So, in something like Dad's Army, the studio based scenes will be filmed on videotape, but then the location scenes are filmed on 16mm. From what I've read about Doctor Who, using video for location scenes only became a possibility with the advent of 'outside broadcasting' - although I may be slightly wrong with this statement. Anyway, why didn't they use 16mm for the studio based scenes as well to give the picture a consistent look throughout? Was it simply down to cost?
What makes something "classic era"? For Doctor Who the early ones were the worst...
Videotape was both cheaper and easier to edit. And looks a million times better in productions of such an age. Although that could be down to dreadful modern transfers. The only reason 16mm was used at all was because it wasn't feasible to record on tape outside the studio - so that would've been the 'consistent' format, as you state was eventually the case with Doctor Who.
Why wasn't it feasible, were the cameras too big to lug around or something?
Quote: Raymond Terrific @ June 17 2013, 10:18 PM BSTWhy wasn't it feasible, were the cameras too big to lug around or something?
I think it was just not that mature a format at the time, so lots of equipment was involved, it was time-consuming, it was large, and it was expensive.
Quote: Raymond Terrific @ June 17 2013, 10:18 PM BSTWhy wasn't it feasible, were the cameras too big to lug around or something?
The tape machines were enourmous and housed in a separate room at the BBC - the cameras had thick cable coming out of them that lead up to the room.
Outside (tape) broadcast required a couple of big trucks to house the gear and was pretty much confined to sporting events (and I think they only had a limited number of the trucks and they were pretty well monopolised by sport and news)
The nature of outside filming meant the crew had to shift location a lot - they had to cram a lot into a few days - so needed to be pretty fleet of foot - hence 16mm ( rather than 35MM).
Yeah makes sense, thanks for the info Lazzard.
Very interesting. Thanks, Aaron, Lazzard.