Fwd: Re: The Timelash Conundrum

Hi all,

I asked Chris Bentley about the TIMELASH/MINDBENDER dates, and here is
his reply:


----- Original message -----

From: Chris Bentley
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 15:52:11 +0000
Subject: Re: The Timelash Conundrum

Hi Mark,

Yes, I can see how this is confusing - it confused the hell out of me
when I
was trying to pin it all down for the book.

As the existing production paperwork for UFO is very patchy, a
considerable
amount of detail regarding the exact dates on which many of the scenes
were
shot is still unknown. In this regard, UFO is not unusual amongst the ITC
filmed television series of the 1960s and 70s as the changes in ownership
of
the company over the years appears to have led to the loss (and probably
the
destruction) of the majority of archive documents relating to the filming
schedules. Those items of paperwork that do exist are, almost without
exception, those that have fortunately been saved by individuals who
worked
on the programmes. Nevertheless, it has been possible to piece together
an
almost complete shooting schedule for UFO from all the available
'evidence'.

However, the production order of 'Timelash' and 'Mindbender' has always
been
a bit of a puzzle, not least because their verified production numbers
are
at odds with the assignment of the personnel behind the camera -
primarily
the assistant director. Check out the list of production credits on page
92
of the 'Complete UFO' book and you'll see that assistant director Frank
Hollands was assigned exclusively to even-numbered episodes up until the
end
of the series when he appears to have worked on the last two episodes
back-to-back. Similarly, Gino Marotta worked exclusively on odd-numbered
episodes, except for 'Timelash'.

As anyone who has spent any time on the set of a filmed television series
will know, it is impossible for a first assistant director to work on
consecutively-filmed episodes: he will always be preparing his next
episode
while another is filming. On UFO, two assistant directors alternated
episodes at any one time, so it did not make sense that Frank Hollands
and
Gino Marotta are each credited on consecutively-shot episodes at the back
end of the series - taking the production numbers as an indication of the
shooting order (which is normally the case).

Everything finally became clear with the recent discovery of main unit
clapperboard footage of Scene 14 of 'Timelash' (which appears as a
'special
feature' in the US Region 1 UFO DVD Set 2). Courtesy of director Ken
Turner,
Fanderson had already acquired a complete principal photography shooting
schedule for 'Mindbender' which details that the episode was shot from
Friday, August 7th to Tuesday, August 18th, 1970 (8 days principal
photography) with two days of 2nd unit filming on August 19th and 20th.
Main
unit filming on the next episode to go before the cameras therefore began
on
Wednesday, August 19th and the 'Timelash' clapperboard footage shows that
Scene 14 of that episode was shot by the main unit five days later - on
Monday, August 24th, 1970.

A full shooting schedule for 'Timelash' has yet to come to light, but the
available filming dates clearly point towards 'Timelash' having been
filmed
after 'Mindbender'. With the episodes flipped around for filming, the
allocation of the assistant directors now makes sense: Marotta prepared
'Timelash' while Hollands was on set with 'Mindbender'.

Of course, the realisation that 'Timelash' was shot after 'Mindbender'
left
us with another puzzle: as you point out, how was Ed able to do all that
running around on the backlot in 'Timelash' if he'd broken his ankle
during
the filming of 'Mindbender'? This was precisely the question I put to Ed
while I was writing the book, and we ended up having a very long
discussion
about the whole ankle injury incident.

Gerry has stated a number of times that Ed broke his ankle while he and
Billington were filming the exterior cowboy scenes and that they had to
shut
down production for several months while Ed's ankle healed. However, Ed
is
adamant that they only lost a couple of days' work and that his ankle
injury
was not as serious as Gerry suggests: in fact, he says that after his
visit
to the Harley Street specialist the next day, he had no pain at all and
was
only advised to keep his weight off it for a few days.

Even so, it would not have been a good idea for Ed to have been doing so
much running around on that ankle if the accident had happened before
filming on 'Timelash' began. However, I understand that the accident
actually happened later on. The shooting schedule that we have for
'Mindbender' details the filming of all the scripted scenes for that
episode, but it does not include the exterior cowboy gunfight scenes: Ken
Turner has confirmed that those unscripted scenes were a late addition
which
he developed himself during post-production on the episode and which were
subsequently shot by the second unit on a pre-existing backlot set. It
seems
that this was towards the end of filming on 'Timelash' - as described on
page 56 in the book.

The UFO shooting dates given on the Fanderson website should be regarded
as
'work in progress', based as they were on the evidence available at the
time
those pages were written (some two or three years ago now). They are
sorely
in need of updating.

While I'm here, I'd also like to address a couple of things that were
mentioned by one of the SHADO Yahoo correspondents a few weeks back:

With reference to page 75 in the book, I make no claim that Wessex,
Northumbria, Mercia and Danelaw were ever co-existing kingdoms. However,
the
territory defined as Danelaw by the Vikings in the 9th century did leave
large Anglo-Saxon settlements in Northumberland/Southern Scotland and
South-Western England that had previously formed the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
of
Mercia and Northumbria in the 7th century. Those areas could, therefore,
be
described as Northumbria and Mercia for the purposes of defining the
administration areas of a fictional modern-day regional government,
alongside Wessex and Danelaw. (This is actually an extrapolation of a
genuine proposal for the establishment of regional government areas
currently being put forward by The Wessex Society.)

The description of the Moonmobiles operating on 'the hovercraft
principle'
on page 81 in the book simply reiterates the description of the vehicles
that originally appeared in the 1971 UFO Annual, itself based on material
from the UFO writers/directors guide prepared by the programme's
producers.
Others with more knowledge and experience of hovercraft and local
conditions
on the lunar surface may wish to debate the scientific feasibility of a
Moonmobile's workings, but I don't think that the producers' description
was
intended to be taken literally: I suspect that they only intended to
describe the style of the vehicle's motion over the lunar surface (ie.
similar to that of a hovercraft) rather than specifically stating how the
thing worked.

Cheers,
Chris

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