Tele-snaps

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Telesnaps are a series of photographs taken from the original television transmissions. In many cases, they provided the only surviving visual record of early B&W episodes. They are commonly referred to as the missing episodes.

History

In 1947 John Cura, a self taught man with a passion for electronics, sent a letter to the BBC offering his services of tele-snaps, still photographs taken at various intervals during the program's broadcast. His method was simple – a 35mm camera of his own design, pointed at a television screen, could take up to 80 such images during the broadcasting of the programme.[1] Normally, Cura would take around 60 photographs for a half-hour episode and provide these on a contact sheet to the BBC.[2] Cura stopped taking telesnaps with the fifth production block (which ended with The Mind Robber), which is why no telesnaps exist of the missing episodes of Season 6. With the exception of episode 7 of The Daleks' Masterplan, no telesnaps exist from John Wiles' producership of Doctor Who (effectively from Galaxy 4 to The Ark), since Wiles was not enlisting Cura's services at the time.

Availability

Several of the groups of telesnaps have been published as blocks of episodes in Doctor Who Magazine, or been released in a compilation form with audio soundtrack on video, DVD or CD by the BBC.

Missing episodes with no telesnaps existing

External Links

Footnotes

  1. Telesnap Discoveries (includes lists of who discovered missing telesnaps)
  2. Howe, David J., Stammers, Mark, Walker, Stephen James, 1992, Doctor Who: The Sixties, Doctor Who Books, an imprint of Virgin Publishing Ltd, London, p.32
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