Nobody uses film anymore

Would it be asking too much if you – and the rest of Fleet Street – caught up with the “modern” age of videotaping?

Your article on cameras in court (Press Gazette, 24 June) persists in using the word “filming” when you mean taping.

As
far as I know, few if any TV stations still have the ability to process
film, and videotaping has been the norm for two decades.The idea of
filming court proceedings is therefore inpractical and ridiculous.

Even
during my early TV days, the maximum amount of film available without
reloading the magazine was normally 400 feet – which would run out
after 10 minutes.

In those days film cameramen would often be
caught out reloading at crucial times. For sports events such as
football matches it was possible to use a 1,200-foot roll, but even
this – which gave a half an hour of coverage – could easily result in a
cameraman running out of film just as a goal came along.

In one
memorable FA Cup sixth round match when Southampton beat Nottingham
Forest 5-0 in 1963, Joe Hardy, a veteran camera operator, had the
misfortune to be reloading when almost every goal was scored.

That
said, my daughter Samantha, who is senior producer on Supernanny, tells
me: “You’re right, but even we talk about filming – we never say:
‘We’re going out taping!'”