[QuadList] Laugh-In (was "Assemble edits vs Insert edits")

[John Buck / Velocite]

It's taken me a while to write - and get over Art's passing.
Really came as a shock.

He has been a rock of support while I have been writing my book, 'Timeline'
that details the history of electronic editing. And of course, like so many other,
I will miss him. Art wrote to me again  late last year and I wanted to share it with everyone.


John:
The development of NBC's ESG pseudo time code was developed simply as an economical way to edit videotape frame acccurately as opposed to standing at a quad VTR hours and days on end to edit "on the fly". We called the NBC process "the double system method" of editing quad tapes using a 16mm kinescope film workprint as a means to an end.
 
The problem every editor enountered when editing quad tapes at the VTR was fatigue and the inability to edit frame accurately every time. The double system method solved both these problems. I can't remember how many hours and years  I spent in front of an Ampex VTR making edits on the fly. From time to time, I also used an RCA quad VTR to edit with but the very fact that the RCA was a vertical based VTR made it more difficult  to cut tape with a modified splicing setup.
 
It was often frustrating playing a tape over and over, marking the tentative edit point with a black ink marker until I was confident I had found the right edit point before I actually made the physical cut on the tape. Many tape editors used to call this type of editing :Kamakazi" editing since there was no second chance. At times, when I cut  the tape at the wrong place, I said to myself @#$%$# and I tried to splice the cut tape together agin.In 95% of the cases when reconnecting the cut pieces, there was a slight lurch at the splice point. Depending on the content of the tape at this point, I sometimes got away with it.
 
Remaking a splice was a time consuming process so we tried to be extra careful when editing quad tapes at the VTR. That's when we said enough was enough and we developed the kinescope workprint method of editing in 1958. We had cosidered using 35mm as a workprint but the cost factor caused producers to insist on usingn 16mm.
 
The frame accuracy of film was hands down superior and far mor cost effective that editing directly on a quad  VTR. All the editing I did once we developed the double system was done on every prime time program at NBC. ( I am still exhausted just thinking about editing quad tapes directly.)
 
The Laugh-In special I edited on kinescope could not have been by editing directly on quad tape.  Two of my Emmy Awards were for eding using the double system method.
Art
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