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