Thanks to the fabulous RCA TK41s and NBC Burbank crew, here are 2 GREAT back to back Andy Williams Christmas songs. Even as degraded as the online video is, look how brilliant the color and sharp the image! Remember, a lot of this is done with big Houston Fearless 30B cranes and sound booms flying every where. Notice in the second song, the wreath has to go over the big Varitol 5 lens and stay there till the end, when it tries to come back just a few seconds early for the final shot. Now THIS is REAL TV! Merry Christmas!
RCA TK41s At NBC Burbank Capture Holiday Color Treasure
I had forgotten just how good Andy Williams was. However the gangsta rap version of “Most wonderful time of the year” is much better.
On the first song, it looks like the wreath was chroma keyed (you can see some tearing in the lower right corner). On the second song it appears that the wreath was in pieces and assembled around the camera at the end.
Of course thay had a half billion foot candles of very flat light to keep the blue channel quiet!!
Bobby, if you look closely at the wreath before it surrounds the lens, you can see that it is made in two parts and can split apart. Stagehands most likely separated the two halves after the camera went through the center. They later reversed the process for the end of the song.