Tomorrow I'll be filming at Burnley and Blackburn, then Wednesday I'll be at Cardiff and Newport. Lets have a look at previous visits to Lancashire. I've also put on two trailers on Youtube which show Bristol buses in 1990 and 1994, both are tweaked to widescreen but really it is done to show what quality can be wrung out of this old analogue tape footage, upscaled to 50 fps, HD and cleaned with NEAT. The archive film has colourised scenes plus all the other tricks of the trade which I hope makes it feel more accessible to a modern audience. I've another tape to digitise as I got it out looking for the Bristol material and it included Coventry in 2002 so watch out for that very soon. The weather still shows no sign of getting back to a normal summer, Thursday is the best day but we have our Polio Fellowship meeting so I'm going to try for Wednesday, looking over all the areas left to do, South Wales, Essex, Scotland, Nth East. Essex looks most likely at present. Mandy goes off to Ireland week after this and I was hoping to get Glasgow Edinburgh plus Fife and Lathalmond but weather isn't that promising, fingers crossed as ever.
I'm working hard on the Spot On Bristol archive release, it will be 100% colour and mostly covers the period 1950's to 80's and as well as detailed bus shots there are street scenes with buses and general post war redevelopment. Bristol is a city I have no past knowledge before the 1990's when I started my video coverage. With the use of NEAT some of the cine derived material really shines through in a much crisper and clean image. I intend getting the past few months still photos on our Smugmug site, remember they are now printed in the UK. I'm also scanning more archive cine images and have two reels of MiniDv copied and ready to digitise. Meanwhile back to the Czech trip and the penultimate batch in the North and West of the country. Teplici is trying to shake off its industrial past although not its German connections as they now have Arriva buses and trolleys. It is now promoted as the largest spa town in Czechia. There is a lot of restoration to building and gardens in public areas and some hotels have brought the once derelict buildings a new life. You can by spa wafers in many flavours, they are supposed to be made using spa
waters, they had the same in Marianske Lazne. Oh, the notices with the marker pen through, they are typical of such throughout the country, they were in Russian! I'm working on a Bristol archive feature not the bus make but the operators although of course they were totally linked. It is a time taking experience working down to a couple of frames to achieve the standards we now release. We have a lot of archives coming through with yet another London feature with some never before released material. Then of course we have the model bus project which is going well in a distant land but we are offering a lot of input. I'm also working with our friends in the publishing world and OTA to try a put a toe in the footprint left by Jeremy English who created Railscene. So lots of fingers in lots of pies, I've digitised some Bristol film while I was working on the archive material so that might make it to a download and certainly on Youtube. Back to the Czech trip and some more photos. Two towns on the North West frontier of Czechia where the wind blew the pollution over Germany, Chomutov and Most, Most has received new trams and had a major refurb or rebuild in places. Interurbans is the name of the game, Most via trams and Chomutov via trolleys.
I have quite a big to do list as it has been a strange few weeks with lousy weather at home and then being away filming for two weeks. I've a lot more archive film scanned and hope to get a couple of archive DVDs finished. Great news on the fibre upgrade to our internet with the contractor in our road, under the pavement next door. They hope to have us on stream in September at the latest, they explained where the cables will be run, no need to dig the road up thank goodness. The aftermath of the flooding is evident in all the towns around us today. It was a bit of a downer seeing how our Youtube hits had tumbled in July. I put on loads of clips, fingers crossed that it is taking a while for them to get found. I wish I could use the real old stuff that we turn out but I had nothing but hassles with Youtube when I last tried. At least with the full fibre net I can load many more films to our shop which is my long term strategy, they can be purchased worldwide then and even be there for future generations.
A hard day editing with brief breaks to speak to our lovely customers/friends. I hope to complete the remainder of the Czech tour tomorrow and get them on the shop with clips to Youtube. The weather is still very damp. I'll be drawing up a hit list for the remainder of the month as the weather is supposed to pick up back end of next week.
As well as orders received whilst away we have now had the regulars phoning up. Although it has been a mammoth task everything received by lunch time today has been posted out. I've done a couple of articles for the Polio Fellowship and sent of a refund claim for the Tunnel shuttle being 4 hours late. I've started scanning cine film, one of John Bishops needed a rerun as I'd tried to get it all on a 200' reel but it was a bit over and juddered . I have however started a small batch of unknown origin for the OTA, fairly modern preserved includes IOM IOW and preserved railways. S8 though and that looks glorious in sunny weather. as soon as I've downloaded all the material from the Czech trip I can start to edit the films and get the covers ready. Meanwhile photos slide show from Prague. |
PMP Sponsors the North West Vehicle Restoration Trust at Kirkby.
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