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From left: Production head Norman
Spencer surveys what HSV7 has acquired.

people soaking up the sound, but when
empty the sound ricocheted around the
walls and ceiling. This problem was
never entirely solved at the Fitzroy
Teletheatre (as it was now called) and
remained the bane of audio engineers
throughout the life of the studio. It
meant, for instance, that the studio
could never be used for serious drama
production.
In 1961 when Channel 7 imported
British producer Peter Coates to
produce a series of plays, he was taken
to Fitzroy to look the place over. He
walked in, stood in the middle of the
studio floor, clapped his hands loudly,
and then walked out again, saying
“No”. The plays were done in the small
studios at Dorcas Street.
However a very successful drama
production in the early days of the
Teletheatre was Crawfords’ series
Consider Your Verdict. Set entirely in a
courtroom, the acoustics fitted
perfectly, even if it was necessary to
stop taping on occasions when the rain
became too heavy on the roof!
The lighting grid was suspended
from the balcony and extended over the
entire studio floor. The studio floor
consisted of several tons of concrete
poured into the stalls area from about
halfway down to the back of the theatre.
This, of course, had to be perfectly level
to allow smooth tracking of the camera
crane and pedestals. About two hundred
of the stalls seats were retained as
studio audience area, and a section at
the rear of the stalls was cleared for the
glassed-in control room.
A ‘cyclorama’ extended around the
back wall. This was a floor-to-ceiling
stretched cloth which, when correctly
lit, provided an infinity background. A Centre: The new control room behind the audience.
lot of the productions at Fitzroy were
Above: The central crane race and the surviving cinema seats.
musical shows and the action invariably
took place in front of the ‘cyc’ with
hanging mobiles behind the performers.

CINEMARECORD 2007 19