NBTV Peep Show

[Panrock]

Can't remember if I have previously shown THIS on this board or not. It is a frame-by-frame view off the screen of my monitor assembled as an animated gif, to give an impression of the viewing experience - but without the flicker of course!

Steve

[Stephen]

This is very impressive, Steve. I hope to attend the next convention to see your latest colour and 3-D achievements in operation!

[Viewmaster]

As usual, Steve manages to make us all gasp with admiration for his images and the machines that produce them.

But Steve, your machines are worthy of something far better than the revolving Mickey images (and a moving detergent box I saw at Loughboro last April!) and had some real film with sound and a short story going thro them, such as Punch and Judy which would look wonderful.

So, I am booking my front seat for next April at Loughboro' to see
NBTV Punch and Judy....."That's the way to do it!"
Albert.

[Panrock]

Albert you're right. Punch and Judy is absolutely ideal for colour NBTV.

I am looking for a puppeteer next convention, complete with puppets. I could add sound (and talkback) to next year's apparatus. We could actually have true entertainment quality content on live colour NBTV, with the camera in another 'studio' room, rather than right next to the monitor. People could actually sit down and watch it.

But it will need a two-man team. Applicants please apply here.

Steve

[Viewmaster]

You can buy the Punch and Judy puppets here £9.99 each.......
http://www.jesters.com/acatalog/Theatre ... EgodZGJEaQ

and of course. the essential swazzle for the Punch and Judy sound here £12......

http://www.colinjohnmagic.co.uk/subprod ... 00766.aspx

If the Punch and Judy show in the other room is too good at Loughboro' we will all be watching that live and not your NBTV display!

Albert.

[Andrew Davie]

Albert you're right. Punch and Judy is absolutely ideal for colour NBTV.

After receiving Don McLean's interesting 'The Dawn of Television Remembered' CD, I had a bit of fun trying to intepret some of the surviving 'clips' which were marked as 'unknown content'. I wrote the following to Don in early June...

"After further study I am as certain as I can be that I know what we are seeing in clip W01 --- at least the most of it.

First we see a banging drum (typical of the start of punch and judy, so I read)… up until 17s

Then what happens is that a punch and judy style ‘theatre’ is swung into place in front of the camera. It’s a cloth box, basically, and the near-side of it is the pivot point. That is, the far side swings towards us. If you look carefully, you can see a diagonal on the near side that is clearly evident when the theatre is pushed out of camera view later. But for now, we have the theatre/punch and judy box swung in front of us. This happens up to 21s. Then we see the puppet character being shown from behind the box (that is, we see the masking front cutting off the bottom of the puppet). Then we watch the puppet up until 50s at which time the box is swung away from us (that is, the far right side is swung away, pivoting on the left). At 50s we see the left side of the box (if you were facing it) front-on. Here we see the same design as the thing that’s pushed from right to left later on – it looks like a picture of a soldier or something – in any case, it’s the design on the side of the theatre box. This is then immediately pushed to the right, off camera, by a guy crouching down low."

I also wrote...

"The man who swings the theatre into place in front of the camera first becomes visible on frame #466 and by frame 470 his hair is the black spot top left that gets darker in the subsequent frames… He is most visible at frame 475, after which point he starts moving left and out of frame again…

It is clear when moving the frames back and forth that he is wearing a white shirt, a grey jacket, and a dark tie. I even hazard that I see that he has his tie slightly undone, so it must be rather hot work. It’s also quite clear that he’s swinging something into view – ie: the theatre – as he leans to his right (our left) as he would if pushing something with his left hand while holding the edge with his right.

He totally disappears from view by frame 497, and by 509 the theatre is totally fullscreen

The next best view we get of him is frame 1267 as he’s pushing the theatre offscreen.

He’s bent over, pushing the lower part of the theatre, which I suspect is heavy at the base, light at the top.

He appears to be wearing rather light coloured trousers, and the same darker jacket.

So what I think we’re seeing is the “assistant” who first bangs the drum, then swings the theatre into place, does the puppetry for a while, then swings the theatre back and pushes it offscreen. The theatre is quite heavy, bottom heavy, explaining the need to crouch down to push it along. That’s my interpretation."


Soooo... if you were to do a Punch and Judy, you'd probably be following in the footsteps of ACTUAL TV footage from the time. And if you could do the choreaography like the above, then it would be a very interesting recreation indeed!

Wish I could post the clip -- but of course I can't -- and you will have to purchase the CD to view the above. I suspect that under copyright laws I'm allowed to post a small portion for the purposes of review or comment, but for now I'll leave this alone. Buy the CD. Look at the video W01. Tell me it's not Punch and Judy!

[ac7zl]

I just thought that I'd throw in this comment, seeing that you brought up the topic of McLean's CD.

In my opinion, it is a must-have item for any person with interest in NBTV, whether their interest is historical, technical, or both.

I own a copy and can't recommend it enough.

Pete
AC7ZL

Albert you're right. Punch and Judy is absolutely ideal for colour NBTV.

After receiving Don McLean's interesting 'The Dawn of Television Remembered' CD, I had a bit of fun trying to intepret some of the surviving 'clips' which were marked as 'unknown content'. I wrote the following to Don in early June...




"After further study I am as certain as I can be that I know what we are seeing in clip W01 --- at least the most of it.

First we see a banging drum (typical of the start of punch and judy, so I read)… up until 17s

Then what happens is that a punch and judy style ‘theatre’ is swung into place in front of the camera. It’s a cloth box, basically, and the near-side of it is the pivot point. That is, the far side swings towards us. If you look carefully, you can see a diagonal on the near side that is clearly evident when the theatre is pushed out of camera view later. But for now, we have the theatre/punch and judy box swung in front of us. This happens up to 21s. Then we see the puppet character being shown from behind the box (that is, we see the masking front cutting off the bottom of the puppet). Then we watch the puppet up until 50s at which time the box is swung away from us (that is, the far right side is swung away, pivoting on the left). At 50s we see the left side of the box (if you were facing it) front-on. Here we see the same design as the thing that’s pushed from right to left later on – it looks like a picture of a soldier or something – in any case, it’s the design on the side of the theatre box. This is then immediately pushed to the right, off camera, by a guy crouching down low."

I also wrote...

"The man who swings the theatre into place in front of the camera first becomes visible on frame #466 and by frame 470 his hair is the black spot top left that gets darker in the subsequent frames… He is most visible at frame 475, after which point he starts moving left and out of frame again…

It is clear when moving the frames back and forth that he is wearing a white shirt, a grey jacket, and a dark tie. I even hazard that I see that he has his tie slightly undone, so it must be rather hot work. It’s also quite clear that he’s swinging something into view – ie: the theatre – as he leans to his right (our left) as he would if pushing something with his left hand while holding the edge with his right.

He totally disappears from view by frame 497, and by 509 the theatre is totally fullscreen

The next best view we get of him is frame 1267 as he’s pushing the theatre offscreen.

He’s bent over, pushing the lower part of the theatre, which I suspect is heavy at the base, light at the top.

He appears to be wearing rather light coloured trousers, and the same darker jacket.

So what I think we’re seeing is the “assistant” who first bangs the drum, then swings the theatre into place, does the puppetry for a while, then swings the theatre back and pushes it offscreen. The theatre is quite heavy, bottom heavy, explaining the need to crouch down to push it along. That’s my interpretation."


Soooo... if you were to do a Punch and Judy, you'd probably be following in the footsteps of ACTUAL TV footage from the time. And if you could do the choreaography like the above, then it would be a very interesting recreation indeed!

Wish I could post the clip -- but of course I can't -- and you will have to purchase the CD to view the above. I suspect that under copyright laws I'm allowed to post a small portion for the purposes of review or comment, but for now I'll leave this alone. Buy the CD. Look at the video W01. Tell me it's not Punch and Judy!