British National Studios

Film studio

The Neptune Film Company opened the first studios in Borehamwood in 1914. It contained just a single 70 feet (21 metres) window-less stage (the first 'dark stage' in England), relying on electricity from a gas-powered generator for lighting. At the time, this was an innovation, as the majority of early films were shot in large glass-roof studios which relied on natural light. It was said that Borehamwood was chosen as it had a good London train service, but was far enough away to avoid the then-regular London pea soup fogs. At the time, Borehamwood was a small hamlet in the parish of Elstree, named after the larger village of Elstree, as was the railway station of Elstree, and so the studio's location was often referred to as "Elstree", rather than "Borehamwood". Production at Neptune Studios ceased during 1917, and the studios were sold to the Ideal Film Company, who used the site up until 1924.

During 1928, the studios were sold to Ludwig Blattner, who connected them to the electricity mains and introduced a German system of sound recording. The Blattner Studios were leased to Joe Rock Productions during 1934, and two years later it purchased the site, renaming it "Rock Studios". Rock Productions built four new large stages, and began making films, including the drama film The Edge of the World (1937), directed by Michael Powell.

The studios were owned by British National Films Company between 1939 and 1948, although during this period a large portion of the studio was taken over by the British government for war work.

During 1953, the studios were bought by Douglas Fairbanks Junior, mainly for television production, who renamed them "National Studios", although they were informally known as "Fairbanks Studios". Early productions included the Douglas Fairbanks Presents series (1953–1957), and a few episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

ATV

The studios were sold to Lew Grade's Associated Television (ATV) in May 1958. The original intention of the new owners was to use the facility for production of the affiliated ITC filmed series. The Adventures of William Tell (1958–59) was produced here, but ATV's existing television studios were insufficient for its requirements. A 7.5 acres (3.0 hectares) site on London's South Bank had been purchased, but completion of a wholly new complex would be some years in the future, while the need for more studio space was urgent. As a result, the Eldon Avenue centre was re-equipped as an electronic television complex, and most of ATV's live and video-taped shows were made there. The series made by the affiliated ITC, such as The Saint, Gideon's Way, and The Prisoner, were shot on 35mm film at other companies' neighbouring Elstree facilities or elsewhere, mostly at the ABPC Elstree (Film) Studios, and MGM-British Studios.

Originally, some ATV programmes were made at the Alpha studios in Aston, Birmingham. This was because ATV had the weekday ITV Midland franchise as well as the weekend London franchise until network changes in 1968. After 1970, programmes such as Crossroads were made at the new Birmingham studios at the ATV Centre. Larger-scale productions, including many drama programmes, continued to be recorded at the Elstree facility for the rest of ATV's existence. In the period of its occupation of the Elstree complex, the smaller Studios A and B were used for schools TV and sitcoms, while Studio C was a drama studio. Studio D, with permanent audience seating, was used for light entertainment programmes such as the ATV Morecambe and Wise series (Two of a Kind, 1961–68) and The Muppet Show (1976–81).

ATV was restructured as Central Independent Television for the new contractual period beginning in January 1982. One of the conditions of its licence renewal by the governing body of the ITV network, then the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), was that ATV should vacate any London-based facilities and become entirely focused on the English Midlands, the region of the United Kingdom for which it had held the ITV franchise since 1968. For the last 18 months of its use as an ITV production studio, the complex was under the ownership of Central Independent Television; as ATV ceased to exist as a company at the end of 31 December 1981. The studios remained in operation by Central TV up until July 1983 (the final production under Central ownership being a Max Bygraves-era episode of Family Fortunes), when its new East Midlands Television Centre in Nottingham was completed.

BBC Elstree Centre

When the BBC bought the Elstree site in 1984 to produce its new soap opera EastEnders (first aired on 19 February 1985), it did not purchase the equipment within the building. Some sources state that, as a consequence, Central TV's studio technicians were instructed to make the equipment left behind inoperable (there are particular claims about the camera prisms being smashed). Other sources dispute this, claiming the equipment was already so old and worthless there would have been no gain in intentionally disabling it. When the BBC moved in, it repaired equipment that was not beyond repair, sometimes using spare parts from identical pieces of equipment already in BBC use. The EMI 2001 television cameras used in Studio 3 at BBC Television Centre, Shepherd's Bush, were moved into the newly renamed 'BBC Elstree Centre' as part of that studio's refurbishment, instead of being stripped down for spare parts. Central TV's own EMI 2001s were considered to be beyond economic repair by BBC staff sent to examine the site, regardless of whether they had been intentionally disabled or not by Central TV employees. Elstree kept the EMI 2001s until 1991. Elstree's first new cameras were to be Thomson TTV-1531s, one of the last plumbicon-tubed cameras to be made. These cameras were again replaced in the mid-1990s with Thomson TTV-1542 and TTV-1647 lightweight cameras using the then-new camera technology of a charge-coupled device (CCD). Widescreen was introduced in 1999, using Philips/Thomson LDK 100s. In 2010, the cameras across the site were again upgraded, this time to Sony HSC-300s.