and, no we didn't to see inside in order to see if it's true......). Funny that it needed to be physically moved into the studio when required yet it can move metamorphosise to anywhere in space and time simply by pulling a big lever!
I should be at TVC next week in one of the video editing suites where one of my old mates still works as VT editor. After 23 years there he's still a BBC TV employee, which is amazing considering the fact that most TV people now are freelance! Almost all production crew is hired in for the job, unlike in the old days. |
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