Election 74

Thought I might start this thread as a reminder in case anyone's not noticed. And it's OCTOBER 74, one of the lesser-spotted polls, which they've only shown once, exactly ten years ago.

The highlight is the "groovy, doomy theme", as Clive James had it, which is bloody good. Sue Lawley is in the titles (clearly having been requested to show a bit of leg) and she gets a big intro as a new face for election night, but then more or less just does the London opts, so most viewers would barely have seen her. The story is they just reused the set from February but it is in fact a new set, more or less the reverse of the last one.

Last time they showed it, after the overnight coverage ended we moved to 7.30 for the last ninety minutes of Michael Barratt's breakfast shift, which is a novelty, including Katina the astrologer. Sadly although we see Richard Stilgoe behind a piano, seemingly he'd already done his bit. Sadly Alastair Burnet is quite a boring presenter and at one point seems to fall out completely with Robin and Bob McKenzie, while he also greets results from safe seats with "none of these particularly interesting", which is not what you want to hear if it's your seat.

And because I know people like to know these things, we don't get the news on the night (what with it being an hour before the programme started) but during the day shift we do get news with Kenneth Kendall and weather from Michael Fish.

Nice to see this one again, they seem to have been showing Feb 1974 every five minutes over the last few years so great to see the follow-up at last.

If they're going to keep working to anniversaries it looks like 2005 might get its first proper repeat next year (not counting them re-running it two days after in 2005).

And seems as good a point as any to say how incredible it is not just that we get these repeats at all but that they've consistently done them for 12 years now.

What would be great to see would be any old News Bulletins from the time. I presume they have some of them.

Certainly one of the 1974 elections had news bulletins from Angela Rippon as part of the replay on at least one occasion. Complete with the Noddy clock on a screen behind her!

The 1979 rerun includes the preceding news bulletin with Richard Baker because it links directly to the election programme. Clearly, whatever went through the studio was recorded and is shown, and whatever was done through continuity wasn't, and isn't. Hence in February 1974 you don't get the lunchtime news but you do get the weather, as Barbara Edwards is in the studio.

I've just tuned in now - is that an actual Solari board in the studio for the prediction?

Haha, yes. Recorded it and have just been watching some back:

Also some other points: I wondered how they did the keying effect of the big screen in the studio. The transitions on and off at the end of down-the-line interviews looked pretty impressive, with a sortof cascade effect as the pillars making up the wall in the studio turned around:



Indeed, the breakfast presenter was even good enough to look up even though I presume that was really just a grey studio wall? Can anyone throw any light on exactly how the effect could have been achieved in 1974?

Finally, some captioning that Dimbebot would have been proud of:





And of course, no all-male political discussion would be complete without having a silky-smooth complimentary cigarette to hand:

I got the impression from the way they opened and closed it was just your average household vertical blind but one side painted blue / green and then it was keyed in. A couple of times it was obvious with there being some lines on the picture.

Indeed. This example from the U.S. shows how it worked -- in this case, the key effect was only applied after the cut to the anchor, so you can see the blue background for a second or two:



In this clip, the effect is almost identical to the BBC's: http://youtu.be/jXCYqSkA5m8?t=34s

Here's a single turning panel being used to achieve a similar effect during a weather forecast: http://youtu.be/xE9PvYmHxWo?t=2m37s

And here's a weatherman having major problems with the turning chromakey panels: http://youtu.be/MeZB3GyCLvE?t=7m

I suspect the keying colour may have been yellow, as this was quite commonly used by the BBC at the time. Certainly in Doctor Who they used yellow as blue wouldn't have worked with the Tardis.