Image © Network, 2016

Whether it was on the original broadcast, repeat showings, VHS or DVD releases, we had been enjoying the mishaps and adventures of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) – as well as episodes of other ITC series – for around four decades... all at the wrong speed! For years though, we didn't know any better and were quite content with viewing these home grown film productions alongside US TV series imports and feature films all running 4% faster than actually produced. In the case of some classic US sitcoms such as Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, arguably this helped to slightly quicken the pace of the madcap stories, sight gags and general high jinks. Only with something like The Monkees TV show would people with a somewhat musical ear and familiarity with the group's records possibly wonder why the songs sounded faster then their vinyl equivalents. As mentioned in my previous article Features: How Did We Start Seeing Things?, it all came down to the technical challenges of the day in making a 24 frames per second production easily fit a 25 pictures per second (50Hz) European television system.

The UK public may have become more aware that such things were occurring when the highly popular US import Dallas changed its method of post-production. Shown in a prime BBC1 slot, the series made by Lorimar was originally an all film production creating complete 35mm master prints, but later switched to only shooting on film with editing and finishing on videotape. The infamous 'dream season' where Patrick Duffy's character had seemingly permanently departed the show only to come back again, was the last season distributed as 35mm prints to the BBC – and those were some of the finest looking elements of a US TV series ever produced. The following season was then supplied on analogue 1-inch videotape, conversions from the NTSC video edited masters as that was how the episodes were now being assembled. This had the result of presenting the series for the first time at the correct native speed of 24fps, not that that was the most important change noticed by UK viewers. The big difference was in the definition and clarity of the pictures having suddenly gone from crisp 35mm direct to air telecine broadcasts to soft, smeary and generally murky images from tape. It served to underline that an increase in audio pitch and the sacrificing of the correct production speed was probably preferable if it meant the resulting transmitted picture was of a higher quality.

However, for the relatively small number of film aficionados that bought into LaserDisc / Laservision in the 1980s and 90s, preferring NTSC pressings over PAL discs was the norm even in the UK. This allowed them to view features at their correct speed, even if a certain amount of motion judder was evident. Fast forward two decades and the advent of the Blu-ray format and accompanying multi standard capable flat-screen televisions, meant that high quality 24fps consumer playback without frame interpolation was now possible – and in high definition! Therefore, the debut of a live-action ITC series on Blu-ray came as something of a revelation for fans when Network released The Prisoner in 2009. Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) followers would unfortunately have to wait another seven years to see their beloved series get the same treatment, except for a single taster episode that is.

In late 2010, I happily found myself transferring 13 of the 17 stand-alone ITC episodes that were destined to make up three volumes to be released the following year under the umbrella title of Retro-Action. These Network compilation discs were made up of transfers from the original 35mm cut negatives running on the Spirit Datacine in Grading Suite 2 at BBC TV Centre, controlled by a Pogle grading system, with the vision output going via a hardware clean-up device. The latter was mainly utilised to remove small amounts of dirt and sparkle as there was no manual clean-up work included in the budget. Each 1,000ft negative reel was graded with the settings for each shot stored in the Pogle system and then the reel was rewound to the head and an edit was performed. This synchronised not only the Spirit machine running the film, but also a PAL SD video copy of the episode in question as an audio source, as well as the recording machine. The transfers were actually made at 25fps as it made it easier to lock the audio source with the film without additional stages and the result was recorded onto HDCAMSR. This digital high definition video cassette format had the ability to play back a recorded tape at a different frame rate, therefore later ingest and authoring of these transfers at 24fps wasn't a problem. This was the first time I had seen these series in full HD and they were a joy to behold bringing certain background details into focus for the first time. The Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) episode chosen for the set was When Did You Start To Stop Seeing Things?. As with any of these transfers, I strove to produce a grade that maintained a balance throughout that was hopefully neutral but with a certain vibrancy – this was the sixties after all! When the episode transfers were complete, I did sometimes switch the VTR into 24fps mode in order to see how it felt at the correct speed. To begin with it was a bit odd... suddenly voices were deeper but at the same time the music felt right which of course it was. I had bought a 3CD original soundtrack from Network in 2008, which presented the delightful incidental music of Edwin Astley at the correct speed and free from noises/chat for the first time. The only spanner in the works of that original set (corrected in various subsequent releases) was the title theme. With the master tape being absent until some years later, the theme for both front and end credits was unfortunately lifted from a PAL video recording without any speed adjustment. Whereas, we had been used to this in terms of episode viewings, hearing it within a compact disc audio presentation surrounded by high quality music at the correct pitch was something of a disappointment. Yes, we had heard it that way for years, but once you know something is wrong and you have started listening / viewing material at the correct speed, it's virtually impossible to go back.

Despite having been involved in the transfers for Retro-Action, I was still keen to purchase all three volumes. The highly attractive packaging designed by Martin Cater really did bring home the wealth of quality entertainment brought to us by ITC, with examples from 15 series making their High Definition debut. Also, for the first time for most UK fans, the opportunity to watch these shows at their correct pitch. Unfortunately, the sets didn't sell as well as hoped as I expect most people thought they were simply a pre-cursor to a steady stream of complete ITC series releases coming soon to Blu-ray. The Persuaders!, considered by many as the jewel in the crown of this genre, did follow fairly quickly as a complete series release but sadly this also underperformed at the time relative to sales expectations. Unfortunately, this had the effect of cancelling the idea to follow this with a release of The Champions along with plans to host a UK launch event with the three lead actors. This meant there was a slowing of pace to the ITC Blu-ray releases and Network looked elsewhere for other projects such as The Professionals from Mark I / LWT. It would be another five years before Network would begin a new chapter of ITC series restoration work outside of Gerry Anderson productions, finally bringing the likes of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) completely into High Definition.

A row of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) master film cans
Image © Jonathan Wood, 2023

By the time 2016 rolled around several things had changed – the BBC's Post Production area that encompassed the film restoration side of things had been closed, Network was looking to have its own in-house grading / restoration staff and hi-end film work almost exclusively utilised a film scanner as opposed to a telecine. My ex-BBC colleague Amanda Whitby and I joined Network in September and along with ex-ITV asset manager and coordinator Mark Stanborough, we formed the trio that would begin work on ITC series for Blu-ray release. Although the costs involved in High Definition film work had reduced since the early days, it was still significant and more so when it involved a lengthy series. A feature film release may comprise 90 minutes or so of restored film material, a trailer and a few assorted other extras if you are lucky which would retail at a certain price point. However, a television series release would encompass far more material requiring restoration work (if quality was of importance) but the expected per disc retail value would be similar to a feature, despite containing 200 – 250 minutes worth. Consequently, the trend of ITC series to follow the US requirements for full seasons of around 26 episodes meant they were a large undertaking to commit to cost wise. In order to see some money coming back in while work was still in progress, the idea of releasing separate volumes of four or five episodes came about.

Mark Stanborough ordered up the first batch of master film materials to arrive at the premises where scanning and grading facilities were hired for three days a week. For whatever reason, the original 35mm negative was either not available or couldn't be located for certain episodes, meaning the back-up inter-positive element was substituted instead. On the audio side, the soundtracks were supplied either as Digital Betacam tapes or files on CD, some of which were transfers from magnetic sources whilst others sounded more like optical tracks. After film cleaning, it was Amanda's role to carefully load each film reel onto the Scanity film scanner to convert the film images into a sequence of separate frame files at 2K resolution. The scanner was capable of scanning at 4K but this required an additional licence and would therefore demand an increased hire cost. The gate aperture was Super 35mm which would result in the entire exposed frame being visible, a blank area to the left of the image (what would become the optical soundtrack on a print) and partial edges of the film sprockets – four per frame on standard 35mm. Amanda would watch the monitor of the scanned image very carefully throughout the entire reel in case there were any problems such as splices, scratches or other damage. This would then forewarn us before the grading session if any alternative materials were required or that additional time would be needed to overcome the problem using digital repair tools.

Framing wise, having worked with many film recordings (also known as telerecordings) over the years where a film copy had been made of a videotape original, I had always striven to extract as much original picture area as possible from the film frame. In normal circumstances, a telecine machine aligned with a test card would crop a margin of picture around all edges by default due to inconsistencies in the picture position as well as legacy concerns such as instability and movement potentially bringing edges of the frame into view. However, as the years progressed I generally ignored such settings preferring to align the actual sizing (zoom level) on the material itself. Several caveats applied though in terms of avoiding things that shouldn't be seen such as the curved corners of the frame, back projection borders, boom microphones and edges of sets. With a lot of these ITC series, a nostalgia for the time in which they were produced is quite a factor in our viewing enjoyment. Therefore, I like to keep as much of that window to the past open as possible, particularly on exterior location shots where old street signs or advertising hoardings might otherwise be cropped out near the edge of the picture. All that, coupled with modern television sets being able to display every pixel of the digital signal, results in a vastly less cropped image in comparison to the old days of over-scanned Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) displays, even if the entire original film frame isn't reproduced.

During the work for the first volume, word came through from Network managing director Tim Beddows that he wanted the 1969 graveyard titles to be present on these HD masters in place of the later seen Chambers and Partners ones. This was something of a disappointment for the team but then again we weren't original viewers, having only become familiar with the series from the late 1980s onwards. The appropriate film element for the sequence was called in and scanned but it turned out to be of a rather poor quality. Even with a lot of restoration work it wasn't going to be something that we'd really want to be using 26 times over. Upon closer inspection, it appeared that after the office door shot, the vast majority of the footage was lifted from the first episode before reverting to the last few orange captions of the original titles. Therefore, it was decided to rebuild the sequence replacing as much footage as possible from the higher quality episode source. Any remaining unique shots that had to be used were then given a hefty dose of digital clean up work. An interesting point to note - as this was a very late substitution after shooting of the series had finished (see Features: Only You, Jeff!), then screen tests, rushes and unused takes must have still been around in order to add additional shots to those used in the finished first episode. This would also tie in with the story of an out-takes reel being assembled and run at end of series party for the amusement of cast and crew. If only that would turn up!

The episode soundtracks also went through some processing for background hiss and response. Obviously the sources that sounded more like an optical track (unfortunately, Episode 1 was the worst) had additional work for pops and crackles. The supplied “Only You Can See Me Jeff” audio source that accompanied the graveyard title sequence was equally as deficient quality-wise as the film image. The last thing I wanted was the title theme being replaced with a horrible muffled version when we had it in lovely magnetic master quality from some of the episodes. So, using spectral audio tools, I had to extract Kenneth Cope's speech elements from the dialogue version and marry them up with a high quality version of the theme, referencing the original mix in order to match the balance between speech and music. The resulting master file then had to be added carefully into each episode timeline as often there was an overlapping note of incidental music leading into the start of the title theme which needed to be retained. This is where the offsetting of the optical track on 35mm, the audio assembly being some 20 frames later, would have helped when the graveyard titles were physically spliced in.

When each episode was finalised, a master file deliverable would be exported which would reduce the roughly 0.8Tb of scan data down to a more manageable 80Gb or so. The first disc worth of episodes were sent to the Network authoring studio and the three of us awaited feedback. However, much to our surprise and disappointment, the response was not favourable at all. Virtually every aspect of the film image was criticised from clarity, colour, black levels, contrast, saturation and even motion. However, the process of having the work done by in-house staff allowed the resulting dialogue to highlight certain deficiencies in the workflow and monitoring within the Network studio itself. I had been wary of a previous issue where authored Blu-ray discs would have modified image levels, boosting gamma response (mid grey brightness) and skewing certain hues. Having restored series for Network before joining the company, I had narrowly managed to avoid this problem on The Professionals release after viewing the initial Blu-ray check discs which I had asked to see after noticing something going on with previous releases. What I didn't realise until some years later was that the workaround from the delivered HDCAMSR masters of that series involved utilising files which hadn't captured the full quality from the digital tapes. All these issues were subsequently corrected as hardware and workflows were updated and by this stage we were creating the full quality master files on the grading system anyway. Even so, I was still keen to have check discs so I could be sure that the release was as good as possible. At the end of the day though, some aspect of the master source has got to give when compressed down to the usual file sizes used on a domestic Blu-ray release.

Amendment label inside A Sentimental Journey's film can
Image © Jonathan Wood, 2023

The process of calling in the film materials, cleaning, scanning and grading continued and once a batch of episodes equating to a disc was finalised and approved, the cans of film relating to those would be returned as the on site storage was limited. Occasionally within a can of negative, there would be an old label indicating that some sort of amendment had been made to the reel, For example, inside the can containing reel 1 of A Sentimental Journey, a note mentioned that a couple of scenes had been changed as late on as March 1969 for an episode filmed during the previous summer. Exactly what was changed and why is now lost to time but it indicates that sometimes half a year after shooting there were still decisions being made and re-editing occurring. When it came to the previously telecined episode from the Retro-Action release, we decided to save some time working from that transfer. The HDCAMSR digital tape master was captured and then I went through the episode again grading wise in order to bring it a little more in line with the updated look from the scanned material. We also did a quick manual de-blob pass and a few shots had some steadiness applied. Two months after starting Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), the team also began work on Department S and then we alternated between them which seemed highly appropriate with the two series having originally been produced side by side at Elstree. In general, the condition of the film materials was excellent with only the odd point where some scratching needed to be concealed in addition to the expected level of dirt and sparkle. On occasions, such as a few scenes in When The Spirit Moves You, there would be some jitter or slight instability on shots that was possibly caused by worn parts within the original camera mechanisms, but this was able to be rectified digitally. If I recall correctly, there was a previously made tear in the negative during the first office scene in Just for the Record which required digital repair work with the goal of concealing as seamlessly as possible. Although we were following production order, I advised that it would be preferable to move A Disturbing Case forward one in order to provide a better viewing narrative - as otherwise Jean's sister Jenny would be introduced one episode after her other appearance. Sadly, when it came to Department S, I didn't mention about the plane-set episodes all being together in a row which was an irritation later on.

There was an idea to publish a kind of mission statement alongside the first volume release along the lines of wanting to do the best by these series but that the work needed customer support in order to keep the process ongoing. In the end though, this didn't happen, and instead it was hoped that the demand and therefore support would simply be there as people had been waiting a considerable time for further ITC series in HD. We advised the PR department not to use the word 'restoration' in relation to these masters simply because of some of the time constraints placed upon the work. Although we thought they generally looked great, once you are working in High Definition the places where the quality drops such as during optical effects work can become more apparent. The team felt some of these areas could have done with more work and as there seemed to be a small contingent online that would sometimes pick out a dirty frame and focus on the restored moniker as if to say “They missed a bit!”, we asked for them to be called remasters instead. I edited some trailers for online use, with a general one that began with Dandy Garrison reading Jeff's palm which lead into some clips highlighting different aspects of his personality, then continuing with his unfortunate knack of getting beaten up. This appeared online six days before Christmas 2016 and hopefully added a little ITC cheeriness to the festivities with fans realising what was coming early in the new year. The separate volume trailers were more straightforward and highlighted a part of one of the episodes on that disc.

The end slate of Network's trailer for the first Randall and Hopkirk Blu-ray
Image © Network, 2016

The volume by volume approach was one which I hoped would stir up some excitement and anticipation as well as bringing some money back in sooner. Of course, there will always be people preferring to buy a complete set in one hit as opposed to building a collection – the often mentioned shelf space is also a consideration for some customers. However, a problem came about when complete series sets were eventually released and became heavily discounted by some online retailers. Suddenly the separate volumes, despite having had some exclusivity in allowing HD episodes to be seen earlier, now began to appear as poor value in comparison to the full series set. It was a difficult balance – tapping into the wider retail market of customers preferring a full series in one box but not wanting to alienate those that had supported the initial volumes. Whichever way the series was purchased, we sincerely hoped that the fans were happy with what they saw as finally the full production quality of these film series could be appreciated. It is a somewhat strange situation that the original series (dare I say only?!) of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) is available in full High Definition and looking splendid, whereas a certain namesake heralding from the 2000s languishes in semi-cropped standard definition only – and by some accounts permanently, as the film material cannot be located.

For those that may be interested in such facts and figures, below is a table showing the dates of the High Definition work on the series at various stages.

(Click image for larger view)