[QuadList] 8mm film at WGGB-- (was Re: TCR-100)

[kylebook at aol.com]

Hi Ted,

To be specific, these were Super 8 projectors.  In addition to the standard 16MM RCA projectors,  WGGB's telecine area had these 3 side-mounted (onto poles) Bell & Howell Super 8 projectors.   Physically, they were slightly larger than a first-aid kit, with a feeder reel on top, take up reel on the bottom, and a door on the front to access the threading area, focus knobs & lens.  Each of the machines had its own CCU, located next to the master control switcher, and its own telecine island & mirrors. The quality was not nearly as good as the 16MM, with rather saturated chroma levels & orangey flesh tones that the CCU couldn't completely eliminate.

The PSAs themselves were super 8mm films provided by state & federal government agencies, generally 1-2 minutes, on subjects like drunk driving, poison control, fire prevention, etc.

The operative attitude was "Well, it's better than black or an ID slide".

In the 6 months I worked at Channel 40 as tape op in 1985, I only participated in one outright TCR crash that forced us to use the Super 8 projectors.  Murphy's Law being what it is, the TCR went down (due to a faulty tractor belt) an hour after the 11 O'Clock news ended, and another hour before sign-off, after the on-duty engineer had left for the night.  The station was running a syndicated show called "Tales From The Darkside", followed by a rerun of the old NBC show "Real People", and a 15-minute late newscast from the ABC Network, taped at 11 O'Clock (on the station's lone 1" machine, a Sony BVH-2500).  There was only 1 paid spot (our sign on & sign offs were always preceded by a spot for a local discount retail store) the rest of the night, so the engineer said he'd be in before sign-on, so the rest of night was spent scrambling to grab as many Super 8 PSAs, and stringing them as fast as possible.

Such is life in the small markets...

Kyle Bookholz

                






-----Original Message-----
From: Ted Langdell <ted at quadvideotapegroup.com>
To: Quad List <quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com>
Sent: Wed, Feb 3, 2010 9:00 pm
Subject: [QuadList] 8mm film at WGGB-- (was Re: TCR-100)




On Feb 3, 2010, at 7:37 PM, KYLEBOOK at aol.com wrote:


 if "Fred" took a siesta, the backup was PSAs on 8mm projectors, 


8mm?  Do tell more!


Ted




Ted Langdell
Secretary



= 

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