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Top of the Pops - the older days


Jamtastic3

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Hi all,

OK I'm quite a fan of TOTP, well not as much as todays because I hardly catch it but more TOTP2 especially anything from the mid 80's to early 90's. This is probably because of the lighting of the time which seemed to dramatically change compared to the more static stuff of earlier TOTP. So I have picked this as part of a college assessment.

So there's a couple of things I'd like to know from the time of flashing neon sets and classic mullet hair-styles:

 

Does anyone know what the first 'intelligent' looking lights were on TOTP? What I've seen looks like some angled profile with a small sound to light colourwheel inside the gate of the lamp. Any details of this? They seemed to have been used mainly between 84' and 90'.

Also what were the first intelligents used - scans and moving heads? Looking at footage, scans seemed to appear in about 86' and heads about 89'. Also what other lights that were used apart from the typical Pars and what

kind of boards were used to control all the stuff!

 

Sorry for the need of detail - I'm doing a project on entertainment lighting and one of the areas is about lighting advances on TOTP. Of course I will be talking about today's lighting on the show as well.

 

Thanks for any info put forward

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slightly off topic, but I don't think the eighties qualifies as "the Olden Days" for TOTP - more like the Early Middle Ages. My first memories of TOTP (or "Ye Toppe of ye Poppes" as it was known then) go back to 1972 ish when The Sweet were number one with "Blockbuster". I'm afraid I was far more intrigued by the idea of men in make up than by what lights they were using at the time. I've a feeling that this possibly predates parscans? (or even Parcans - I recollect a previous topic somewhere on the age / first sightings of cans in the UK Entertainments Industry)
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Quite a few old 70s and early 80s TOTP videos I have seem to show telly frensels with gel dogclipped on the front to be a favourite and then pointed in the direction of the camera for lens flare (etc) looks.

 

HTH

Stu

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Always remember TOTP for heavy use of pinspot harvesters, the rotating bars of pinspots, added to loads of neon, real 80`s chic.

 

Think it was actually the Spanish who started the trend for motorised pinspot stuff, helicopters, harvesters, scanner banks ,people like Kremesa and Satel.

 

Some info , not TOTP specific but of the era:

 

http://www.mondiale.co.uk/mondodr/dodd.html

 

Ian Kirby must know quite a lot about the same period as well.

 

Pass me the cocktail with a sparkler in it.....

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As others have said they initially used rotating bars and balls of pin spots, Richard Martin still have them kicking around their warehouse.

 

I'm pretty sure that the first moving mirror fixtures they had were Clay Paky Golden Scans, but I could be wrong.

 

They used to use Pulsar Masterpiece desks, then they started using Compulite Animator MLC24 desks (that originally only controlled Clay Paky heads and then they were updated to control others) and have pretty much gone through all the other Compulite desks as they have come out - Animator Compact, Animator 96, Sabre and now the Vector, although as the LX team changes every 4 weeks they now also use some other desks such as the Hog.

 

Unfortunately there is no info on the STLD site about old TOTP stuff (I know as I am the webmaster), but it might be worth looking at adding it, if you want to provide the article!!

 

I am still in touch with some of the operators from those days, I will see if they have any more info.

 

Andy Stone

Stagetec Distribution

Compulite UK Distributor

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi,

 

As TOTP's original automated lighting operator I can shed a little light on this..

 

Original "intelligent" automation were either PARSCANS, a PAR in an automated yoke with a scroller running on a strand "Taskmaster", which sometimes appeared in a small briefcase. Otherwise, we (or RML) had 6 goldenscan MkIs running on a modified BBC micro in a large tin box. Later, the first commercial controller was an "OSKA".

 

Prior to this, movement did occur, and quite rightly as someone observed, a mix of italian disco effects (twist pillars, gyro 3s, contra twists, cosmos balls etc) all of which RML spent time strengthening, and putting in steel cages. There were also some sound activated wobbly mirrors homebuilt from DC servos, glue and string.

 

Hope this helps!

Cheers

Andy

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Wow, now that's interesting. Thanks for the info Andy!

 

I've noticed during alot of shows, fixtures that looked like a profile on a stand and pointing out to the audience with some sort of sound activated revolving gobo on the front which gave the first initial indications of an ' intelligent' light of its time. Do you know what these were? And what do you speak of the homebuilt things you made?

 

Wow, you got me wanting to watch the classic shows now!

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I'm not sure this is so much what you're looking for, but I remember seeing some home-made "graphic effects" - basically a piece of tinsel sellotaped onto the camera! They also used some kind of filter on the cameras to make the beams go into star shapes like they do (I'm sure there must be a more technical term for this :D)

 

Slightly :), but oh well.

 

Adam

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