The history of APN Tele-Video

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APN Tele-Video was formed in 1987 after filming the 1987 British Matchplay Championships bowling tournament at Charrington Bowl, Tolworth. There was such interest from people watching the tournament to see the finished video that I purchased a broadcast TV camera and Umatic edit suite. The following year, after completing a course at SCOLA, Sutton College of Liberal Arts and Thames Television in Teddington, I hired in some state of the art production equipment and put together a crew to produce the 1988 Matchplay event.

The first programme was a huge success selling over 500 units and much to my surprise even turning a profit. The video sold through the national magazine World of Tenpin. During 1988 I filmed a 'Skins' tournament with the legendary top US pro bowler Earl Anthony at Heathrow Airport Bowl and took a small crew to Nottingham for the prestigious British Open Championships. To supplement this video and make it more exciting I also bought the rights from RTE to include The AMF Bowling World Cup from Stillorgan in Dublin and made a compilation programme for Tenpin 89. This sold well and was purchased by Blockbuster Video stores for rental too. I also imported and sold a catalogue of instruction videos from the top US professional bowlers.

My real aim now was to get bowling back on television. I joined forces with SP Broadcast from Bournemouth to produce a pilot programme from the 1990 British Matchplay tournament. This was also my first experience with a Steadicam EFP rig. SP decided not to pursue the venture however I was left with the material for Tenpin 90. About that time I met Phil Mison, a presenter from Screensport and we joined forces under the banner of Kingpin Promotions, over the next year and a half we produced programming covering all the major UK events for Screensport and Sky Sports. We were now covering the Matchplay, Skol UK Classic and British Open Championships and were building a regular crew including a senior cameraman from the BBC.

Whilst all the events were very prestigious, the formats were not very television friendly. So I designed a new mixed doubles tournament which, with sponsorship from Brunswick, became the Brunswick Team Invitational from Enfield. The event had 8 teams made up of the top players from the four main European countries that formed the Screensport audience. After a round robin position round in the morning we shot a stepladder final, perfect for our television audience. The Great British B team, who had finished last in the round robin, had to work their way through the French, German and Dutch players until they came head to head in the final with the Great Britain A team who had finished in first place. The exciting match went right to the last frame and made for a very exciting 4 week series.

We were now using the CBF Outside Broadcast crew which made life far less stressful when it came to shoot day. No more rigging and derigging and sorting out cabling issues 10 minutes before the main event was about to start. Mike and his crew were fantastic and we used them for the next British Open event for London Weekend Television and the ITV network. For our final event in 1991 we took the crew and OB trucks out to Le Mans in France for the AMF Bowling World Cup. 2 lanes were built in Le Forum, a stadium right next to the race track and with a six camera shoot we produced our best ever event for Screensport.

Between these events APN Tele-Video was also keeping busy, I had upgraded the studio with a 3 machine edit suite. I produced many training films for Bass Leisure and hired the suite and camera gear to various clients. Editing everything from weddings to travel videos, The APN Tele-Video client list included such companies as Bass, AMF, Property Services Agency, Tune Up and Halifax Building Society. I also worked as technical advisor to the art department at Pinewood Studios for the Universal Pictures comedy King Ralph, installing a fully operational tenpin bowling lane on the set of the royal bedroom. I also had to teach John Goodman how to bowl, yes it's true, I really did teach Fred Flintstone how to bowl. See King Ralph trailer below.

In 1992 several of the main sponsors for the major bowling events pulled out and I was offered an exciting new full time management position so, with the advent of non-linear video editing systems looming, I decided to sell the entire analogue studio facilities while it still had some value. Several of the major tenpin bowling events are now regularly covered by Matchroom sports on Sky.
 
Today APN Tele-Video provides HD video production services with Steadicam and non-linear digital editing.

AMF Bowling World Cup 1992

King Ralph

Sceensport - Brunswick Team Invitational, show 1 part 1

Sceensport - Brunswick Team Invitational, show 1 part 2