Caught on camera

Merry Christmas everyone!

Here, have a festive pressie: some photos taken on the 'underwater-filming day'.

All good fun and frolics. Additionally, watch out everyone because in future, I am determined to remember to bring the pentax along to all shoots

The pool: steam-room & location

Michaela Rose: aqua-girl & camera operator 

James Harwood: second-camera & producer 

with

Melissa Curnow: production assistant and editor

The Final Day of Shooting

Today was officially the final day of shooting and we travelled to St Ives, of all places, to interview Devon and Cornwall ‘Aquatics Officer’ Neil Hutchinson from the Amateur Swimming Association.

Neil was incredibly eloquent on camera, comfortable and very knowledgeable about swimming education in the UK. James says he is the best person we have interviewed so far; high praise indeed!

For myself, I found Neil a great conversationalist and was really grateful for the material he provided us on ASA policy and swimming teaching; really interesting contrast to the stuff I have done with the STA (Swimming Teacher’s Association) and very different to the interview we conducted with Len Hatcher.

However, one top tip I learnt from conducting this interview is make enquiries as to if there are any pets in the house before you conduct the interview because otherwise the cat/dog will walk in, make your contributor giggle, scratch the carpet loudly or knock into your camera tripod!

A second tip I learnt, was that even if you want to build momentum and agitation in the interview and making ‘hmm’ noises or nodding a lot does the trick refrain from doing it because it distracts your camera operator and worries your sound-man; made me feel a tad paranoid too!

Another very good interview in all though and I am looking forward to mercilessly editing the footage; carnage on the cutting room floor because the thing is only 3 minutes long!

Amateur Swimming Association

Swimming Teachers Association

Production meeting and pesky kids

Guess what?! Today was our last session filming with the ‘Len Hatcher Swim School: no more dehydration, soggy trousers and steamed up camera lenses!

Unfortunately, we were only able to film for an hour because one young lady went camera shy and we were therefore unable to film her lesson. (Kind of bizarre she wouldn’t be on camera for me considering I taught her to swim at the prep school three or four year ago!)

Minor practical difficulties aside, it has been an absolute privilege to meet all the children and the parents; we captured some really great ‘actuality’ of lessons today and some wonderful close-ups of the children struggling to ‘tread in water’, swimming lengths and completing badges. It really shows how beneficial swimming is for children from a health, wellbeing and safety point of view.

Additionally, we had a really useful production meeting yesterday with our course tutor (executive producer!) Mel and were able to discuss with her a number of niggles and issues relating to having enough time for editing, content and title changes....

Courtesy of Mr James Harwood, the documentary shall now be called ‘Fighting chance’ rather than its’ decidedly naff working title: ‘In danger of drowning.’

Progress made. Problem solving done. Our documentary cup overfloweth!

Raw nerves, journeying to Looe and meeting lovely people

My tutor has said to us from the start that the best aspect for her about working in television “is getting to meet amazing people you would otherwise not meet.”

This was proved for us, yesterday afternoon when we had the privilege of interviewing Julie Sammels, her husband Glynn (a coastguard) and the man who saved Julie’s life when she was nine; Kevin Dawes.

A day at the beach which ended in tragedy, claiming the lives of Julie’s mother and younger brother, this was an incredibly challenging subject to talk about and is without a doubt the hardest interview I have conducted so far.

However, all three contributors, were brilliant as well as being welcoming and very generous people. So a huge thank to Julie, Glynn and Kevin; I hope we do your interviews justice and I am positive that your story will provide compelling evidence of the importance of swimming education.

Article: Julie reunited with the hero who saved her life at beach

Underwater swim swam swum

So on “the eighth day of Christmas”…I believe you get “maids a-milking”…not really that useful so instead we opted for “one 15 year old Cornwall County swimmer.”

For our opening sequence, James had a brainwave and suggested that we shoot a semi-pro/pro-swimmer plunging into a ‘Nirvana album cover’ baby dive. Unfortunately I am not quite sure where we are going to source a baby from but our county swimmer was fantastic, really co-operative and his butterfly was immensely good.

However, this created two challenges: a) we are going to have to film him in the water and b) we are going to have to film him from poolside when he is travelling at speed.

Solution: Michaela gets into the water (after a while I ended up taking the plunge too) with the JVC 100 underwater housing and James films from the side using a jib/crane with a wally dolly!

It was a great experience for all of us, if slightly stressful because the set-up and equipment was untested but we all really enjoyed the shoot and the results are admirable for first timers.

Well done team and thank you to our county swimmer.

(Jib/crane and wally-dolly a bit of a “badly behaved” combo really and underwater housing much more suitable for filming slow moving fish when scuba diving not fast moving swimmers!)

See Michaela's blog for images of the practice sessions and equipment

A little note on Len Hatcher

Our main contributor, Len Hatcher is a fantastic 'advanced swimming instructor' who I used to work for as a lifeguard and swimming teacher. (Amazing job swimming teaching comes highly recommended from me)

So big thank you to LHSS team and huge credit and respect to Len for taking part in this ‘documentary.'

Slushy moment over if your children need swimming lessons see the link below:

The Len Hatcher Swim School

Filming lessons and interviewing your main contributor

First day of shooting; the patience paid off and a lot was accomplished today!

We interviewed our main contributor, Len Hatcher, which went really well despite the fact I was a little concerned about how ‘twitchy’ Len had  been at the recce but I need not have worried because it simply was the case that we’d put him under pressure on the recce.

This time, we gave Len plenty of time to get used to the camera being there, prepped him a little on what was going to happen and then engaged him in a lively debate on a subject he is really passionate about. It was great because I got so involved in what we were talking about that I was able to inject questions I hadn’t prepped beforehand which made the whole thing much more natural and pacey!

So, we completed that task then later we went back to film some of the swimming lessons which again provided some great material of the kids treading water, learning backstroke and grinning smugly at each other when they did well.

Or perhaps they were grinning at Michaela and me lugging a tripod and camera up and down the wet poolside!

The camera and sound have gone really well so far, thanks to Michaela and James, who are fantastic considering the echoes and whirring fan on poolside and the reflections and moving kids in the water. (What do they say about children and animals again?!)

Retrospective on the Pitch and the Recce

I would say that the pitch and the recce are two of the hardest aspects in any production because they both involve asking individuals to buy into your project.

For me, the pitch was a real challenge; it is completely different to say making a presentation on “The Rivers of South America” because you are laying your ideas bare and open to criticism. Also you are exposing your personal interests because I am swiftly realising that to make the best programmes you need to be invested in/supportive of the concept. To be brave and bold is a must in pitching!

Similarly the recce is when you first meet your contributors and discover whether or not you are going to have to go back to the drawing board. Are they televisual, are they going to be reliable and are they going to be comfortable and genuine on camera?

This time around, we were rushed in doing our recce which made our main contributor, Len Hatcher, look hassled, slightly uncomfortable and twitchy on camera; next time, I will definitely be leaving more time for them and if necessary bringing something scented with lavender to calm them and the team down!

I found a great link for information on conducting recces, a link on the BBC process for pitching and proposals also Raindance does some fantastic articles on film-making in general: enjoy!

BBC: Safety on a Recce

BBC: Proposals and Pitching

Raindance Top Tips

Mountains of forms and meandering through awkward questions

Making this ‘3 Minute Wonder’ is definitely teaching the whole crew a lesson in patience; did we do a nice tame subject with adults and public locations? Nope, we did one with an army of children, a private swimming pool and at a school.

This means for this first week rather than shooting we’ve been explaining to parents the issues of swimming education, asking their opinion of their child’s lessons and yes: “please may we film your child & will you sign this form?”

Well, the response has been fantastic, I would say 99% of parents have complied and we have the forms all signed and sealed. Additionally, it was incredibly gratifying to see how much opinion and strength of feeling there is out there on the issue of swimming education.

Speaking as someone who really supports the idea of more facilities and more hours for swimming lessons in school; the team and I am going to have to be really self-disciplined to make this documentary balanced not biased!  

BBC Radio Cornwall with Laurence Reed

Thanks to the organisational powers of Mr James Harwood (producer extraordinaire); I was able to go on Radio Cornwall this afternoon and have a little chat with Laurence Reed about our ‘3 Minute Wonder.’

I was dead embarrassed, went bright red, but it was a very worthwhile exercise because we were able to promote the MATV course for University College Falmouth, talk about the aims of our documentary and appeal for contributors!

I’ve said it once but I’ll say it again “any stories relating to swimming, swimming education, trouble in the water, triumph in the water and or your opinion on school swimming lessons” should be brought forward; we’ll make you look fantastic on camera I promise!

BBC Radio Cornwall - The Laurence Reed Show

Mr Reed's Twitter

There’s nothing better than messing about near water

…well, actually no, because ‘one in 5 children and one in 5 adults in the UK cannot swim.’ Not only is this a shame for those individuals but it is also a pain for lifeguards, Coastguards and wannabe ‘David Hasslehoffs’ nationwide because they are forced to drag out flailing paddlers either by the chin, shoulder, arm, rope, hand or stick, (depending upon location and sustained injuries of course.)

So, I decided to pitch this topic as a ‘3 minute wonder’ to my class last week and it got a good response so I am now working in a team of four to develop and make this project for Unit 130.

I am taking on the role of director with Michaela shooting on the JVC, James producing the whole project and Melissa making sure it arcs in a sensible sequence through the powers of the Avid editing suites.

As you may be able to tell, I am a tad excited about this development and our first production meeting this afternoon justified the feeling; we are in the process of commandeering radio air-time to look for contributors, starting a shooting schedule, scouting for LEA officials and searching for an appropriate pool which does not glow with orange light. (My hair clashes with the colour; it has nothing too do with shooting honest!)

So any of my readers, (of which I acknowledge there are only a few) , who have good, bad, scarring, or an irritating story or opinion about swimming, swimming lessons or about any poolside experiences that they wish to share…should.

British Swimming

British Gas - Pools 4 Schools Scheme

'Best of British' - Blind Football

Thank you very much to Director/Producer Chris Williams from TwoFour for his lecture and interview on Friday.

It cannot have been easy walking to the TV Studio with me armed with my questions, two lights and two P2 cameras pointed expectedly at you but you rose to the challenge like a natural and really conveyed how passionate you are about film-making.

If you have not seen the ‘Best of British’ series there will be more episodes coming out next year, especially watch Chris’s episode on the Paralympic Tennis champions and please do check out the link below.

Best of British

Twofour

Work experience, work experience and more work experience

Those who know me, or have read previous posts, will know that I get very excited if I get to go to events especially if they are out-of-county (& in well-furnished/well-catered surroundings!)

So I really enjoyed the ‘Breaking into Media and the RTS Awards’ at Plymouth University on Monday; travelling up in 50-60 capacity coach with only 19 passengers on board was a giggle but more critically the panel discussions were really enlightening and the student entries into the regional RTS award categories were very compelling.

Nuggets of information such as “in applications for junior positions you will be expected to bring 5 or more prospective programme ideas” are obviously useful to know beforehand as well as practical gems like “pay attention to sound” are also vital but the overshadowing advice was “if you haven’t got work experience you haven’t lived!”

I will keep you up-to-date as I scrabble around to infiltrate production companies, channels and shoots for work/life experience – candidate will make good cup of tea or coffee, make calls, work in the rain and generally do whatever she is asked and that is a promise.

All in all, a very informative experience and I have huge admiration for the diligent researchers on Channel 5’s ‘The Hotel Inspector’ who will make a ridiculous amount of phone calls to find dingy hotels for their series. (I am very much downplaying this because the production team seemed really on the ball and the programme is a stupendous success.)

Congratulations Plymouth Media Partnership on another event well done

Plymouth Media Partnership

Channel 5 - The Hotel Inspector

‘Britain in a Day’ @ Land’s End

Fantastic opportunity to wheel out the camera equipment, as my friends and I chose to be part of Morgan Matthew’s ‘Britain in a Day’ project; so took a little jaunty trip to Land’s End to capture Michaela, James, Vicky and yours truly talking about what is important to us etc. right now. (Ref. the project questions on the ‘Britain in a Day’ website)

Looked like a right plant pot frankly perched on the edge of a block of concrete which holds the Land’s End finger post in place but it means if I ever get any whiney contributors in future I have ammo to say “I’ve been interviewed on camera too; you whinger!”

The real hero of the hour was the little photographer who sits up there and charges innocent tourists for pictures next to the fingerpost. (I know I thought it a little harsh too) However, I think he took pity on us and not only did he not charge for us to film at the landmark, he also changed the sign to read ‘Britain in a Day’ so if you ever meet him please pat him on the back, give him a pasty and smile for my sake.

Anyway look out our little group on BBC2 in the near future but if you don’t like what you see; please do not report us to Offcom because I’ll just quote the ‘Human Rights Act’ back at you; thank you very much Labour and Media Law!

Britain in a Day

Britain in a Day @ Land's End

Eight Films in Four Weeks!

Congratulations to Technical Group B/Production Group 4 for successfully submitting our production paperwork and DVD!
Drinks all round and Unit 120 to start on Tuesday!

Chain-saws, treading on toes and lighting for TV

Brief 4= “each group will produce 1x1” of “actuality” using only the contributor on location”

More ‘live action’ filming this week, however, all the groups need to be careful to not shoot ‘profile’ sequences or ‘instructional videos!’ This is a tough assignment because the action needs to drive the story rather than the interview but you need to ensure that there is a strong human element in your story so your viewer does not lose interest. 

Well, I decided to contact my old-colleagues at Trelissick Garden and we filmed the very kind, very patient, garden team splicing, chopping and chain-sawing wood ready for the winter. It proved to be quite a successful shoot, we got some great audio from the cutting equipment and the gardeners were really communicative and interesting contributors; many thanks to Dick, Ivor and Tom.

In terms of the production team, we had a bit of a reshuffle this week, Tim took on sound, while Dan and Catherine each took a camera and I liaised with the Trelissick staff in the background also trying to interject shot-suggestions over the machinery noises.

Overall, I was disappointed that I did not have the opportunity to shoot this week, because I do intend to put camera down as my technical speciality, however, three cameras would have excessive.

Memo to self: do not be timid about trying new things or treading on other people’s toes!

Excellent lighting session with Pete today, practiced three point lighting on Katherine seated in the middle of the TV studio on an office chair, and it was surprising how flattering, how ‘televisual’, good lighting can make a person look versus standard indoor/domestic lighting.

Editing tomorrow, Unit 110 hand-in on Friday so new modules next week and tele-tastic three minute wonders to come….

Avid Editing, Envy Post-Production and work experience in London!

This course is fantastic, (please touch wood everybody right now!) very hands-on, no holds barred and we are meeting real people in work who know all the tricks of the trade.

Today, Mat Appleton, head of client services at Envy Post-production house, came to visit Tremough and gave a great presentation on Envy, brought us all a drink (bonus!) and offered us work experience; fantastic, I feel very productive all of a sudden and I didn’t even give the talk! 

Envy Post Production
Avid

Over the Tamar to ‘Meet the UKTV Commissioning Editor’

Well to ring in the changes, in Devon that is not Cornwall, our course was fortunate enough to take part in a ‘Plymouth-Media Partnership’ event at the FootAnstey building in Sutton Harbour.

I was very appreciative of the trip for two reasons

1) The FootAnstey building was beautifully furnished, suited and booted also there were biscuits, water and hot drinks on arrival; very good hosts would go there again in a heartbeat!

2) The UKTV commissioning editor, Shirani Sabaratnam was an excellent speaker, very friendly, open to questions and succinct. We were provided with the specifications for programmes for channels such as Yesterday, Dave and Good Food in 2012/14. Also, and more critically she went through some of the process for getting programmes commissioned and the best way for independent production companies to get their ideas heard and well received.

So thank you very much again to our course leader Mel Mackie, it is so important that we are getting out there and meeting people in industry rather than sheltering in the university bubble; pop for jobs please!

UKTV 

Plymouth Media Partnership

“No speak Americano and pizza pie!”

Brief 3= “each group will produce 1x1” of “actuality” intercut with an interview shot in the previous week.”

“Actuality” is the filming of live action, something happening, and when it’s intercut with an interview the contributor should ideally be telling you what’s occurring in the action.

Well you may be able to spot a major problem that production group 4 are going to have with this task! Interview 1: Rob Curnow does not have a trade or an activity, that we know about, the vox pop interview contributors did not provide any details of anything lively that they do other than pasty eating and the interview 3: fish monger footage is unfortunately unusable because of the boom microphone being in shot all the way through and poor audio anyway.

So ‘thinking caps’ on, we went to ‘Belly Timber’ on Falmouth Moor where they make the most fantastic, rustic, and delicious homemade pizza. Shooting on the 5D again we have a really fantastic sequence starting with a general view of the shop, panning shots of the ingredients, tossing the pizza dough adding the cheese, peppers and cooking in the brick oven. However, we booked an interview with the owner Emily for this Saturday and unfortunately she had to pull out last minute due to mass pizza orders.

So dragging our feet, group 4 will troop to the seminar tomorrow morning with actuality but no interview until Monday afternoon or Tuesday, depending on what Dan confirmed with Emily. Let us hope that the fantastic soundtrack to this sequence the original version of ‘We no speak Americano’ will distract them all from the lack of interview!

Belly Timber Pizza, Falmouth

Interview 4: “I got to sit in the driver’s cab of the King Harry Ferry!”

Alongside the briefs that we get set for our ‘Unit 110-Introduction to Production’ module, we also get assignments from our technical workshops so off I went with my good friend Michaela Rose (thank you Michaela) to film an interview on the King Harry Ferry.

Lovely Nigel  on the King Harry Ferry, was one of the nicest people I’ve spoken to so far and a huge thank you to King Harry for being so accommodating; from my past lives I know what a fantastic organisation King Harry are, excellent online marketing and customer service.

Anyway, this homework was focussing on sound and after my past experience with a boom microphone and with Michaela’s good judgement we opted to shoot on with a lapel microphone and a P2 camera. It went really well, I conducted the interview wearing the headphones and monitored the sound levels on the P2 while Michaela filmed and when I took the results back we had got really good levels and great footage.

Only need to tweak the sound in ProTools cut the clips in Avid and I will have a completed and polished interview; and I had two free trips on the ferry in the driver’s cab! I am definitely very easily pleased!

King Harry Ferry

Interview 3: Boom microphones are like seagulls….

I thought that we should interview the fish-monger in Arwenick Street, because I have seen him in the past talking to his customers about fish and fishing. Additionally, I really like the open front to his shop which means the fish are clearly on display and I thought the white box frame might look neat on camera.

However, I did not account for the combination of one boom microphone, one difficult audio mixer and one low ceiling. I say boom microphones are like seagulls because on this occasion ours kept dropping into shot over our fish monger’s head! Additionally, it turned out that all day the boom microphone had not picked up sound of a good enough quality that we could use so I think we all ended up regretting taking the boom microphone along!

To conclude from the three interviews, I learnt the following four things:

1)     Boom microphones are a heavy object to carry around town-centres and are likely to pop-up in shot at any moment during filming especially in low ceiling rooms

2)     Always have your camera microphone switched on as a way to back up your audio!

3)     Cutaways enhance the narrative that your contributor is trying to tell and give you more options in the editing suite; I think with the ‘fish monger’ interview and Rob Curnow, we did not film enough cutaways.

4)     Chatty people do not necessarily make for confident or co-operative contributors

5)     Film as much material as you possibly can because it will give you more options in the editing suite and hopefully will help your interviewee calm the hell down!

Interview 2: “What do you think of the Cornish Pasty?”

In the tradition of programmes like the ‘One Show’, ‘Daybreak’ and ‘Inside Out’, group four decided to shoot a vox pop for our second interview. A vox pop is ‘voice of the people’ and captures general opinion on-screen so we decided to capture ‘gut-opinion’ on the Cornish pasty. A thanks to Henry Austwick on providing the idea; very generous and ingenious!

In particular, I think it was a useful exercise for Tim, our camera-man, because he had to adjust the camera to different environments at speed so as not to keep contributors hanging around, additionally, it was an interesting edit because the different environments required a quite bit of colour correction and audio adjustment to give all the clips continuity.

All in all, it was a successful shoot and we filmed some interesting responses. However, collecting enough contributors to fill a minute is very time-consuming and it is hard to second-guess who looks confident enough to speak on camera and who doesn’t.

(Although, everyone is happy to nose at the equipment and ask you what you are doing, most people looked petrified at the very idea of being filmed!)

Interview 1: “Just me and my old dog in Cornwall”

Brief 2= “each group will produce 3x1” interviews with three different people you admire for a specific reason.”

It is tough to think of people you admire, who will be interviewed on camera, at short notice, however, it is amazing how many people you attract when you go out on the streets with a boom pole and a JVC camera!

Our first interview happened for exactly this reason; unfortunately our planned contributor dropped out last minute and just as we were panicking about who we were going to interview Rob Curnow walked over! Rob is a really nice guy, who was born in London, moved to Coventry to work as an engineer and then moved to his “dream place”: Cornwall.

Rob proved to be quite the chatterbox; however, one of the more interesting aspects of the interview was Rob’s own editing of what he was prepared to say on and off-camera. It was surprising because he was so open off-camera and then guarded on-camera. This demonstrated the importance of finalising content before the interview and filming for long enough to give the contributor time to adjust; shoot for 10 minutes for every 1 minute you need to capture. More is best not less is more!

“Is Dan really going to walk into the sea? He’ll get wet trainers!”

For our second one minute story, Dan showcases his acting skills again to be lured into the sea by mythical creatures or ‘Sirens’; obviously Dan could have waded in up to his neck but as the story was only finished that morning and Dan had not got any spare clothes with him we stopped at mid-calf fully-clothed!

I learnt a number of top production tips on this shoot; firstly that you must not allow yourself to become to attached to footage because even if you spend ages framing your actor’s reflection in a rock pool or shoot multiple takes of your actor throwing a pebble into the same pool, the sequence still might end up on the cutting room floor!

My second top tip is if you are using shells, seaweed, pebbles, etc. dip them in sea water before shooting. We did this to some shells and seaweed we used for a close-up and it definitely heightened the colours but obviously just dip don’t drown the objects or the result will be unwanted dripping on camera!

My final and third top would be to fit the location to the story rather than tailor the story to the location. We really wanted to film on the rock pools which we all really enjoyed but we rushed the story-writing process to get there and this meant some last minute planning on the beach. Last minute is always less than ideal.

Making Coffee with Daniel

The final story we shot for this first brief, definitely proves the rule ‘keep it simple’ because it really and allows for experimentation.

We shot on the 5D camera again, and the sequence follows Dan making a cup of coffee in the kitchen of the Media Centre at Tremough Campus. Dan fills the kettle, boils the water, fetches out the milk, adds coffee granules, stirs, slurps and gives a cheeky wink! All these actions are timed to sounds we recorded during production on a zoom recorder and the soundtrack is a version of the ‘Spanish flea.’

This was a really good experience, we put the camera in the kitchen cupboard so we could film Dan’s face-to-camera while he chooses a mug and we re-boiled the kettle four or more times to get really good quality sound of the bubbling water and steam. Additionally, it was a good test of our editing skills as the sounds needed to be on-cue with the action and Dan’s movements needed to be snappy but provide enough content to fill a minute.

One misdemeanour in that when Dan opens the cupboard door to the camera, Catherine is caught on the sofa in the shot but this way none of us will forget to “clear the set” next time!

Facebook status: “I can’t sleep again!”

Course Brief 1 = “each group will produce 3x1” stories about a place or a person without dialogue.”

My production group is 'Group 4' and our first 1 minute ‘story’ titled ‘Insomnia’ is a stylish, (I say “stylish” because it was shot in high definition on a fantastic 5D camera) look at the night-time wanderings of an insomniac!

Kudos to Tim Hunt for his camera work, the close up of Daniel Whitehouse on the sofa is very dramatic (!) Also points to Dan for being such a good sport and taking the starring role; not sure he relished climbing all over the railings above Falmouth docks in the dark because it is one steep drop!

A key lesson I learnt from this production, is that voice from radio or television does constitute dialogue not background noise and therefore would have to be scripted in pre-production. Additionally, this assignment has really proved the golden rule of television, “show me, don’t tell me”, because as a viewer watching the insomniac updating his facebook status with “I can’t sleep again” is much more believable and personal than hearing the character say the words.

Switch on: MA Television Production

The first day at University College Falmouth and the beginning of a year studying a Masters in Television Production; I am going to learn about broadcasting, programme schedules, camera, script-writing, audio, editing, how to use Avid software (a mountain in itself!), programme commissioning….etc….

A good thing that one of my childhood nicknames was ‘square-eyes’ so at least primary-research will not be an issue; bring on the remote, sofa and fleece socks!

University College Falmouth- MA Television Production