British TV Kinescopes or Video material

[Joe west]

I am new to this forum so please forgive me if this is the wrong place to post this information.

I am looking for information on the where a bouts of any Kinescopes, Films, videos (Including home taped) or any clips of shows in any quality that may exist anywhere that originated from Britain. Especially interested in Science Fiction stuff. If any of you guys could help please leave me a message.

[cbenham]

Originally Posted by Joe west

I am new to this forum so please forgive me if this is the wrong place to post this information.

I am looking for information on the where a bouts of any Kinescopes, Films, videos (Including home taped) or any clips of shows in any quality that may exist anywhere that originated from Britain. Especially interested in Science Fiction stuff. If any of you guys could help please leave me a message.

I see lots of excerpts of such things on Youtube. You might start there and read the comments to perhaps find whole programs.

Best,

Cliff

[kvflyer]

Hi Joe and welcome. Hope you find what you are looking for and stay with us for a long time!

[bandersen]

Are you searching for lost Dr Who episodes ?

[DavGoodlin]

A long shot here, but "Red Dwarf" is a sci-fi comedy.

[Joe west]

many thanks for your reply's guys and for the very warm welcome you have given me.
There are many archives online now a days and I have spent many hours trolling through lists of mostly Shakespeare plays. Other sources for material come in the shape of forums such as your own good self's. Just to expand on my search here is a web site that explains the sort of thing that I am after http://www.missing-episodes.com/ it makes quite sad reading that so much of our culture and history has been lost. many thanks again.

[DavGoodlin]

This thread may be more suited to the forums labeled Magnetic Media/Tape, and Programs, etc at the end. It is a very sad story considering how serious the UK is about preserving history otherwise.

My brother recorded some Dr Who episodes from PBS (NET or viewer-supported "educational") channels. Much BBC material (usually hilarious sitcoms) was broadcast in the US from about 1972 to present day, but ONLY on these types of stations. BBC America is a more recent Sky/cable channel offering.

It may help to start contacting the PBS stations though I am not sure if they just "rented" what they broadcast from a third party. Most of the BBC material was broadcast by WHYY in Philadelphia, and to a lesser extent on WVIA, WLVT, WITF and MPT (Maryland Public Television) such as WMPB and WETA.

[earlyfilm]

Originally Posted by DavGoodlin

It may help to start contacting the PBS stations though I am not sure if they just "rented" what they broadcast from a third party.

It is possible that some kinescopes wound up at local NET/PBS stations, but after telecast, they were supposed to have been returned to NET.

After the rights to these shows expired, the duplicate copies were destroyed but sample copies and sometimes negatives were given to the Library of Congress.

Below is a press release about this from two years ago. There are actually more of these titles to be repartiated. Much of this material that has not been digitally preserved, and therefore those titles do not have viewing copies. Preservation is expensive and priority goes to those items about to turn to dust.
_________________________________________________

September 15, 2010

Library of Congress Discovers Lost British TV Treasures

Digital Copies of Rare Performances by Sean Connery and Others Given to UK

The British gave Americans the Beatles, James Bond and Shakespeare. The Library of Congress is returning the favor by repatriating a treasure trove of TV programs that represent Britain’s "golden age of television." Considered lost for more than 40 years, the programs include footage of some of the biggest names in entertainment, including Sean Connery, Maggie Smith, John Gielgud, Robert Shaw, David Hemmings and Susannah York.

In an unprecedented collaboration between the Library of Congress and British Film Institute (BFI), the two largest archives of film and television in the world, more than 68 rare recordings from 1957 to 1969 will be returned to the United Kingdom. This marks the Library’s first-ever repatriation of television programs to another country and the largest such repatriation in history. These programs represent a key period in British television.

The vintage television programs were discovered in the Library’s National Educational Television (NET) Collection. NET was the forerunner of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which donated its film and video holdings to the Library via flagship station WNET/Thirteen in New York. For many years, NET imported a host of British teleplays and comedies, which were included in more than 20,000 reels donated to the Library.

"In the archival world, television repatriations are exceedingly rare," said Mike Mashon, head of the Library’s Moving Image Section. "We’re delighted to make high-quality preservation copies of these programs at the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and share them with the BFI and the British public. In the meantime, we’ll keep looking for more lost shows."

"The BFI’s ‘Missing, Believed Wiped’ campaign to recover the lost treasures of British television history has been going for 17 years now, but this is by far the largest and most significant collection of programs we have found, both in terms of the quality and the vintage of the titles concerned," said BFI senior curator Steve Bryant. "We are very grateful to WNET-TV for having the foresight to donate them to the Library of Congress, to the Library for preserving them and now making them available."

Many of the programs reflect adaptations of literary classics, including works by Shakespeare, Ibsen and Chekhov. Highlights include Sean Connery and Dorothy Tutin in a rare BBC production of "Colombe" (1960) by Jean Anouilh; Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens in "Much Ado About Nothing," stage-directed by Franco Zeffirelli (1967); Leonard Rossiter and John Le Mesurier in "Dr. Knock" (1966); and Rudolph Cartier’s drama about Rembrandt (1969). The earliest production among the programs was Ibsen’s "The Wild Duck" in 1957. The roster of recovered dramas also includes episodes of "The Wednesday Play," "Thursday Theatre" and "Play of the Month."

The Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation is a state-of-the-art facility funded as a gift to the nation by the Packard Humanities Institute. The Packard Campus is the site where the nation’s library acquires, preserves and provides access to the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of motion pictures, television programs, radio broadcasts and sound recordings www.loc.gov/avconservation/. The Packard Campus is home to more than 6 million collection items. It provides staff support for the Library of Congress National Film Preservation Board, the National Recording Preservation Board, and the national registries for film and recorded sound.

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution. The Library seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, programs and exhibitions.