Coronation St Live episode

Graham. said the following on 11/12/2010 20:44:
I was rather expecting someone would start a thread in one or other of these technical
groups but as one hasn't been forthcoming, here is a rare x-post by me.

I'm not a soap fan or even a TV fan but I watched the live episode simply because it was live.
If this was indeed done live it must rank as the best live dramas in UK TV history.
Frankly it was so good, practically flawless, that I somehow doubt that such a technical complex production could have been
executed in real-time. Anyone know how it was really done?

Possibly by keeping alive all the old technical crews who for them,
live work was something mainstream, normal and exciting.

Steering it away from Corrie for a few moment, possibly the best live
piece for me was when Norman Wisdom was a guest on the ITV breakfast
show so long ago, GMTV, Good Morning? the name escapes me. After
corpsing Winsey Willis with his weather stories of doom and gloom, he
later slowly moved into shot as he pretended to do some clearing up of
the coffee table in front of the two presenters as he muttered
something about having to pay his way for appearing on the programme.

In article ,
Mortimer wrote:
The Bill in its original incarnation (the spin-off from the one-off play
"Woodentop") was good, if slightly dated to modern eyes.

'Woodentop' was part of the Storyboard season - a number of pilots for
possible future series. Dunno in what way it was dated.

It had good story lines which centred mainly around the officers'
*professional* (not personal/relationship) lives.

The pilot centred around the first day at work of a police cadet - PC
Carver. And did include his relationship with colleagues. But not really
love interest. ;-)

Then it switched to the half-hour twice-a-week format and I thought it
would go downhill but it survived for many year like that: good
non-intrusive production values and good police-led stories. Towards
the end of that phase they started f*cking around with picture quality
(blown-out highlights, filmic effect) etc which was intrusive but the
writing was still good.

The Bill never used 'filmic effect'. Due to location/time/money
constraints often had parts of the picture burnt out. As do things like
sports events. It's pretty well unavoidable on a bright day if you shoot
the sky. Although cameras get better all the time in this respect.

--
*I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Paul D Smith wrote:
Who cares? Nobody will remember it in the future if it was that perfect
but I'll bet many regular posters remember the live Z-cars episode
where Brian Blessed (if memory serves) handed something through the
"windscreen" of the car (the glass had been removed to avoid
reflections and glare).

It wasn't the only thing which had been removed from the car. ;-)

--
*Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Richard Brooks wrote:
Possibly by keeping alive all the old technical crews who for them,
live work was something mainstream, normal and exciting.

I doubt there were many old codgers from the live days working on it.

--
*If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends? *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Dave Plowman (News) said the following on 13/12/2010 18:30:
In ,
Richard wrote:
Possibly by keeping alive all the old technical crews who for them,
live work was something mainstream, normal and exciting.

I doubt there were many old codgers from the live days working on it.


It'd be nice to think that some of the young folk had learned some of
the old skills just to do it for a laugh or a scientific experiment to
see if it could be done. Akin to those people at craft fairs who
still do spindle turning by sprung loaded branch and treadle.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Mortimer wrote:
The Bill in its original incarnation (the spin-off from the one-off play
"Woodentop") was good, if slightly dated to modern eyes.

'Woodentop' was part of the Storyboard season - a number of pilots for
possible future series. Dunno in what way it was dated.

Older production style with fewer longer shots, more static camera, the
dreaded lag and smear of 1980s tube video cameras. Also there was a scene
where two PCs (maybe June Ackland and Jim Carver) were walking through the
street where the dialogue was drowned out by traffic noise - they should
either have used closer mikes or else ADR.

It had good story lines which centred mainly around the officers'
*professional* (not personal/relationship) lives.

The pilot centred around the first day at work of a police cadet - PC
Carver. And did include his relationship with colleagues. But not really
love interest. ;-)

Yes, it was love interest and non-work relationship that I was meaning
really.

Then it switched to the half-hour twice-a-week format and I thought it
would go downhill but it survived for many year like that: good
non-intrusive production values and good police-led stories. Towards
the end of that phase they started f*cking around with picture quality
(blown-out highlights, filmic effect) etc which was intrusive but the
writing was still good.

The Bill never used 'filmic effect'. Due to location/time/money
constraints often had parts of the picture burnt out. As do things like
sports events. It's pretty well unavoidable on a bright day if you shoot
the sky. Although cameras get better all the time in this respect.

I seem to remember that the picture quality changed quite dramatically one
day. I *thought* that there was a filmic effect, but I could be wrong, but
there was certainly an increase in burned-out highlights and I'm sure I
remember reading that they'd started using a new "improved" make of camera.
Possibly around the time that Rosie Fox was in it. I remember in earlier
"half hour episode" days being very impressed with the quality of lighting
both in outdoor scenes and those in houses on location which would have
needed temporary lighting (ie not studios with false ceilings where lights
could be moiunted) there were few blown highlights. Then it all changed...

Older production style with fewer longer shots, more static camera, the
dreaded lag and smear of 1980s tube video cameras. Also there was a scene where two PCs (maybe June Ackland and Jim Carver) were
walking through the street where the dialogue was drowned out by traffic noise - they should either have used closer mikes or else
ADR.

And a similar sequence under the opening & end credits where the two plod walk
respectively towards & away from the camera taking strides seemingly less than the length of their feet!

Maybe it was a perspective effect, let's look again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biAaS...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdQYX93_13U

Still not sure about it.

--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

On Mon, 13 Dec 2010 21:29:05 -0000, "Graham." wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdQYX93_13U

Closing credits that last one and a half minutes. That's something
you don't see these days.
--
Martin Jay

? One thing which did annoy was the credits on that live episode. They gave
pretty well everyone who worked on it a credit. Then ran them so fast you
couldn't read any. So a bit pointless.

I never got one

? I'm not a soap fan or even a TV fan but I watched the live episode simply
because it was live.
If this was indeed done live it must rank as the best live dramas in UK TV
history.
Frankly it was so good, practically flawless, that I somehow doubt that
such a technical complex production could have been
executed in real-time. Anyone know how it was really done?

I can confirm it was completely live

We had SiS OB 1 and a HD Sat Truck - into BT & NTL, 2 paths for resilience -
we've only just got a 90Mb HD Circuit installed to BT Tower - but no-one
wanted to use it !! & 2 SD Circuits sent 1 x Chiswick & 1 x Leeds as ITV
Pres still have separate areas for ITV 1 & ITV 1 HD in Chiswick and nothing
inLeeds for HD

I don't know how many cameras we had on it - I was looking after the SD
circuits and Pres & Eng Talkback for the night - I'll find out though.

I do sort of know that we used Stage 1 & Stage 2 as feeder stations back to
the SiS truck, each had a sound & vision crew, and then there was those on
the Street which went back to the truck.

We then fed fibre back to Stage 1 & 2 which then went to Airspeed so that we
could then make the missing Omnibus tape for Txm on Saturday morning -
straight away rather than ingesting a SR tape afterwards, we also had HD
cable & SD cable going to SR & Digi recorders.

They rehearsed very hard all week, until midnight every night. We did a DR
on Wednesday, which we recorded and that became the back-up tape in case of
a major failure in Manchester - we had to courier that to TNS Chiswick &
played the SD tape TNS Leeds, another DR on the day was recorded to EVS and
run in tandem with the live transmission - just in case.

There was some live CGI used as well - did you see it ?

That's it does that help ??

Dave