Top of the Pops

Sorry to go back a few pages, but I looked up this song today. The music video is certainly something! I found this comment which piqued my interest. What method would they have been using to record in high definition in 1987, the Japanese Hi-Vision system?


"I was on the crew for this video. At the time it was significant. It was only the second music video shot in HD in the US. It was directed by Academy Award wining director Zbigniew Rybczyński. It was also one of the most ambitious chroma key (green screen) videos done at that time. It also used a groundbreaking computer controlled camera that matched the background camera moves with multiple layers of foreground images. Many shots have four layers of video which was remarkable for analog tech at the time. That said it was a tough shoot. It was a huge cyc and we had constant lighting problems, it was the middle of a heat wave and the lights made the studio so hot the camera kept shutting down (and we all had heat rashes), the conveyor belts they were running and dancing on kept breaking -- but Mick was a pro throughout."

There had been HD stuff for a while, I know Monty Python At The Hollywood Bowl was made on a 1000-line 24fps analouge HD format circa 1982, though it was telerecorded to film for the cinema releases, and all the TV & video showings came from those film transfers. Though a few years ago they went back to the original video for new DVD and Blu-Ray releases.

I know I just mentioned it back on the last page, but that song was on the first TOTP USA (Along with the Bowie clip that was never used over here). I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they deliberately just recorded it for that, and then at the last minute decided to slot it into the UK episode if someone dropped out.

Gary Davies himself on that episode even states they picked Jagger's song because the Rolling Stones kicked off the first TOTP episode and they wanted to do the same with the US show.

There's a longer version on at 3AM (listings seem to differ on whether it's 30 or 40 minutes long though).

The variable quality of the picture between episodes is nothing to do with how it was made at the time, but how it was kept- if it was lucky enough to be kept at all (as we know the vast majority of pre-April 76 TOTP is lost to history). This episode is one that's lucky to survive on its original videotape, several others only exist as scratchy black & white film telerecordings- and most don't exist at all. All of the episodes made from November 1969 onwards (when they started making it in colour) would have looked the same as this one when they originally went out (if you had a colour TV, anyway).

Even most black & white content would have looked better than it exists now, as it would have been live or on video but only now exists as film transfers which often aren't that great at all. The idea of old TV being grainy and scratchy comes from the fact that most material from the time only survives that way- if you ever see any surviving 50s and 60s videotape material (of which admittedly there isn't much), you'll probably be suprised as how clean, sharp and smooth it looks.

Loving the random ski footage behind the audience when they were dancing, and the extended playout where Tony Blackburn appears to accidentally push a young girl off the platform they were on!

The stages weren’t half long and thin during this era weren’t they. It does make for very unusual looking direction - lots of movement, rarely seeing the whole stage at once, lots of shots from the back of the stage...

The full 40 minute version is available on iPlayer.

Watching Now 80s since it came onto Virgin (probably the only good thing to come out of this UKTV mess), I've heard Mark Goodier, Bruno Brookes and Simon Bates doing voiceovers for their shows. A veritable mix of 80s TOTP presenters!

Lesser-known for TOTP (despite being on the last weekly one), Pat Sharp has also presented and voiced Now 80s programmes.

The 'they went back to the original video' may be a red herring written by people who should have known better. (I hear the reality is that they remastered from the film telerecording NOT the 2" Quad edit masters or 1" B Format rushes 655/24 tapes... I don't think they used the other 655/24 system based around bumped up 2" IVC Helical)

The Python and similar systems were modified PAL gear with a bumped up bandwidth - but weren't in the same league as HiVision - which was potentially useable for tests at the 1980 for the Moscow Olympics (but export restrictions meant that wasn't possible). HiVision WAS used at the 1984 LA Olympics. I remember seeing Sony demos including footage of it at IBC in the late 80s and/or early 90s.

The Mick Jagger video was directed by the same director who directed a Pet Shop Boys video shot using HiVision for high quality keying here

The nasty sparklies are likely to be an SD VT artefact.


The same director did these 'video jingles' for VH1 also using HD HiVision gear too I believe

1987 is early enough that they used analogue component 1" HiVision VTRs - unless the DVTRs were available by then. They were in use by 1989 as the BBC used 1" digital HD VTRs for The Ginger Tree - which was shot in HiVision and edited in TC1's gallery

I think I've mentioned this before but according to someone on Missing Episodes, there were 1 or 2 early 90's TOTP's recorded in HiVision. Supposedly some of the footage (in widescreen) was used for the basis of a DVD release, so the tapes must still exist, now I only wonder if BBC Four get that far if they will use those high quality versions or not.

Now, we all discus the censorship of Corrie on ITV3, so what do you think BBC Four will do later this year when we get to Holiday Rap where during the live performance, one of them sings the uncensored line? (The question was asked over on DS but was buried at the bottom of the page)