ATVLAND.productions WELCOMES MIKE PRINCE!

In the past few days, I have had the pleasure of talking to Mike Prince over the telephone.

Mike was first in contact with group colleague Matthew Gulliver in April this year. Mike wanted me to say to everyone that follows the project that he is very keen to participate in our film about ATV/Central, and hopefully in the next few weeks we will be able to meet the man himself.

Mike is linking our site to his Facebook page, and as a way of saying a big thanks to him, I want to mention www.piemanradio.com, and any of us who are interested in football may well like to email THE PIE MAN! Check it out, it is a fantastic website.

So, lets all give a warm welcome to Mike. Its great to have you on board.

Meeting With A Legend

As many of you will know already, we have been trying to get hold of a host of people who worked at ATV and Central in Birmingham over the years, and have already had great interviews with people like Peter Tomlinson, Bob Carolgees, and Debbie Shore. Over the past few months we have been in touch with several personalities who worked there and hope to be able to get back to them pretty soon to arrange a meeting with them, whereby we can record some more great stories for you, about their time at the ATV Centre....

One of the people I have contacted was ATV and Central legend Shaw Taylor M.B.E. Shaw contacted me back and generously agreed to meeting with us to do an interview. So, last week, Lee, Steve and I went to Birmingham and met up with Shaw at the Hyatt Regency hotel where he was staying. I have to say here, what a wonderful experience it was meeting such a great personality as Shaw, who was so generous with his time and so enthusiastic about talking to us about his time at ATV. Many of you will know that Shaw was a big personality for ATV, he was an announcer, a game show presenter, a Royal correspondent, a panel judge on programmes such as New Faces and Miss ATV and of course presenter for 30 years of Police 5. I know that you will all enjoy hearing what Shaw had to say when the programme is finished. What I can say (without giving too much away) is that, as you would imagine, Shaw recounted his fond memories of ATV and some of the people in the organisation with whom he worked, including Lew Grade no less.

I would like to personally thank Shaw again, for his generosity in the time he gave us and the stories he told us which will enhance our programme no end for you the viewers.... Just for now, here is a small taster for you....

PRODUCTION REACHES NEW HEIGHTS

Well there seems to have been a lull over the summer since we interviewed Debbie Shore back in August. That doesn't however mean that the team haven't been working away, behind the scenes, on various aspects of the production. We have been doing plenty, but on their own these bits and pieces may not have been worth including here in the blog.....



One thing we have been doing is arranging to interview more people, who you will recognise, for the programme as well as looking to produce more exclusive material for your enjoyment. We are still looking to hear from anyone who worked at ATV Centre between 1969 ad 1997 who can offer us any information or help in making this programme for the fans of ATV and Central in the Midlands.



In trying to make this programme interesting to the audience, we have been looking to generate as much original material as we possibly can, it is intended that this will be both interesting and entertaining for you all. Recently some of our team were granted access to one of the top floors of the Alpha Tower to photograph the studio buildings from an un paralleled vantage point. We would like to thank Steve Evans at Dandara (the company responsible for the "V Building" project on behalf of Miller Developments) for allowing us into their suite of offices to get this wonderful view which you will, of course, be able to see in the final programme along with a few more .....




So the nights are drawing in, but rest assured, we are still working away at this, and will keep you informed as we go along. It is a project that we are all working on in our spare time, so please bear with us, One thing we can promise though, you will enjoy it, we promise..... !

Well, it finally happened!

On Tuesday 5th August, Debbie Shore kindly spent an hour and a half talking to Lee Bannister about what ATV and Central meant to her.

From her being crowned Miss ATV back in March 1979, through to Children's ITV, parts in Brookside, Coronation Street, Emmerdale Farm, the Carlton version of Crossroads, her time in panto, the Zippy love story, her current stint on shopping television, plus much more!

Interviewer Lee Bannister, cameramen Stephen Thwaites and Peter Raven, and of course the rest of the ATVLAND Productions crew would just like to say a big thanks to Debbie for giving up her valuable time to talk to us.

Debbie definitely had a few stories to share and was great to listen to. Thanks must also go to Dan Baker (Steves work colleague) and Lorna Moore for helping us get in contact with Debbie in the first place.

A true professional. Many thanks again. 

Rearching moves on apace!

Recently some members of the production team went to the Birmingham Central Library to do some further research. It's amazing what you can find!

We always knew that the Birmingham Post had produced a special edition on the day of the official opening of the centre in 1970. Indeed, a number of sections of this special edition have been published online over the years, but we wanted to actually go back to the original newspaper. This we did and we discovered that it really is an eyeopening piece. It includes excellent articles on the reasons behind the centre being built, the construction process, as well as a great deal of trumpet-blowing from ATV too (it really was a big thing at the time you know). You'll hopefully be able to see bits of this special edition, as well as the original report of Princess Alexandra's visit to the studios (published in the following day's edition) within the final programme.

Peter Thomas concentrated on looking into the Geography of the area around the ATV Centre. He was able to look back to the 19th Century when the area was very different indeed. Pete managed to trace what happened on the site over the course of 100 years, and much of what he discovered can be found on the ATV Forums: Click Here

Did you know that if you take the train into Birmingham from the direction of Wolverhampton, you'll pass directly underneath the exact spot where "Central House" used to stand?

Peter Raven and Stephen Thwaites managed to get hold of some great information and photographs of the area to illustrate just how the Centre came into being, and what the "Broad Street Corner" looked like all those years ago.

While we were there, we also took the opportunity to look up the best way to make a TV programme. We found a number of nice picture books such as "The Complete Guide To Making a Video". I seem to remember reading it when I was at school aged 8. An invaluable tome indeed! Must keep it handy at all times...

Finally a trawl through many old copies of TV Times has revealed a number of interesting features on both ATV and Central during their time at the Centre.

All very useful information, and the whole thing's shaping up nicely.

By the way, there are some very interesting things in the pipeline too at the moment. Watch this space...