The BBC reported yesterday that a number of original film cannisters were found in a garden shed, after the death of a film editor, who worked at the Slough Estate. Century 21 Films have taken possession of the cans, some of which were in a sorry state and have begun the laborious process of digitising the content.
Read the full report here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1e848ewnlno
The stuff the dreams are made of, truly so! What a wonderful discovery. Gives also renewed hope of discovering other missing TV gems like the early Doctor Who episodes.
ReplyDeletea lot of early Who material was discovered a few years back in a similar fashion if I recall. Thank heavens for analog media - these days, a powerful magnetic storm could wipe out Hollywood!
DeleteThunderbirds - the Lost Footage! Amazing! SFZ
ReplyDeleteIn the garden shed, eh.
ReplyDeleteThunderbirds Are (next to the) Hoe !
As a child during the 60's who was heavily inspired by the Anderson's output, this story resonates strongly with me.
ReplyDeleteHowever having recently driven past the Slough Trading estate, I'm very aware of how time has marched on.
Very few of the original participants now remain alive and the kid who watched their work and built a career inspired by them, is now retired himself.
Ah, Thunderbirds... made in the days when the hand of human workers was still gloriously visible!
After the demise of Century 21 a few of the SFX guys migrated to the BBC Visual Effects Dept in the early 70s.
ReplyDeleteTwo of them became Senior Designers there, Tony Harding and Peter Wragg.
Both worked on shows such as Dr Who and Blakes 7, with Tony designing K9, The Doctors robot dog, and Peter going on to head up the Vis FX team on Red Dwarf in the late 80s.
After I joined the BBC, in '87, I worked with both of them for years, getting to know Peter quite well, as I was one of his assistants on six series of Dwarf.
They were both great FX mentors and I learnt a huge amount about real physical effects from them.