What was the model of the set used in Lovells family room in the movie Apollo-13 with Tom Hanks? To me it looks like an RCA TransVista Color and the reason I say this is because I had a school friend whos family had one very similar to the one used in the movie. Its a very nice set but was it even an idea in april of 1970 let alone a production set? I do like the blank channel indicator however while the set is operating, should have offered a new #47 bulb.
I was watching the movie this evening on LD and well.... tell me to get a life but I did take close note of the sets used. Blanche who had the beautiful roundie in her retirement condo, the plastic sets used in the Air Force classroom just before splashdown and what looked like a second generation Trinitron that was in the scene where Blanche was cursing out "That damn TV guide again".

I like the movie and all with the great cars, homes and the storyline but can't get over the number of plastic sets that were 'supposed' to be time period correct for 1970. I was only 4 months old at the time and don't remember anything of the real events but knowing where technology was at the time and the budget of the film they could have done better. Even the yellow western electric phone that Marylin Lovell was using during the call to NASA where she said "Dont give me any of that NASA bullshit" was a later phone that used an RJ style handset, those didnt even come into existance until a bit later in time.

Maybe we could all ban together and offer Hollywood some television advice for movies filmed in homes?
Just a thought and small rant.

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I was wondering myself if it was a transvista or possibly an early XL-100. I thought however, that the XL-100 came a little later like 72?

I think we could all ban together and offer advice to directors as to what electronics belong in the time period in their movies. Hell, we could even rent out our surplus gear to them for $$$$ a day and get it in the movies at the same time :D

My thoughts exactly. If I had anything to do with it all the sets would be nice roundies or at least early RCA rectangle sets, combos maybe? Even a Zenith space command would have been perfect for the movie!

Speaking of round sets
I once worked for a greek guy that had an early RCA combo roundie set back in the early 1990s. It was a beautiful set in a mediterranian cabinet and everything worked but a bit weak. Did the screens and drives, focus and all that hooey and it looked damn near perfect. The FM side of the radio was weak but he didnt care and I dont remember if it was stereo or not but now that I think about it I wonder if the set is still around? The only complaint was from his wife as she liked to watch CNN and the bottom scroll went by "too fast" because of the limited space at the bottom.
Im gonna see if I can track down the guy either in the USA or his home in Cyprus. I know his son is still around running the business so who knows the set may still be around. Man that was a beautiful set!

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The set looked like a CTC-40 to me. Was that sometimes labeled as Trans Vista? The one I had was marked New Vista even though it was a solid state set. I think the time frame is right. They went to the new logo around 69/70, gradually, and there were CTC-40s with both logos. The control panel, I think, changed by the time they made that switch. The one in the movie looked like the old version. The control panel is unique as it is very similiar to one commonly used on CTC-31/38 but is offset into the crt bezel. This would have been one of RCA's better sets at the time, appropriate for an astronaut. So, in my opinion, they could have done a lot worse. I do recall seeing other sets in there that were too new, and that does turn me off.

apollo 13 was a very good movie, havnt seen it in some time. If i remember correct, the TV that displayed the "Happy new year 1972" was way too new for the time. That set looked more like 1980's, but didnt know what it was. Whenever I watch movies, that the main thing I watch out for. The electronic items are so easy to spot as being period correct or not. As time goes by, you will see more and more movies have incorrect items in the set for time periods as the directors etc. will be too young to really know what was correct or not. It really annoys me too. Whenever you mention that you collect old color TV's people think of cheap 1980's junk with the flimsy channel selector dials that you see in newer movies that are supposed to be in the year "1967". (No offense to those who collect 1980's TV's.)

The one thing that drives me crazy in Apollo 13 is when they want to verify a calculation,theres 20 guys with pens and pads and slide rules working it out.Being that they are in Houston,and I remember seeing ads for Texas Instruments calculators in 1973,wouldnt NASA have calculators by then?
Jimmy

Im looking on Wikipedia,and it says TI invented the first hand held calculator in 1967.
Jimmy

The one thing that drives me crazy in Apollo 13 is when they want to verify a calculation,theres 20 guys with pens and pads and slide rules working it out.Being that they are in Houston,and I remember seeing ads for Texas Instruments calculators in 1973,wouldnt NASA have calculators by then?
Jimmy

Probably done for dramatic effect.

In 1973 calculators were still primitave by todays standards. As late as 76 when I was in collage slide rule use was still taught. Lord knows though that I do not remember how it worked :) The engineers in the movie would have probably cut their teeth on slide rules and were more comfortable with them than the newfangled calculators.

Bill R.

Im thinking it was for a dramatic effect but also maybe because the NASA guys have always resisted change!
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And in early 1970, I doubt if the engineers could afford calculators...at least not all of 'em could. Maybe the Boss engineer.

And in early 1970, I doubt if the engineers could afford calculators...at least not all of 'em could. Maybe the Boss engineer.

Maybe not the engineers, but your tax dollars could!

I haven't seen the film, but I want to when I get a chance to rent it.

But on the wrong-tv-in-movie rant: I have seen SO many B&W portables in old TV shows with color pictures on them :scratch2:

Charles

But on the wrong-tv-in-movie rant: I have seen SO many B&W portables in old TV shows with color pictures on them :scratch2:

Charles


Years ago (in fact, until very recently), what you mention would have been unheard of. However, in this day and age, using Adobe Photoshop or any other good image editor, it is possible to change pictures from b&w to color or vice-versa or even, in this case, to put a color picture on the screen of a b&w set in an image. Ted Turner of Superstation TBS fame caused quite a stir a few years ago (perhaps 20 years or so by now), when he colorized some old TV shows which had been originally filmed in black and white--viewers said it ruined the authenticity of the programs; however, that was probably before Photoshop was even thought of, let alone marketed or widely used. I personally cannot imagine in my wildest dreams watching a 1950s TV show such as I Love Lucy in color; this show was CBS's first sitcom, first broadcast by the network in 1951. Colorize it and--whoops!--there goes the magic of it all. To paraphrase Fred Mertz in one of the "ILL" episodes, if nature had intended the program to be seen in color, CBS would have filmed the darn thing in color in the first place! Of course, this likely would have been a waste of money by CBS, as there were very few if any color TVs in the very early '50s. NBC did not begin color programming until 1953; CBS and ABC began colorcasting some years later--in fact, ABC had to come up with a modified version of its network logo when it did begin colorcasting in the '60s, as many ABC affiliates were not equipped for color transmission at first, and the network did not want to confuse viewers living in or near cities with ABC affiliates not equipped for color (they might think their color TVs were out of order if they saw a color program on ABC in monochrome). The original round ABC color logo featured the symbol, with an announcer; the later version simply used music synchronized with the movement of the logo into position. I cannot speak for all ABC affiliates, not even the ABC station in Cleveland, as I do not know when it began color transmission (it might have been colorcasting right from the beginning, for all I know); even if I did know when channel 5 began colorcasting, I wouldn't have seen it until years later as my folks only had black-and-white TV at the time.

Jeff . . . Jeff . . .

Charles is referring to, for instance, Steve Douglas' set on My Three Sons, which was a ca. 1954 black & white console, magically displaying a color picture when its screen was shown. Similarly, Sam Drucker on Green Acres would occasionally pull a late 50s RCA portable out from behind the counter and it too would be shown displaying color pictures. Adobe got nuttin' to do with it.

You're correct about the ABC color logo, but in reverse order--think about it. There was only an instrumental backing at first. The announcement about a color program to follow was added later.

Jeff . . . Jeff . . .

Charles is referring to, for instance, Steve Douglas' set on My Three Sons, which was a ca. 1954 black & white console, magically displaying a color picture when its screen was shown. Similarly, Sam Drucker on Green Acres would occasionally pull a late 50s RCA portable out from behind the counter and it too would be shown displaying color pictures. Adobe got nuttin' to do with it.

You're correct about the ABC color logo, but in reverse order--think about it. There was only an instrumental backing at first. The announcement about a color program to follow was added later.


Correct; I meant about seeing a TV show or a movie with a B&W TV set as a prop, but with a color picture. I guess the prop houses had a lot of those sets sitting around, and they're light & portable. When I was a kid, living in the Rancho Park area of Los Angeles, they would rent houses frequently to do filming. So I would get to go snoop around and see what they were doing. I've seen two methods of putting pictures on TV sets for filming: One is that they do it by computer (TV is off while filming, picture is done later), the other way is to put a green sheet on the face of the CRT and use greenscreen technology to make the picture. The green paper method is very obvious in a commercial that ran all through the 90s in SoCal... It was for Adee Plumbing & Heating. They show a Sony KV-1720, which is ofcourse a color set, but they put the green sheet over the whole CRT bezel! You see the Sony in one part of the commercial not turned on and with the whole TV face showing, then you see it again with a picture on it but the picture covers the whole doggone plastic bezel! A 17" TV with a 21" picture :banana: ... As far as I know, they seldom if ever actually have a TV working while filming. I have rented plenty of vintage TVs to the film industry for props, and they nearly always want me to take the chassis & tube out and just give them the cabinet with knobs stuck on by silicone adhesive.

Charles

Thanks for the corrections to my post. I did not realize that the b&w TV sets being referred to actually displayed color pictures in the shows mentioned, rather than having a Photoshopped color image put on a b&w screen (as I had thought when I wrote the post).

Thank you as well for the correction on the ABC color logo info. You are correct. It was the other way around; I realized that several minutes after I had posted the message.

Kind regards,

I remember seeing LOTS of obviously B&W TVs on TV displaying gorgeous color scenes;Thinking to myself, "Uhh, Yeah, right..." And you rarely ever saw a TV actually operating until the Trinitron-they must have had a more stable picture or were bright enuff to be photographed.

Know what else bugs me a little but maybe because Im so paticular of details is the use of green LED displays for the command modules "computer" and the use of compact flourescent lights for the CM and lunar excurision module. Heck CF light wasn't even a thought or idea in 1970 let alone 1980...
Seems to me that nixie tubes were the display device of the day.
Oh well maybe I do need a life!

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I remember seeing LOTS of obviously B&W TVs on TV displaying gorgeous color scenes;Thinking to myself, "Uhh, Yeah, right..." And you rarely ever saw a TV actually operating until the Trinitron-they must have had a more stable picture or were bright enuff to be photographed.

I might get a nastygram from the moderators for pulling this thread so far off course, but I want to add to this sub-subtopic, the epitome of TV show prop wrongdoing was in an episode of The Big Valley (Western which took place in the 1800s)... In a scene where the guys were out on horseback trying to get a message to the telegraph office, you can see a DC-10 roaring across the horizon :nono: ... And then I also noticed a really shiny new Winegard CH-8200 color TV antenna ontop of a building in a Civil War docu-drama once...

Charles

Know what else bugs me a little but maybe because Im so paticular of details is the use of green LED displays for the command modules "computer" and the use of compact flourescent lights for the CM and lunar excurision module. Heck CF light wasn't even a thought or idea in 1970 let alone 1980...
Seems to me that nixie tubes were the display device of the day.
Oh well maybe I do need a life!

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I've seen an apollo computer in person at the computer history museum and it definitely doesn't use nixie tubes. According to wikipedia, it used a green 7 segment electroluminescent display.

While screw in compact fluorescent lamps didn't exist, I can believe they would have used small fluorescent tubes to light the command module. It wouldn't make any sense to use something less efficient. I have a small desk lamp from the 50's that uses little 5" long tubes.

Back to the topic of using an operating set vs. picture added in post-production: the set has to be modified to run at 24 Hz vertical (or maybe 48 Hz) locked to the camera shutter if you want to avoid terrible flicker. So, flicker-free (but often unreal-looking for other reasons) is achieved with green screen or post-insertion. Modern plasma sets can also have flicker problems when filmed, but LCD sets generally do not (that may change as LCD sets go to the technique of flashing the backlight to reduce motion smear).

Unless the film was run to an even 30 frames/sec to avoid this issue. I know of a few smaller production films that were actually done at 30f/s to improve the blur effect, 1984 Streets of Fire was one of those films I believe.

Now I have Apollo-13 on Laserdisc and saw clearly the floodlights that were used in both the CM and LEM were the more modern CF types. Just look at the bases through the diffuser in the movie and you can see the base and that thin interconnect between the thicker active lamp tubes.

One thing about Streets of Fire was the scene where Cody finished blowing up the battery and him and his gang were on the streets. The scene fades over to a video of Ellen Aim playing inside a bar that is displayed on a rather new for the time Trinitron cube monitor. Shortly after that they meet a groupie who tells them the cops are looking for them and McCoy stops the Sorrells who are in a mid 60's retired school bus.
Of all the "B" movies I have seen Streets of Fire has to be one of the best, makes me wonder if more of the budget was spent on making sure the sounds were right instead of pasting in the effects later to cover up the attitude that followed everyone through the movie.
Ok Im rambling again I cant help it! Still have that movie on CED of all formats!

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