NBC 1949, Television Scene Magazine
Seems a lot of people like to give credit to ‘I Love Lucy’ for establishing a three camera production standard, but live television at the network level had been doing that for several years before Lucy. Even ‘The Honeymooners’ that was shot on film with the Dumont Electrocam used three cameras.
Technically Speaking…The Dumont 124 IO Camera Finally! Thanks to 51 year TV veteran Bill Freiberg of KTRK in Houston TX, who started with Dumont equipment, we finally know some of secrets that had been lost for so long on these cameras. Below is his letter to me and a photo of a Dumont 124B in […]
The History Of Live Pool Splashdown Coverage…Part 2A Our friend Jodie Peeler has written a great three part story on this subject with lots of detail, linked video and photos that I am proud to present here. Unlike today, bringing live television pictures from a ship at sea was a whole new ballgame and in […]
The Great Kate Smith…Some Unusual Video Clips In two of these, she performs with cameras as props, including a TK41. In the third…a real rarity, Jackie Gleason conducts the orchastra as Kate sings his theme song “Melancholy Serenade” which he also wrote. FYI, these are not from her NBC days, but from the early 60s […]
Ultra Rare 2: ‘The Voice Of Firestone’, NBC Studio 8H, 1949 If you look closely, you can see 3 RCA TK30 cameras in this photo. There’s a good chance there was at least one more in the balcony. Interestingly, in this photo, Studio 8H looks a lot like the studio as we know it now, […]
The unique aspect of “I Love Lucy” was the linking up of three Mitchell BNC motion picture cameras. That was really thinking outside the box.
Also “I Love Lucy” was shot exclusively on film. “The Honeymooners” episodes aired live using the ElectroniCam system, which paired DuMont TV cameras with film cameras to make a permanent record of the program. “Lucy” was simply filmed for later air.
I love the camera door open for cooling with a script on it!