Sometimes identifying a piece of television history is as simple as holding a strip of film up to the light.
As R3store Studios Manager Jon Lloyd began inspecting a newly recovered 35mm BBC negative, he stopped on one frame. “I’m pretty sure we’ve got Paul McCartney there.” 

The film had been discovered by Film is Fabulous! more than 60 years after it was recorded. Inside the original BBC film can was footage from The Beatles’ first appearance on Top of the Pops. The performances included “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “You Can’t Do That”. With much of the programme’s early history missing from the BBC Archives, the discovery represented a rare surviving film element from one of the most documented bands in the world. R3store Studios was asked to prepare, clean and digitally scan the original negative as part of the preservation work.

A 35mm survivor from early Top of the Pops

Before scanning began, Jon carefully wound through the negative to understand exactly what had arrived at the studio. He checked the leader, joins and perforations, while also examining the general condition of the film. Along the edge of the negative, the optical soundtrack was clearly visible.

Perhaps most notable was what Jon did not find. There were no obvious old joins or broken perforations requiring attention, and the film appeared to be an uncut and undamaged negative. At one point, gaps between sequences suggested that the camera had simply continued running before stopping and restarting for another take or song. For material recorded in 1964 and rediscovered decades later in a private collection, its survival in that condition was significant.

Once the inspection was complete, Jon ran the negative through R3store’s film cleaner to remove dust and other surface contamination before scanning. The process can be seen in the behind-the-scenes film produced by Film is Fabulous!, from the first inspection through to the finished scan.

Capturing the complete film image

Following preparation and cleaning, Film Scanning, Video and Data Specialist Nathan Leaman Hill took over the digitisation. One of the priorities during the scan was capturing the complete image held on the negative rather than cropping the frame. As the film passed through the Director scanner, the full image area could be monitored alongside the optical soundtrack. The workflow produced a DPX image sequence together with combined optical WAV audio. The scanner interpreted the optical soundtrack and created a synchronised audio file alongside the image sequence.

Watching the scan on the monitors also provided a view that had not been available from simply inspecting the physical negative. Frame by frame, the performances could be seen as digital images while the original optical audio was captured alongside them. 

From a private collection back to the archive

The story of this particular reel also illustrates the different routes through which moving-image history can survive. The Beatles are among the most photographed and documented artists of the twentieth century, yet footage from an important early television appearance could still remain largely inaccessible for more than six decades. In this case, a film preserved in a private collection eventually made its way to Film is Fabulous!, then to R3store Studios for digitisation.

R3store has worked with Film is Fabulous! on a number of recovered-film projects, and we are also a partner of BBC Archives. That relationship between collectors, preservation organisations, technical facilities and institutional archives can be an important part of ensuring surviving film elements are properly assessed, digitised and preserved.

Following the project, both the original 35mm negative and the newly created digital scan were returned to BBC Archives.
For R3store Studios, it was a pleasure and an honour to play a part in the journey of this remarkable film, from a rediscovered BBC can to a preserved digital record of an important moment in British music and television history.

Read more about the story at https://filmisfabulous.org.uk/the-beatles-top-of-the-pops/.