One of the most important aspects of a live TV broadcast are the inserts. These are segments of pre-recorded material that are aired to bring news from other places that can't necessarily be broadcast live, come from external companies or even title sequences. When these are broadcasted it's an opportunity for set, cameras and talent to be repositioned and for any issues to be addressed without the audience seeing them.
On Thursday 8th February Ed set us the challenge of creating our own 1.5 minute insert on a topic of our choice, with a series of additional constraints. All the filming must take place within 24 hours, and we could only film for 8 hours of that time. And it has to be in for next Thursday – apparently a challenge no group had managed so far.
Naturally that meant we were definitely going to try and achieve that.
Our group was made up of Calum, Emily, Joe and myself and we decided very quickly that we'd cover the topic of rewilding – a topic subjected to much controversy in the media. Our initial ideas were to interview Cain Scrimgeour (our Head Lecturer who has hands-on experience with rewilding) and Kevin Scott (a conservationist for the Cumbria Wildlife Trust). We were able to get confirmation (but not a time) with Cain locked down really quickly, but Kevin wasn't going to be available in the timescale we had. He was, however, able to pass our enquiry to Rosemary Westwood who put us in touch with David Harpley, the Head of Conservation for the Cumbria Wildlife Trust. What a great contact!
We started to form a plan of action before deciding that we would have the evening to think about what we were going to do, and have a meeting at Starbucks in the morning. Haven't been there in a while!
Production Meeting – 9th February
Starbucks. 9:45am. With a drink in hand Calum and I settled down to get set up for the meeting. I really should arrange for more meetings to take place in cafes and things because they sure beat the canteen or lecture rooms.
Once we'd all arrived we set about discussing the direction we wanted to take the production in, and what we were interested in asking our guests about. I'd done some research the night before which really helped to shape the meeting, instead of us just aimlessly making suggestions that may, or may not, have been accurate. We also reviewed the draft production plan that I'd brought along and that was signed off. I now needed to set about creating a draft script, a shooting schedule for Tuesday and a full production schedule. It was also decided that we would head to Kendal, where the Cumbria Wildlife Trust HQ is, in Joe's car as there was the most space for equipment and (crucially) enough seats for all four of us.
By the evening I was able to circulate a draft script (which I was pretty proud of) and made a start on the production schedule. I'm extremely busy over the weekend so I won't be able to get back to the rest of this stuff until Monday. I also need to add Risk Assessment to the list of things I need to do! At least I've got a template of those.
Paperwork – 12th February
I spent the morning engrossed in the various bits of paperwork required for this insert task including completing the production schedule, creating the Tuesday shoot schedule and a risk assessment for our on location work. On previous events that I've had to sort out I've always really hated doing the paperwork, but for this very small production it was actually kinda fun!
During our lecture with Ed I realised that there was one crucial thing that I'd forgotten from the script – a scene and shot breakdown! Later in the day I headed back to the file, gave it a quick update based on the location information that I had been given, and sent it round again for final checks. Calum said that he had some stuff he wanted to discuss in the morning (it was fairly late by the time it was circulated) but that the shooting schedule was really good. Filming tomorrow – I am genuinely so excited! It's going to be a great day!
Filming Day – 13th February
Ahem, famous last words, ahem.
The day started out pretty good, all things considered. Our lecture actually finished early which was music to my producer ears! We realised that the precipitation that we thought was sleet was actually full on snow, but an early get out reassured me that this wouldn't have an effect on our journey.
And then we were off! We were heading down the Brampton Road chatting and laughing when the engine made the most horrific noise. We pulled over onto the kerb, all of us dead silent as we watched Joe try to restart the car. Once. Twice. Three times. Clunk, clunk, clunk.
Uh-oh.
Evidently this car wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Calum and I pushed the car into a layby – a difficult task with snow in the air and ice on the roads – while Emily made sure none of us were hit by oncoming traffic.
While Joe attempted to ring for roadside assistance the rest of us discussed options. Calum was the only other member of the group who could actually drive, but his van only had space for one passenger. To be honest, I didn't really mind who went but Emily pointed out that I was the best at location sound, therefore it would make more sense for me to go. Joe came back and told us that someone would come to help him and that we could just go ahead.
We walked back along the Brampton Road to uni in the snow, and I couldn't help but be thankful that this had happened so close to campus. I can't even imagine what we would have done if the road had been the M6 instead.
We repacked the van and then Calum and I set off for Kendal. As we travelled the weather gradually got worse, and I dreaded to think how much of a blizzard was blowing up in Kendal. Even lane three on the motorway was covered in snow, despite the work of the gritters and the snow ploughs. Turning onto the A6 was even worse! Clouds descended over us and we really couldn't see a great deal. And then we drove down into a valley and everything melted into lush green grassland almost immediately. I could spot the edge of the cloudbank ahead of us and I wondered if Kendal had been spared by the snow.
When we arrived we realised that this was true – no sign of snow anywhere! We headed into the Cumbria Wildlife Trust HQ, signed in and met the man we were here to interview – David Harbley. He decided that the best place for us to record was in his office as we probably wouldn't get disturbed. There was an added bonus that the view out the window was really lovely! Our interview went really well and David provided us with some fascinating answers. I also carried out my role of sound recordist really well and I was really pleased.
We went and filmed the beginning and ending segments in their garden. The shots looked good on camera but we had a bit of a problem with the sound recorder because it didn't seem to be showing any of the bars until you pressed record even though they were present when the headphones were plugged in. I also collected some wild track of the birdsong in the garden which can go over the top of the opening and closing statements.
We just about managed to get back in time for Cain's interview as we accidentally missed our turning earlier on and ended up travelling back through the Lake District (worth it for the views though, in my opinion). Calum and I met up with Emily and Joe before hurrying up to the office where we carried out this interview in what must be record time! Not sure quite how good the sound came through on the clip mic this time but Joe got a back up recording on his zoom recorder so we should be covered whatever happens.
Well all in all this was actually pretty successful despite a pretty major disaster at the start of the day (Joe says his car is fixable though – phew!). I'm really pleased with the material that we collected and I'm really looking forward to seeing the final product after Calum's done his editing magic to it.
Final Product! – 14th February
Calum worked so hard last night and this morning and we now have two brilliant inserts to be sent in; one with clips of Cain's interview and the other with David's. Unfortunately one and a half minutes really isn't enough to cover a topic in any sort of depth, but it's given Calum an idea to create a longer piece of work using the material we collected which is just brilliant! I'm looking forward to seeing where he takes it.
Evaluation
We were successful in completing the task to time and to a pretty high standard I think! I was certainly extremely pleased with the final results – even if the time constraints meant that we had to cut so much of the good material out. Calum is saying that he's going to work on a longer piece so that will be great to see. We also got some really good feedback from Ed:
"Excellent to get these in. We'll explore these in more detail next week.
There's loads of learning in there!
Superb
Ed"
I think that one of the other great successes of this whole experience was the amount of planning that went into it which allowed us to recover from a fairly major disaster with ease and complete all our tasks to schedule. In the past people have asked me how I always manage to turn up to places on time, and the answer I always give them is planning in lots of spare time to get delayed. This really saved our bacon multiple times throughout the day.
The one thing that we could have improved in the production process was ensuring that we synced up the audio by clapping before we began interviewing. I would also like to make sure I get a go at editing at some point during this process. Clearly there were also some issues with recording on the clip mic when Calum was speaking. I wonder if this was to do with the jacket he was wearing - that is worth considering when it comes to our costume design. We don't want all that noise to come through during a live performance!
We've got one more insert task to undertake, and then we also need to film two inserts for the final project. But with one successful task in the bag I think we can move forward with confidence.
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