Room at the Bottom

Kevin · Room at the Bottom

Anyone looking forward to seeing "Room at the Bottom" restored to colour. I know I am. Its such a pity it wasn't done before the DVD boxset release.

oldrocker

Indeed so !

And in the interest of cross fertilisation of forums, there's discussion here as well.

http://glassback68.proboards99.co...amp;action=display&thread=403

pault · Re: Room at the Bottom

Swallow Bank

There has been quite a lot of 'lost' material found of late;

Room at the Bottom in colour - this has been 're-colourised' rather than discovered. There are currently no plans to release the episode (although I am sure that's just a matter of time) but there is a mini-Dad's Army night scheduled for the 13th December on BBC2 where the colour version will be showcased. It is possible that the episode may also be shown as part of the BFI's 40th Anniversary celebrations on the 22nd December.

Christmas Night with the stars 1968 - an audio version of this 'lost' sketch has been returned to the BBC along with a newer, cleaner audio version of series 2's A Stripe for Frazer. As yet I have not heard any plans to make these recording publicly available, although I am sure in the course of time they will be. I have reported what I can on the podcast's blog - www.dadsarmypodcast.blogspot.com and of course it's always worth keeping an eye on the Appreciation Society's webpage www.dadsarmy.co.uk for the latest news.

All these finds have been confirmed by the DAAS with the exception of the Christmas Night story. We wait with baited breath!

Dave Homewood

I had no idea that the audio track of the first CNWTS had been located. And when you say a cleaner version of A Stripe For Frazer - did they already have a copy of it??

pault

To be honest, I sort of gave up on checking the DAAS and many related sites (including forums) as lately there seldom seems to be anything new to report or discuss.

These items are a great turnup though.

Swallow Bank

Dave Homewood

James, it has now been confirmed by Paul Vaezis of the BBC on the Missing Episodes forum. It's TRUE!!! Yipee!! Very Happy

http://missingepisodes.proboards2...mp;action=display&thread=4170

The guy who recorded these two lost Dad's Army's seems to have recorded tons of till now lost material. There's a full list elsewhere on the Missing Episodes forum

Swallow Bank

Thanks Dave - fantastic new indeed. All four CNWS sketches now exist in at least one format. Hopefully the BBC will make the recordings available somehow - perhaps some kind of on-line content would be a good idea and perhaps make the material available to those outside of the UK.

I will update the blog and report that the story has now been confirmed.

What next I wonder?!

Dave Homewood

I know it's a pipedream but I would very much love to see the BBC recreate the visual content using animation - either in cartoon form or even better realistic CGI. It can be done these days, but they'd need a big budget. Too big is my guess.

But they have photos from rehearsals, the directors script notes, all the references form other epiodes giving them dimensions, colours, textures, etc. And with the technology that created the likes of Gollum or King Kong, we genuinely could see A Stripe For Frazer and The Choir Practise again, and Jones, Godfrey and Frazer all dressed as Father Christmas. And in full colour, so better than before. As I say, it's a dream. But I used to dream that these lost shows might turn up some day, and I also had a dream that some whizzo boffin might re-colour Room at the Bottom....

Mr. Blew Itt

I'll be glued to my TV on Dec. 13 for 'Room at the Bottom' in colour. What is even more interesting is that they've used a new technique not previously employed when colourizing old films and TV shows: they have actually used the data the black & white pixels offer and translated them back to their corresponding colours, so this is more than just a colourization: it's truly a colour restoration with the colours being as close as possible to what was originally aired.

I am only sorry I don't have a DVD or HDD recorder yet to record this episode, but I'll ask some of my friends if they do, and I'm sure many other people will have their remotes handy.

Calum79

Just, this minute, finished watching the BBC2 'tribute' to Dad's Army.

Personally, I don't mind that I have that episode in B/W as it has to be one of the best and indeed classic episodes.

It has Mainwaring being taken down a peg, followed by Wilson and his beret... doesn't matter what colour it's in..

Watching this made me realise how much I missed Jimmy Beck/Walker in later series.. top top man.

Also, from the clip of the last episode, did Frazer have his medals upon his overcoat? First time I noticed...

nunky

I think I preferred it in black & white.

RATB seems more nostalgic without the colour.

pault

Do you think if I send my copy back and complain that it's in B&W they'd recolour it for me ??? Very Happy

Oz

Got to say I loved it in colour - even if for some reason the skin colours were slightly 'out' and made them all look like they were swarthy Mediterranean types! The colour gave the episode a whole new dynamism and really brought it alive. Not been a fan of the black & white episodes so much - they seem very wooden unlike the colour episodes. Just wish the whole series had been filmed in colour from episode one....

I also thought it would have been nice if they had even just mentioned sometime during the night that John Ringham, who played Bracewell in the first few episodes and Captain Bailey in Room at the Bottom had died just last month... It would have been a nice tribute.... Rolling Eyes

wonder_will

Hi all

Apologies if this has already been posted but the restored episode was featured on Newsnight and can (for the moment) be accessed via the following URL...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/7778770.stm

Regards

Will

Ianzie

Did we gain much in the colourization? RATB was made in colour and that is therefore the preferred way to see it. Some thought must have been given to the fact it was a colour production rather than B&W at the time.
But this is a half hour studio based TV comedy rather than a feature film. I don't think the colour palette has been used in an artistic way to add much to creative whole (compare perhaps the use of colour in Powell and Pressburger's The Red Shoes to some of their earlier B&W featues where the use of colour gives it a new dimension),
I appreciate and am grateful that the BBC went to the effort. Anything new from Dad's Army at this point has to be treasured. But I think my B&W copy of RATB will suffice and, for me, a DVD release with that as the sole new feature would proably not be tempting enough

Room at the Bottom

Re: Room at the Bottom