1985 (filmed 1984) documentary on the making of Treasure Hunt shadowing the Derbyshire hunt. Done of a crude VHS to VHS dub before I joined the Beeb. Try not to judge!
I had three fantastic days working with these guys when they recorded their Staffordshire Treasure Hunt in 1988. I worked for British Telecom and was responsible for the outside broadcast link from their ground communications base vehicle at Tillington Hall Hotel, Stafford - back to the studio in London. The cameras had separate video recorders which were quite bulky. When Anneka was at Alton Towers, the video recorder packed up after being drenched on the Congo River Rapids Ride. Everything ground to a halt, helicopter flown back to RAF Stafford and I remember being despatched, as I was free, with a replacement video recorder for it to be flown back to Alton Towers. Remembering all those technical challenges with the equipment at the time, it was amazing how they did it. It can be done so much easily now. Just thought I would share this memory after finding this on RU-vid and yes, bring it back on TV.
Indeed, when you think about the advancements in satellite technology and telecommunications the programme would be so much easier today; I have recently being watching 80s programmes back, and programmes that Anneka Rice starred in led the way in the way we communicate: talking to the studio, using mobile phones, etc. Would be great to see such programmes back on the air.
Did the cameraman or video recordist have a voice link to the studio? There were times when Wincey knew their location far more accurately than Anneka had given in her commentary, which makes me think that Graham or Frank was reporting their position to the studio.
They used two helicopters. The second used as a Comms relay to an OB van, near site, that is linked via the BT outside broadcast network to the London studio. TalkBack from the studio also used that link. It was recorded over 3 days, this episode, so it was all edited together. Not sure how much Wincey knew. The pilot had to know because of air traffic regulations.
This inspired me for my future career. I ended up working in action helicopters (feature films) many years later (still do) and ended up as friends with Graham (video), Frank (sound) and Keith (pilot). Never met Ms Rice though (yet). Such a small world.
Sorry guys late to my own thread. It was a H&S issue but also cost. V expensive show to do both in research and actually filming it although comparatively a lot less expensive like-for-like compared to the 80s original due to tech advances. BBC did not help in little or no marketing of it on its relaunch including many schedule changes meaning cost per hour per viewer was higher than it should be for its (varying) timeslot. Hope that helps. J.
@@N16Jamie The BBC really shafted the Suzi Perry version of TH by constantly postponing planned showings of episodes due to late-running sports events. For me (and other people may feel differently) I never enjoyed the overseas treasure hunts as much as the ones on home ground where I could use my own local knowledge or get out an OS map. Sadly the Suzi Perry hunts were all in Kent for the first series, and exclusively overseas (US and Australia) for the second series, so not much variety of home-ground hunts. I know Yorkshire very well, so I could hazard a guess at the places of interest that might be used for clues - I guessed a few clues on that basis. I had to smile at the Isle of Wight episode where the contestants had been to the IOW on holiday just before the episode was recorded - the producers could ask the contestants where they lived and where they knew (to match them with a hunt that was in a place that was unknown to them) but they couldn't cater for a last-minute holiday! I never worked out the purpose of the sound man with a separate recorder in the Suzi Perry version. Did he *really* record ambient sound with his "hairy Dougal" microphone, when the Anneka/Annabel episodes had just had their voices from the headset, and no ambient sound.
The sound on your copy is better than mine (apart from being right-channel only on yours!). My VHS tape suffers horrendous dropouts on the hi-fi (FM) track, so I had to revert to the noisier, more muffled linear track when transferring to MPEG. I always wondered (and maybe Second Unit Aerials may know if he's still able to ask Graham, Frank and Keith) how they stopped Anneka doing her own research of places of interest once she had been taken to the hotel on the pre-filming research day, and hence helping the contestants. She obviously *did* do a fair amount of research so she could fill in dead air with knowledgeable facts about the area while contestants were thinking, and yet she didn't ever seem to say "Ah yes, I wonder if this might be X - I know that's in this area". Maybe she was given rules about how much she could contribute from her own prior knowledge or from her "filling in dead air" research.
She wasn't ever as bad as Kenneth "earpiece" Kendall, bless him. Great anchor for the whole thing, but the number of times he told the contestants "oh, look at these books, there might be something in there".
Who are the various crew who appear? Malcolm, Keith, Graham, Frank are fairly obvious, as is director Chris Gage and comms pilot Geoff Newman. I presume the man who talks about "Quote of the Year from Malcolm "super comms, Nigel... Nigel?" is Nigel Tilbury. But who is the woman in the floral dress at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VUOnVacLTJ4.htmlm38s who talks about "pestle and mostle aka shash", and the woman in outrageous 1980s glasses and blue shorts at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CQhg2KYMoS8.html; maybe the latter is the stage manager Pauline Gaunt.
