Upstairs, Downstairs - Behind the Scenes

19th November 1973. Rose leaves Eaton Place for her new life with Gregory. These tiny little video cameras (Philips LDK13s) had a tendency to lose focus and exhibit a blue tinge near the edge of the picture (more down to the lens system than the camera electronics) and the technical quality of such material is noticeably inferior if you compare it to the studio shots in the same episode. Compare the camera with the size of the huge EMI 2001s used in the studio (see the picture above).

More Eaton Place location work for A Perfect Stranger. The day's shooting seems to have had the luxury of two cameramen (c.f. picture above). Though these video cameras were not of a dissimilar size to 16mm film cameras (the usual alternative for shooting location work like this), the video option did involve several large Outside Broadcast 'scanner' trucks (containing the two-inch video recorder - about the size of a kitchen cabinet - and other control equipment) parked just down the road. The camera was linked to these trucks by an umbilical (which you can see in the picture passing over the back of the seat and out through the car window). Though 16mm film was usually the TV companies' preferred location option (on cost grounds), OB work like this provided a better picture match with the studio material.

The initial read-through for Disillusion on 24th March 1975. Those who can be seen around the table (clockwise from left): unknown (presumably the director, Bill Bain), John Hawkesworth, Angela Baddeley, Alfred Shaughnessy, Gordon Jackson, Jacqueline Tong, Chris Beeny, Jenny Tomasin, unknown (quite possibly Jean Marsh), Gareth Hunt, Karen Dotrice, Lesley-Anne Down, David Langton, Hannah Gordon, unknown (probably the Production Assistant who, for this story, was Vicki Miller).

Keen fans will probably immediately recognise this as being from Season 5's The Nine Days Wonder. But a scene with Richard and James in the bus together never occurs in the finished episode. Hence, such a scene was presumably shot and then later cut from the episode before transmission (probably simply for timing reasons).

The recording of a brief insert to Will Ye No Come Back Again. This shot was intercut into film sequences of the servants' drive to Scotland and showed them gagging at some 'country smells'. Unusually for Upstairs, Downstairs, the final result was not very convincing due to the mismatch between the film and video footage.

Most of the Upstairs, Downstairs recordings were made at LWT's Kent House studios (aka "The LWT Tower") on the South Bank of the Thames (main picture and bottom-left). UpDown used all three main studios here, but Studio 2 was its main home. The complex changed its name in 1992 to The London Television Centre, but then became confused with the BBC's premises, so was changed again in 1995 to The London Studios. A variety of programmes continue to be made here, and the building functions as the overall headquarters for ITV

Season 1 (and A Pair of Exiles) had been made at Rediffusion's (LWT's predecessor's) old Wembley Studios. Once LWT left the site in 1972, it eventually became Lee International Studios in 1978 and films such as The Elephant Man, Time Bandits, The Bride and Brazil were made here. The site changed back to a TV studio in 1989 and was occupied by Limehouse Television. Much of the original site was sold off at this point and only the massive Studios 5a and 5b remained in use. In late 1992, Limehouse folded and the site is now called The Fountain Studios (see bottom-right). The remainder of the original site is now a large Lidl supermarket, and car park and a McDonald's.
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