December 15, 1965…WSB Atlanta Goes Color With First RCA TK42

http://insidebobforemansbrainpart2.blogspot.com/2013/10/ruth-kent-colorvised.html
At the link above is a story I just got from our friend Bob Foreman. The article he sent is from the Saturday paper, just after the Thursday surprise Atlanta viewers got when ‘Today In Georgia’ debuted in color, making WSB the first station in Georgia with live local color. They were also the first station here able to broadcast color and I think that ability goes back to around 1956. WSB was one of the original NBC affiliates on both the radio and television networks.

I’ve had this photo for a long time of that first “colorvised” show, but never had a firm date or back up to the fact that WSB got the very first TK42. The story was, that RCA wanted to field test the new camera on ‘The Popeye Club’. It was the country’s top local kids show and RCA thought the colorful clothing of the 30 or so “clubhouse gang” members for each show would be a good color test.

An RCA engineer came to Atlanta with the camera to set it up and tweak it, and was still doing that when the second one arrived in mid January. I think he stayed in Atlanta for about three months doing tests.

Georgia legend Ruth Kent who hosted ‘Today In Georgia’ is seen here on that first day with some of the WSB management and engineering people. Notice the cameraman is not using pan handles, but the built in D handles (zoom and focus) on the back of the camera. That’s what they were designed for, but the ergonomic idea by our friend Harry Wright, at RCA, turned at to be a not so good idea after all. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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Congratulations To NBC’s Rick Fox…Retired Friday After 31 Years

Several people have asked about the unusually long hold on the opening shot of Friday’s ‘Nightly News’ broadcast and the single technical credit to a cameraman at the end of the show (below in Comments).

The cameraman in this screen capture is Rick Fox who’s been with NBC since 1984. Although he has worked a lot of other shows, I think he had been on the ‘Nightly News’ crew since the Brokaw days. Well done Mr. Fox! Enjoy and share. -Bobby Ellerbee

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January 11, 1958…’Sea Hunt’ Debuts On 100 Stations In Syndication

Filming began September 23, 1958 and ended exactly four years later on September 23, 1961. The series was created and produced by Ivan Tors and ZIV Television. Initially, the under water scenes were shot in Southen California, but soon moved to South Florida and The Bahamas where Tors later created ‘Flipper’.

Pioneering underwater cinematographer Lamar Boren shot nearly all the underwater footage and would later shoot ‘Flipper, and the underwater sequences of three James Bond films…’Thunderball’, ‘You Only Live Twice’, and ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’. Below is the first episode of ‘Sea Hunt’. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqCIEr8AFgs

Sea Hunt: Season 1, Episode 1 Sixty Feet Below (4 Jan. 1958) Racing against time, Mike Nelson attempts a risky rescue of a test pilot trapped in his plane’s …

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Picture Parade #5…’Gone With The Wind’ Technicolor Closeup

Having seen one of these huge Technicolor camera blimps in the Oz photo earlier, I wanted to give you a feel for how big they really were.

On the set of ‘Gone With The Wind’, here is director Victor Fleming looking into the viewfinder. Behind him is camera operator Arthur Arling and cinematographer Ernest Haller.

The actual camera inside the soundproof blimp was about the size of a regular 35mm Mitchell, but it used three reels of film simultaneously and a larger than average motor, so it was fairly noisy. Remember to visit the EOAG page to see all of today’s stories by clicking on the blue title text above. -Bobby Ellerbee

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Picture Parade #2…A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Oz

A few weeks back, I watched ‘The Wizard Of Oz’ for the umteenth time on TCM. It’s still a fascinating spectacle…especially for those of us who grew up watching it on black and white sets and never knew till much later that most of it was in color. Here’s one of the huge Technicolor cameras shooting Margret Hamilton atop a house, just before she disappears in a beautiful orange smoke cloud. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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Picture Parade #1…The Universal Court House Square

Most recognize this set from ‘Back To The Future’, but it’s been used in more productions than you can shake a stick at. The first time we saw is was with Ma and Pa Kettle in 1949. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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Picture Parade #5…Early Color Testing Days At The Colonial Theater

It was late November 1952 when the four RCA TK40 prototype cameras arrived at The Colonial. There was a year of almost around the clock testing of cameras, monitors, switching and transmitting equipment. The first production models of the TK40, twenty five in all, were shipped from Camden on March 4, 1954.

Notice in this photo from January ’54, there is no big cradle head…only a friction head under the camera. One thing the production crew learned in 1953 was that there was a need for a bigger, better pan head for the 325 pound camera. Houston Fearless sent a prototype cradle head in the summer of 53 and when the TK40s shipped in ’54, they all came with the new custom cradle head. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

By the way, the crane is the Houston Fearless 30B model.

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Picture Parade #4…The Red Barber Baseball Box

Red Barber was the first announcer to broadcast baseball on television. He knew a lot about how to help get the best out of a game and developed this box to “talk” to the director in the truck.

When he thought play action was going to be in a certain area, or there was some player or position he wanted to talk about, he would flip one of the switches to alert them to have a camera ready. Red’s position requests were solid red lights. When the truck wanted him to talk about a position or player, they flipped a switch on their board and Red’s board light there blinked. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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Picture Parade #2…’On The Town’, First Musical Shot On Location

This 1949 film starring Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Betty Garrett was the first musical to be shot on location. Not all of it, but all of the outside scenes, were shot over a five day period in Manhattan.

It rained three of those days, but that was not the biggest problem. Both Sinatra and Kelly were at the peek of their fame and keeping fans away was the real problem. To help camouflage things, taxis and not limousines were used to get to locations, and the camera was hidden in a station wagon for street scenes. A broom handle was used as sound boom on the street.

When the movie debuted at Radio City Music Hall, the lines were the longest in the theater’s history. Oh… and Sinatra was so skinny, he had to wear butt pads to fill out the seat of his sailor suit. He tried very hard to keep this a secret, but word got out on the set and Gene Kelly teased him relentlessly. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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Picture Parade #1…NBC New York’s Air Cushion Studio Floors

Most never knew that under each studio floor at 30 Rock, there are air cushions to prevent vibration from the subway that runs directly under the building.

When Rockefeller Plaza was built in 1933, there was an elevated train that ran down 6th Avenue. In later years, it was moved underground and that’s when the problems started. I don’t know much about the when and where this began, but I remember reading about this around 1963. I thought it was fascinating, but remember something about big coil springs in the floors too.

I think this drawing is from the early ’60s and shows how inflated rubber bags were used to suspend the studio floor from the sub floor. If you know more, please chime in! Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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Picture Parade #4…CBS Studio 42 At Grand Central Terminal, 1950

This is Faye Emerson on her fifteen minute daily show the CBS Network. In 1947, CBS bought the RCA TK10s and 30s for their studios. These are TK30s with the exclusive CBS striped band on the viewfinder. Do you know why they were there?

Here’s the answer…these are actually handy gray scale charts that cameramen can use to keep their adjustments in line as the tubes tended to drift some. Without having to go to a test pattern chart, they could quickly swing to the camera next to them and adjust their gain, shading and alignment. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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Picture Parade #3…CBS Studio 41 At Grand Central Terminal, 1944

These photos are from 1944 and show us WCBW, Studio 41 which was the larger of the two Grand Central studios. Officially there were Studios 41- 44 there, but 43 and 44 were “control” studios and not production studios like 41 and 42. As a reminder, this was local programming as there was no CBS Television Network until 1948. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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Picture Parade #2…SNL And NBC Studio 8H…February 10, 1979

When Bryan Durr was in high school, he and some buds would occasionally cut class and go on adventures in the city. These great photos are from one of those days. Bryan is now the senior video engineer for Seth Meyers in NBC’s Studio 8G.

His mention of the musical guest, The Talking Heads, puts this a day or so before their only appearance on SNL. The guest host was Cecily Tyson. MUCH MORE on the photos including excellent comments and more pix, so be sure and click on each. Thanks for digging these out of the garage Bryan! Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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January 5, 1970…’All My Children’ Starts A 41 Year Run On ABC

This 1993 video is a fantastic look behind the scenes of the show in ABC’s TV 23, but more on what you can see and where in a moment.

From 1970 to 1990, ‘All My Children’ was recorded at ABC’s TV 18 at 101 West 67th St, now a 50-story apartment tower. From March 1990 to December 2009, it was taped at ABC’s television studio TV 23 at 320 West 66th Street. In December 2009, the show moved to Los Angeles and was produced on Stages 1 and 2 at the Andrita Studios.

The show aired on ABC for 41 years, from January 5, 1970, to September 23, 2011. Created by Agnes Nixon, ‘All My Children’ is set in Pine Valley, Pennsylvania, a fictional suburb of Philadelphia. The original series featured Susan Lucci as Erica Kane, one of daytime’s most popular characters. This was the first new network daytime drama to debut in the 1970s. Originally owned by Creative Horizons, Inc., the company created by Nixon and her husband, Bob, the show was sold to ABC in January 1975. The series started at a half-hour in per-installment length, then was expanded to a full hour on April 25, 1977.

The first 4 minutes of the video are quite good, as is the whole thing as we spend a lot of time on the set with what look like Ikegami 377s. Camera blocking starts around 11:30 with props at 14:30. Around 16:50 we get into the control room and into sets around 22:48. There’s a lot of good stuff here, so skip around, enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYj4F4DUjGw

http://www.waltwilleyworld.com Walt Willey (Jackson Montgomery) takes us behind the scenes of All My Children. Kelly Ripa also appears many years before her …

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Picture Parade #3…Quite Possibly, The First Photo Of ABC Studio TV 1

This is the ‘Look Photo Crime’ show, sponsored by Look Magazine in September of 1949. The crime busting series, based on real stories, aired on ABC Radio five days a week and the TV series once a week. TV 1 and TV 2 (adjoining) on West 66th Street were ABC’s first New York studios. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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