It's interesting though when I've been on holiday in the US and watching episodes of their soaps, how they feel like they still have the production standards ours did in the 70s, being mostly studio based (even scenes that are meant to be "outdoors" being quite obviously done in a studio- something you haven't seen in UK soaps for decades, not really even in the 70s) and feeling very stagey. Our soaps are almost like Hollywood movies in comparison, even 1977 Corrie feels like it has higher production values than a 2017 episode of General Hospital at times.
Talking about location filming. It’s notable that in the last decade and since each soap moved to new buildings, so don’t get as much as you used to.
Particularly in Emmerdale, every hospital, police station, general public building always strangely has the same brick work and window design as the YTV building.
I think the exterior of Corrie’s new site has also doubled as the gates to a prison, the outside of weatherfield general among others.
Corrie is very self contained on the main set these days. Nobody at the precinct, the red rec, or in a supermarket like Bettabuys or Firmans Freezers.
Also now almost every main character lives on the main set. Not like when Mike Baldwin used to live off set at the Quays. Who out of the main cast doesn’t live on the street set anymore ? Think it’s only Audrey isn’t it on Grasmere Drive which you also never see these days.
I've captured the video of said bit- left the part 2 VT clock in for good measure too!
Notice the picture does actually fade to black, but not until after everyone's started moving.
The VT clocks are interesting too- notice on that one how the more recent Granada logo has peeled off to reveal the old 50s/60s logo underneath it! On different episodes they're in various states of "peeling off" (there's more than one clock), and on a couple of episodes it's got what looks like a "Granada Colour" sticker taken from the side of a camera stuck on it.
On one episode too the camera wobbles for a second and you can see the VT clock is sitting on the bar of the rovers. On most 70s episodes, on the Part One VT clock, this really plummy voice (always the same voice, but a different recording each time) chimes in with either "edited" or "edited copy" after the production number's been read out (I guess to differentiate between the TX version and the raw studio tape). One episode that doesn't have it though runs to about 28 minutes which makes me wonder if we've got the unedited studio tape on the DVD.
I find it good that Network include this sort of stuff on the DVDs that would (or at least should, as it did sometimes) never have been broadcast... or at least used to anyway, they don't seem to any more sadly. The 80s boxset only has the Part One VT clocks, the 60s, 90s and 00s boxsets (all released later than the 70s and 80s ones) sadly don't have any at all!
It's interesting though when I've been on holiday in the US and watching episodes of their soaps, how they feel like they still have the production standards ours did in the 70s, being mostly studio based (even scenes that are meant to be "outdoors" being quite obviously done in a studio- something you haven't seen in UK soaps for decades, not really even in the 70s) and feeling very stagey. Our soaps are almost like Hollywood movies in comparison, even 1977 Corrie feels like it has higher production values than a 2017 episode of General Hospital at times.
That's because they are cheap (really cheap). Thrown together to be shown daily at 11 in the morning, and competing with Judge Judy and Ellen. It's just bulk TV; our alternative is The Link rather than Emmerdale (bearing in mind that until the 90s the US soaps quite literally were competing on price/performance with up to 25 micro-budget game shows on the networks running concurrently).
I've captured the video of said bit- left the part 2 VT clock in for good measure too!
The video won’t play for me, James - is anyone else having the same problem?
Interesting about that VT clock being propped up on the Rovers bar. I’ve seen other examples of this - both the YTV VT clock and the opening “frontcap” card are out on location, propped up on a chair, on a 1975 episode of How We Used To Live. Someone quickly removes the VT clock to reveal the frontcap card just as the screen fades to black at T-3 seconds. As the titles are obviously played in from elsewhere, I wonder why it was easier to have captions out on location?
I've captured the video of said bit- left the part 2 VT clock in for good measure too!
The video won’t play for me, James - is anyone else having the same problem?
Interesting about that VT clock being propped up on the Rovers bar. I’ve seen other examples of this - both the YTV VT clock and the opening “frontcap” card are out on location, propped up on a chair, on a 1975 episode of How We Used To Live. Someone quickly removes the VT clock to reveal the frontcap card just as the screen fades to black at T-3 seconds. As the titles are obviously played in from elsewhere, I wonder why it was easier to have captions out on location?
Why would you waste expensive time in an edit suite to add captions when you can do it immediately while recording the programme? (And the titles were probably played out from a mobile VT in or beside the scanner)
As far as the End Of Part One stuff goes, all ITV programmes used to be made with a ten second 'hold' at the end of every part so that there was a) wiggle room for each Transmission Controller to get off the programme and into the commercials and b) something on the screen if the start of commercial playout was delayed for some reason. As still stores were yet to be invented, the shot was simply held for an extra ten seconds. Commercials, likewise, had a ten second hold at the end. In some situations, if a commercial break wasn't quite full, the way time was made up was by holding on to the last commercial from each source (film, VT or slide) for a few extra seconds. So (for example) you might have the last 35mm commercial given a duration of 30" + 2"; the VT commercial given 30" + 2" and each slide given 7" + 1". Sometimes slides had up to an extra five seconds added, and if you'd paid for 7" and got 12" you were winning!!
John Cleese often talks about filming shows like Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, where there would be a warm up man that would get the audience (and cast/crew) all relaxed, then they'd bring the clock out, put it on a chair and film it, and everyone would tighten up again.
Works fine for me also. It's embedded in HTML5 rather than relying on Adobe Crash Player, so it should playback on all smartphones, even Windows phones! If the clip won't play on an iPhone, check your settings ... or blame Apple!
