NBC colour series: Shirley Temple Show 1960-61

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by Aussie Bloke

... if you are referring to the dark vertical burn line at the left end of the picture, that is actually a common artifact with image orthicon cameras (colour and B&W) and can often be seen on any program shot with them... I actually wonder why IO tubes have that artifact myself?

The vertical bars on the left edge are yoke ringing in the horizontal deflection. If you look carefully at the music festival clip, you will see horizontal non-linearity (alternate stretching and compression) in that area as the camera pans. The scan velocity is being modulated, which affects the sensitivity and produces the darker/lighter bars on bright scene material.

[West]

According to Brooks, Tim and Earle Marsh, "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows," 1946-Present 5th Edition. New York, Ballantine Books, 1992, there was a break in-between the initial series of specials, "Shirley Temple's Storybook," on and the Shirley Temple series, both on NBC, in which Shirley switched to ABC-TV for a season.

These shows had to be in black-and-white of course, because ABC didn't have color at all, and probably were done on film as that network was much more film oriented (witness all the Warner Bros. westerns and their Disney shows (Disneyland, Zorro, Mickey Mouse Club). Perhaps this is why some of you believe that the color clips were on film. I don't know this for sure as I don't remember seeing the ABC shows, but it's my best guess.

[MelodyMaster]

Originally Posted by Aussie Bloke

Definitely colour videotape. As you'll see in this YouTube clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXoHru5Hedo where Shirley ends the show she is chromakeyed on the background of the NBC studio and two RCA TK-41s can be seen up the far back, plus the halos around her dress sequins when reflecting the spotlights is a dead giveaway, and also there's that dark vertical band on the left side of the picture seen in the animal head trophy bit which is a typical characteristic of a TK-41 picture.

Originally Posted by Aussie Bloke

G'day all.

The colour is absolutely amazing and looks just like technicolour but created electronically and at a fluid motion rate of 60fps. Also the video effects used is absolutely amazing and cutting edge for the time, the blue screen chroma keying, the kaleidoscope effects, the funky screen wipes, picture ripping effects etc.

Originally Posted by Aussie Bloke

Well as I have the series, I can easily say the show is DEFINITELY done on videotape shot from RCA TK-41 cameras in the NBC studios because the motion is very fluid like how our eyes see motion, at the end of this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXoHr...eature=related at 2:00 you'll see Shirley chroma keyed over the NBC studio 2 which the TK-41 cameras are seen in the background.

Sir, succesful video chromakey was not developed until the early 1970s, with the BBC's "Colour Separation Overlay" being the first to be widely used. The technical necessity of maintaining three colour channels throughout the production process and having a trigger based upon change of vector was too technically involved in these all-composite days. Chromakey started in earnest with Dr. Who, including one late Troughton episode which actually used a colour camera to utilize the effect, though the show was mastered in black and white. Jon Pertwee's doctor took full advantage of the technique and of course it took off for weather forecasts etc.

The process in the Shirley Temple shows is diode key, exactly the same as used for monochrome. Shirley is standing in front of a BLACK background, and the green channel (or fourth all-colour vidicon if present) is used to trigger the switch when the scan moves from black to lit subject. Shirley must have her hair well-lit and sparkling to avoid black spots, and she wears nothing dark. That registration is iffy on the TK41 is the reason the image doesn't fit well at the border, plus there's the unpredictability of a trigger depending entirely upon change of level rather than a more precise swing of colour vector.

And yes this is unmistakably colour video, with the shift in registration and linearity, yoke ringing, and mask edge bleeding as the scene switches from camera to camera. Film is only scanned with ONE camera throughout, after all.

Beautiful footage that I never knew existed. I'll be ordering this DVD, thanks.

[old_tv_nut]

It's hard to see in the Youtube clip, so I took a look at the DVD in stop-frame, and it appears that the background was blue, not black. I don't know what signal was used for keying at the time, but I suspect it was simply the blue channel - color vector selection would have been too complex at the time, I believe.

Also, the Howdy Doody episode "Clarabell Speaks" (1960) was shot with TK-41s, and used blue screen for the opening scene, in which it failed pretty miserably, showing a big area of blue background to the right of the performer for a number of seconds, plus continually in the corners where a roundie monitor wouldn't show it.

I also recall the local NBC station in Chicago (I think that's who) doing a blue-screen novelty number with TK-41s in which they deliberately dressed the female singer in blue and keyed in some film and artwork. They showed the blue dress at the beginning and end with the art effects appearing at some appropriate place mid-number.

My guess is that blue screen, not black, was the regular practice at early color studios.

I also recall seeing keyed effects with TK-41s where the optical orbiters were kept running, so the foreground and background slowly swam in small circles with respect to each other.

[3Guncolor]

Yes it was, the blue screen was common using the blue channel before the encoder. From that point it worked just like a monochrome key. It was almost as simple as taking the RGB from the camera.

[MelodyMaster]

Everything I've ever learned during my tenure as a broadcast tech was that there was no vector chromakeying until 1969. HOWEVER I can see one channel from the camera being used for a diode key. Blue is both the best and worst colour to use, worst because it's the softest, lowest gain channel, best because it has the narrowest range of potential mixing into a resulting final shade. - That's a messy explanation but look at an NTSC chromacity diagram. The blue background would have to be close to the actual chromacity of the blue (or not-yellow) camera filter. GREEN on the other hand is the highest resolution, hignest gain channel. But it is also used in the widest range of matrix shades; thus, for instance, a green diode key would trigger even on flesh tones. a VECTOR key however would only trigger on that precise shade of green, not as part of a mix including green.. ... A channel diode key would trigger on any shade that includes a certain degree of blue, a vector key would only trigger on that PRECISE tint. This is why these early blue screen keys have such awful keyed edges, it's a low-res imprecise keying reference. .... A vector chromakey is fed RGB from the camera so as to avoid edge artifacts from the encoding, even though a vector key COULD use a baseband composite signal.

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

It's hard to see in the Youtube clip, so I took a look at the DVD in stop-frame, and it appears that the background was blue, not black. I don't know what signal was used for keying at the time, but I suspect it was simply the blue channel - color vector selection would have been too complex at the time, I believe.

Also, the Howdy Doody episode "Clarabell Speaks" (1960) was shot with TK-41s, and used blue screen for the opening scene, in which it failed pretty miserably, showing a big area of blue background to the right of the performer for a number of seconds, plus continually in the corners where a roundie monitor wouldn't show it.

I also recall the local NBC station in Chicago (I think that's who) doing a blue-screen novelty number with TK-41s in which they deliberately dressed the female singer in blue and keyed in some film and artwork. They showed the blue dress at the beginning and end with the art effects appearing at some appropriate place mid-number.

My guess is that blue screen, not black, was the regular practice at early color studios.

I also recall seeing keyed effects with TK-41s where the optical orbiters were kept running, so the foreground and background slowly swam in small circles with respect to each other.

[old_tv_nut]

Shirley Temple Show ad

[ChrisW6ATV]

Thank you for posting the ad.

[jhalphen]

Hi to All,

Seeking to purchase the Shirley Temple NBC show DVD(s), i looked up the original site indicated by Aussie Bloke: the discs are not present anymore.

http://store.nexternal.com/shared/St...unt2=103965401

I then tried Amazon and found this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...&condition=all

US $500.00 for 4 episodes! what's wrong here, i never knew a DVD could reach 500 Bucks! - totally crazy!

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France

[old_tv_nut]

Jerome, they are the first thing on the upper left, $29.99

http://www.nexternal.com/shirley/the...1-dvd-p25.aspx

[Aussie Bloke]

I'm pretty sure Shirley Temple herself would be unimpressed if she saw that overpriced sale on Amazon. But it seems to be not against the law to resell something you legally bought for more than its market value and I hear of this happening a lot with concert footy/cricket tickets on Ebay selling for over three times their actual value and those who missed out on getting tickets at the vendor would oblige to fork out the extra wad of cash to buy those overpriced tickets.

Anyways I hope Shirley will release the rest of the episodes out of the series on DVD, they were very enjoyable to watch and love to see the rest of the series.

[Steve D.]

Originally Posted by jhalphen

Hi to All,

Seeking to purchase the Shirley Temple NBC show DVD(s), i looked up the original site indicated by Aussie Bloke: the discs are not present anymore.

http://store.nexternal.com/shared/St...unt2=103965401

I then tried Amazon and found this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...&condition=all

US $500.00 for 4 episodes! what's wrong here, i never knew a DVD could reach 500 Bucks! - totally crazy!

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France

Jerome,

I purchased the 6 pack of the 1961 NBC color Shirley Temple Storybook Collection last year from Amazon.com. I believe I paid $35.00. I see on their site they offer 3 pack #1 & 3 pack #2 of these episodes for $35.92 when bought together. Scroll down the page to see this offer: http://www.amazon.com/Shirley-Temple...xgy_mov_text_b

Best,
-Steve D.

[radio63]

Do the episodes on the DVD have original commercials, the NBC Peacock at the beginning, station break in the middle, and network ID at the end? If someone could answer this, it would be great. Thanks!

Gilbert

[Steve D.]

Hi Gilbert,

None of the episodes have any of the items you mentioned. These are not off air dubs. The DVD's say copyright 2005 Shirley Temple Black, so I guess Shirley Temple owns the show. They do have the original opening titles & announcement and end crawl credits w/an NBC "snake" logo on the credit roll.
A company called Legend Films produced the transfers from 2" video tape to DVD. The DVD's do not look like they were in anyway restored except that one of the DVD titles: "The Little Mermaid" says Dolby digital sound on the case. There is no reference to NBC or that they are in color anywhere on the 6 protective cases

-Steve D.

[radio63]

Hi Steve,

Thanks so much for the info. I'm sorry to hear the DVDs don't contain all of those things I mentioned. I knew it was not an off-the-air dub, but thought it might contain that material. I was thinking of the final color episode of "Howdy Doody", available on DVD which does have the NBC peacock and even the mid-station break and ending network announcement. Now that's a DVD that everyone interested in early color programming should have in their collections! Thanks again Steve!

Gilbert