The Twilight Zone: Season Two Episodes Shot on Video

So I'm going through the entire series on blu-ray and I finally got to the handful of season two episodes shot on very early/primitive video technology, way back in 1961. They look absolutely horrible compared to the ones shot on 35mm. I'm hoping to get more insight into these episodes. (I'm looking in your direction, Vidiot!)

Why was this done?
What was the process like?
Did they realize how bad it looked?

 

I copied the following from Wikipedia:


As The Twilight Zone's second season began, the production was informed by CBS that at about $65,000 per episode, the show was exceeding its budget. By November 1960, 16 episodes, more than half of the projected 29, were already filmed, and five of those had been broadcast. It was decided that six consecutive episodes would be videotaped at CBS Television City in the manner of a live drama and then transferred to 16-millimeter film for future syndicated TV transmissions. Eventual savings amounted to only about $30,000 for all six entries, which was judged to be insufficient to offset the loss of depth of visual perspective that only film could offer. The shows wound up looking little better than set-bound soap operas and as a result the experiment was deemed a failure and never tried again.
Even though the six shows were taped in a row, through November and into mid-December, their broadcast dates were out of order and varied widely, with this, the second one, shown on March 10, 1961 as episode 20. The first, "The Lateness of the Hour" was seen on December 2, 1960 as episode 8; the third, "The Whole Truth" appeared on January 20, 1961 as episode 14; the fourth was the Christmas show "Night of the Meek" shown as the 11th episode on December 23, 1960; the fifth, "Twenty Two" was seen on February 10, 1961 as episode 17; and the last one, "Long Distance Call" was broadcast on March 31, 1961 as episode 22.

 

There's your answer, FishBulb.

 

I'm not sure they looked that bad back in the day or not, but they have a very unusual look to them now for sure. They almost seem surreal or like an altered reality.

 

They just look like a bad soap opera to me. It's funny because the acting doesn't even come across as serious or credible as it does on the 35mm episodes. The video format makes it look like a poorly-acted stage play.

Can you imaging if they had stuck with this format for the rest of the series? I wonder if it would even have the legacy it does today if that were the case.

Anyways, I'm hoping someone can fill me in on more technical aspects of how it worked. What was the storage medium for the video when they were shooting? Did they just kinescope it as they shot, or... ?

 

Yeah, they did look bad. Twilight Zone had been going over budget, plus the ratings were not good, so CBS executives decided "as an experiment" to shoot six episodes of the hour-long show on videotape, just to see if the cost savings was worthwhile. It turned out that the cost of the film was negligible, and wound up only saving about $10,000 per episode. They were basically trying to do the show as an updated version of the old Playhouse 90 1950s dramas that made Serling famous. But I don't think the idea worked, because it prevented them from going on location, plus they were forced to use the simpler, low-tech soundstages, sets, and lighting at CBS Television City.

The shows were shot on the low-band 2" quadruplex videotape format originally developed by Ampex, which was the standard for the TV business from about 1956 to the early 1980s, give or take. The lower-cost 1" C videotape format took over around 1980-1981, replaced by various digital formats in the early 1990s (like D2), and then eventually all of that was supplanted by HD in the early 2000s. While HD videotape standards survive, most broadcasting nowadays is all done from digital files on servers (with few exceptions).

BTW, if you want to read about this in depth, check out the 800-page (!!!) book Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a TV Classic, which goes into far more detail than I ever thought possible on the show. They interview several of the people who were part of the videotape shows, and reveal what the thinking was and why they attempted it. I think everybody realized early on that the "videotape look" did not work for dramas compared to film, and that philosophy continues to this day, where 24fps is kind of ingrained in everybody's heads as drama, and 30fps is ingrained as the look of "live TV." [Recent experiments like Peter Jackson's The Hobbit, shot at 48fps, show that quite a few people didn't like the look of that high-frame-rate image, either.]

 

Good info. I remember seeing one of those episodes on tv in the last year or two and thought what the hell was going on. Didn't realize they did that but I'm glad it didn't become the standard.

 

It also doesn't work for the series fantasy elements of the show for me.

 

Same. Really takes you out of it.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Yeah, my joke about kinescopes like this is it's video -> 35mm film -> 16mm film -> and back to video again. By that point, the whole thing looks like it's underwater.

When you can get back to the original source tapes, it doesn't look terrible, but it still shows how bad image orthicon TV cameras looked in 1960: weird, soft, plus it had that odd black "glow" around bright highlights. Not a great look. But to tell you the truth, I don't think video even came close to equalling the look of film until about 1999-2000 or so, so it took another 40 years to get in that ballpark.

I wouldn't say it's my favorite, but I agree it's one of the better episodes for sure.

 

These episodes look so bad that they border on being unwatchable!

 

but the content still remains strong! I would have preferred film, but I loved them just as much.

 

indeed...a staple every Christmas for us...just a wonderful episode.

 

YES! I enjoyed that one as well...just a great story and Mulligan did a fine job IMO...

 

Although it goes on for a little too long, I've always liked The Lateness of the Hour. John Hoyt is always great.

 

I agree on all accounts.

 

I've seen "The Lateness Of The Hour" and "The Whole Truth" and I think they were from video tape (not converted to film). To me they didn't look that bad, they just had a different look from the filmed episodes, much like it is now.

 

fabulous book!

 

I'm watching these very episodes now, via the Blu ray box set. I wouldn't say "bad" either, just different. Very different.
Having Inger Stevens look as she's about to step out of the screen...in my book...is not a bad thing.

 

The video isn't bad for some of them, but for "The Whole Truth" it looks especially terrible. Shooting on video and on a closed indoor set was a terrible decision for that one. That was probably the worst looking used car lot I've seen on motion picture. The blame is on set decoration as much as video though. They really should have built an outdoor set for that episode. Still, I believe shooting on film would have improved the look of it somewhat. As it stands now, it's nearly unwatchable for me.