Tele-Snaps: "Operating for 21 years, until 1968, this gifted amateur took considerably in excess of 250,000 still photographs of television programmes as they were being broadcast, perhaps even as many as half a million. He called them Tele-Snaps, the name a literal definition: by the direct method of fixing a 35mm camera to a tripod a short distance from his screen and shooting rolls of film, John Cura photographed entire programmes from the opening titles to the closing credits, creating usually up to 80 stills, sometimes more, as a unique record of a broadcast."
One of the results of his hard work can be found here.
posted by feelinglistless
on Aug 21, 2004 -
12 comments
Tv Licenses do not infringe people's human rights. Journalist and broadcaster Jonathan Miller refused to pay his license because it seemed as though the BBC had license to charge what they like raise the charge when they like; and that it didn't take into account the gulf between someone only receiving an Analogue service as opposed to digital. He lost the case. Serious implications.
posted by feelinglistless
on Jul 17, 2003 -
51 comments
Another trip into TV Hell. In the UK we're much kinder to bad television -- shows will go on for weeks without an audience and often get comissioned for second series before someone releases they're awful (yes you 'Let Them Eat Cake' -- if that French and Saunder monstrosity had been on UStv it would have been cancelled after two episodes -- if it had been comissioned at all). 'Off The Telly' considers all the things prospective television producers need to avoid if they're going to create something they're proud of. Does anyone else have any bad examples?
posted by feelinglistless
on Apr 4, 2002 -
18 comments
Was Christmas TV really ever all that special? 'Off The Telly' reviews three decades of Christmas Day television in Britain. "It's funny...that Christmas time is actually an excuse for some of the worst TV atrocities of the year to be inflicted upon us. Christmas telly does not equate with quality. And yet, never does TV become a more integral part of our own family or personal routines and traditions. And never are we so receptive to a gathering of disparate middle-of-the-road celebrities and their stale party pieces." And for the ultra-cynic, TV-Go-Home's Charlie Booker presents
an alternative schedule.
posted by feelinglistless
on Dec 24, 2001 -
17 comments
Kilroy's Kingdom Robert Kilroy-Silk is the 'king' of the British talkshows (a title conferred because he's the
only male talkshow host). 'Off The Telly' investigates why an ex-MP and potential Prime Minister now finds himself attempting to relate with the common people three hundred and sixty mornings a year (including repeats). Typical quote: "I suppose I’m really lucky, I get on really well with my son - always have - but some fathers and sons don’t always find it easy to be friends ... some boys are even deprived of their father altogether, when he walks out, and dumps not just their wife, but them. Which is a bit like you Mike, you haven’t seen your Craig, who’s 15, for seven years. Why’s that?" No on screen fights then, but one old buffer got frisky one morning and tried to remove his pants . . .
posted by feelinglistless
on Aug 2, 2001 -
1 comment
