How do you record t.v. in the days before VCRs?
In the summer of 1969 NASA put a man on the moon. I was a 16 year old school boy living in Yorkshire (England) and I decided that I wanted to record these events which were broadcast live on television. In the days before domestic video recorders, I set about rigging the sound from our television to a reel-to-reel tape recorder and photographing the t.v. screen. First using still film, but later using an 8mm movie camera loaded with high speed black and white film. The archive that I created still exists and for the 50th anniversary I would like to make it available on line, through talks and exhibitions.
The Apollo 10 Photo Log Book
The National Science and Media Museum (Bradford, Yorkshire) have just commissioned the 1201Alarm project to be the centre piece of their exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The exhibition will run from July 2019 to January 2020 and feature sound bites, photographic scrap books, video and artefacts used for the original recordings. There will be a mock up of my 1969 living room and t.v. showing how the 1201 archive was created.
STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Maths)
The events of 1969 convinced me that I should change my course of study and work towards a physics degree. The 1201 Alarm projects intends to inspire students towards STEM subjects by Apollo related activities.
The Apollo Mission
The apollo mission was a risky business and it is down to the endeavours of individuals that the missions were a success. While the Apollo success story is well told, 1201 Alarm will look at the human issues and how we perceived them with the mass media of the time.
A younger generation of photographers, film makers and media students have little experience in the media used to capture this archive. 1201 Alarm will examine how the recordings were made using 1960s technology.
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