PROVIDING CONTEXT:HOW TELEVISION USED TO BE MADE

JOHN ELLISADAPT PROJECT

ROYAL HOLLOWAY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

CONTENT IN MOTION: CONTEXT FOR CURATIONPROVIDING CONTEXT: HOW TELEVISION USED TO BE MADE

When we look at archival TV, do we know how it was made?Physical holdings give us clues

Digital holdings do not

Why does this matter?

CONTENT IN MOTION: CONTEXT FOR CURATIONPROVIDING CONTEXT: HOW TELEVISION USED TO BE MADE

Old television looks weird and strangenot only because of “the materiality of film”

but because of the materiality of the production process

Why is the footage so restricted? Why are shots framed that way?Why are interviews shot in such a static and formal way?

Why is the cutting rate so slow? …

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Archival TV has to be contextualised…If it is to come alive

If it is to be usedIf it is to be used as raw data

To contextualise, we need information about how it was made.

Ideally, this information should be in an audiovisual formas well as written metadata form

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The ADAPT research project, funded by European Research Council, is creating resources to help archives to provide this information.

www.adapttvhistory.org.uk

Our ‘simulations’ reunite retired technicians with the old technologies they used every day to make ‘ordinary TV’

They recreate how they used to work

We film the process, capturing as much as we can

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ADAPT FOOTAGE CAN SHOW (1): Technicians explaining their equipment

e.g. Brian Tufano compares 16mm cameras

(2 mins)

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ADAPT FOOTAGE CAN SHOW (2):Technicians showing how they worked

e.g. Retired BBC film crew show how they shot a 16mm interview in the 1970s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7ik39EY1cg

5mins

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ADAPT FOOTAGE CAN SHOW (3):Technicians explaining what they did, combined with footage

(4 mins)

HANDS ON HISTORY CONFERENCEhttps://handson2016.wordpress.com/

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QUESTIONS1. Will this be useful to you?

2. How would you like it edited?3. Would you like to have access to the rushes with a Creative

Commons licence?4. What other typical equipment should we film?

(our next is an outside broadcast truck from late 1960s)

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THANK YOU

www.adapttvhistory.org.uk