FF 1978 Series Questions

Discuss the television and film adaptations of Enid Blyton's stories.
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bj
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FF 1978 Series Questions

Post by bj »

Hi Folks

I've got some questions about the 1978 series:
  • I read somewhere that Exbury House was crammed with editing suites etc. Does that mean that episodes left the site fully ready for broadcast?
  • How long did it take to make an episode?
  • Does anyone know anything about the scheduling decisions were made?

    (As I remember it, it was shown on Thursday afternoons then switched to Sunday afternoons after a six week break, stopped again at the end of the year and came back for a 6 or so episodes the following summer.) Was that a normal scheduling pattern in those days?
  • How well do you think the 25 minute format worked?
kind regards

Brian.
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Petermax
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Re: FF 1978 Series Questions

Post by Petermax »

Probably the best person to answer some of these questions would be Gary Russell who played the part of Dick in the series. Gary does pop into these forums from time to time.

All editing was done at Exbury house, the series was shot on 16mm film, a very common television practice back then as broadcast standard video cameras were usually considered to be too bulky for outside location use. I would imagine that the finished product would have been taken to a specialist facility for transfer to broadcast video tape prior to transmission.

The series was shown in three batches between 3rd July 1978 and 8th August 1979, here are the details; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078611/episodes" target="_blank

The subject of the 25 minute running time is a vexed one, so much had to be compressed into such a short running time. A few of the episodes were two-parters which allowed greater adherence to the original books, ie Smuggler's Top.
Last edited by Petermax on 11 Jul 2008, 13:42, edited 1 time in total.
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Moonraker
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Re: FF 1978 Series Questions

Post by Moonraker »

bj wrote:How well do you think the 25 minute format worked?
It didn't, Brian!

Even the double episodes didn't do the books justice. If I were adapting a book for television, it would have to be at least two hours long.
Last edited by Moonraker on 24 Jul 2008, 12:12, edited 2 times in total.
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Yan
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Re: FF 1978 Series Questions

Post by Yan »

Of course, Gary is the best person to answer these questions. But I think that the filming of the episodes did not take too much time. Each episode was completed in about one week (the two-parters in two weeks) – so the series' production was one of Southern TV´s fastest at that time (I think Marcus Harris said so once). :wink:

The fact that the series was shown in three batches with a rather long break in between, really is interesting. Because here in Germany, all episodes were shown between 30.09.78 and 24.03.79. So the German kids knew the later episodes (e.g. “Five fall into adventure”) much earlier than the English. :wink:

http://www.fernsehserien.de/index.php?serie=221&seite=6" target="_blank

The other interesting fact is that the series was completely dubbed in German before the 30.09.78. I don´t know when the filming exactly ended (I think in August 1978) but anyway, Michael Hinz and Friedrich von Thun (who dubbed themselves for the German version) probably came straight ahead from Exbury to Berlin to repeat their dialoges from the last 2 summers in German. 8)

(Well, sometimes they did not "repeat" them because the translation was not so exact) :roll:
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Morgan Jones
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Re: FF 1978 Series Questions

Post by Morgan Jones »

Just a quick question - I thought I'd ask here rather than starting a new thread.

Am I right in thinking the half hour episodes had no commercial break on ITV? 30-minute children's programmes sometimes had a commercial break and sometimes didn't. On watching the DVDs I haven't noticed any obvious break-point.

It also appears that the Southern TV 'star' ident wasn't burnt onto the front of the episodes, but was often played out live on transmission. I can still hear the catchy guitar jingle!!
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Re: FF 1978 Series Questions

Post by Moonraker »

They were advert-free, Morgan. This site should interest you!
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Re: FF 1978 Series Questions

Post by Morgan Jones »

Thanks Moonraker. I know that site well - I'm a TV anorak from way back!!
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Gary Russell
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Re: FF 1978 Series Questions

Post by Gary Russell »

bj wrote:Hi Folks

I've got some questions about the 1978 series:
  • I read somewhere that Exbury House was crammed with editing suites etc. Does that mean that episodes left the site fully ready for broadcast?
  • How long did it take to make an episode?
  • Does anyone know anything about the scheduling decisions were made?

    (As I remember it, it was shown on Thursday afternoons then switched to Sunday afternoons after a six week break, stopped again at the end of the year and came back for a 6 or so episodes the following summer.) Was that a normal scheduling pattern in those days?
  • How well do you think the 25 minute format worked?
kind regards

Brian.
The film editing and rough sound editing was done on site - enough to get each day's rushes ready for viewing. Final sound editing and mixing and all other post production ready for broadcast was prepped back at Southern's base in Southampton.

Five days per 25 min ep

Scheduling was a real pot-pourrei frankly. Different ITV regions showed it at different times. Tx of the second series was interupted by the ITV strike, hence the "third" run.

It worked well enough for standrad 70s children's TV shows of the time. If we followed Nigel's logic and took two hours to adapt any book, nothing would get made without a movie-style budget. And this was kids tv.
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Re: FF 1978 Series Questions

Post by Moonraker »

Gary Russell wrote: If we followed Nigel's logic and took two hours to adapt any book, nothing would get made without a movie-style budget. And this was kids tv.
Fair point, Gary. Maybe I was a little unfair in saying it didn't work - obviously it did as it was hugely popular. I was just muddling my preference for a 'movie-style' production!
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Re: FF 1978 Series Questions

Post by Morgan Jones »

To be honest, I think some of the single episodes worked better than others. It had to have been a challenge adapting the plot line of a novel into 25 minutes. Generally speaking, the writers achieved this quite well - though some episodes, notably Finniston Farm and Fix, seemed to suffer for this.

Series 2 was being made before Series 1 had even aired, so the network obviously had faith in the series being a success, though I doubt anyone would have realised it would be considered a cult classic nearly 40 years later. There was obviously a budget for a third series, and had they known at the time that this wouldn't be cleared by the Blyton estate, I wonder if they would have considered making more two-parters and therefore having enough episodes for three series.
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Re: FF 1978 Series Questions

Post by Gary Russell »

Morgan Jones wrote:There was obviously a budget for a third series, and had they known at the time that this wouldn't be cleared by the Blyton estate, I wonder if they would have considered making more two-parters and therefore having enough episodes for three series.
26 eps was pretty standard back then to be enough to guarantee international sales especially in the States, so no, I think it was a carefully worked out plan to make 26 eps from 21 books. What they weren't expecting was to lose Treasure Island and Mystery to Solve which, ironically, created space for more two parters. I should imagine when planning S1, they probably originally went 'we'll open and close the series with a two-parter and the rest will be single eps'. By the time S2 came around, they had adjusted their expectations to allow for more two-parters (especially when Plenty of Fun dropped by the wayside). If there had been a third series, it was always the intention to do new stories, and that was what the Estate said no to, thus killing the show off.
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