Videos And Vlomo...

Any of you that follow my @ukcameraman Twitter feed will know by now that i am taking part in a strange internet phenomenon called Vlomo. This is the shortened net speak for Video Blogging Month, which takes place every November. Should you wish to take part, the challenge is to post a video blog at least once a day for the whole 30 days of November, On any subject. I had never done this before...

Video Blogging Month. 30 Videos in 30 days. It's harder than you think...

Now before you go asking what a middle aged, bearded bloke is doing posting videos to the interwebs, it's because i liked the challenge. I film the news most days using expensive video equipment. The content is heavily produced, shot and edited by professionals and broadcast to the masses on the TV. Videoblogs, on the other hand, can be what you want, on any subject, at any time or place, and uploaded to the web unedited direct from the person who made it... and the whole world can view it, should they wish to. This is what i like about it. The rawness and the immediacy of the video can be somewhat revealing to the person watching it, it can give an insight into a persons life and behaviour that you wouldn't otherwise get to see or hear. I have seen places that i will never get to visit, and have listened to people i will never get to meet, other than through the net.

Call them throw away videos if you like, many of them are. They may not be groundbreaking in any way, but the short glimpse into other peoples normality, quirks, and eccentricities, reveal a side to those who made the video that i, as a person who tells video stories on a professional level, would never be able to achieve by filming it for the news. And i like that.

Sex, Lies And Russian Spies...

Now this is my kind of story. Worthy of a John Le Carre novel written after a night on the sauce. Members of Parliament, Diplomats of various nationalities, shady Russians called Ivan, unknown British Intelligence Officers with names like x, y and inexplicably... u. You can imagine the confusion when the judge asks...

"So what did 'u' say..?"

"I said nothing your honour..."

"No, i mean 'u'..?"

"Me..? As i said your honour..." Etc... Etc...

I could go on but you get the drift. Yep, every now and again a Member of Parliament gets his... 'Ahem'... member out, pillow talk ensues, and months later it turns out that his secretary has more Russian FSB contacts than Vladimir Putin ever knew he had.  For you young people, FSB is what we used to call the KGB, the Soviets, the red menace, commies if you will... Either way, they are spies, the whole damn lot of them, and it would seem they are still capable of fielding a good old fashioned honey trap for diplomats and politicians to get their teeth into.

The Cameraman from Russia Today... I spied on his movements for hours. Turned out he was as bored as i was, hanging around street corners.

You have probably realised that i have mentioned no names. There is a reason for this. I don't want to drink my morning Latte at 9am and go to bed tonight glowing like a lava lamp following an ingestion of Polonium, courtesy of a shady bloke called Boris Tvistabollokov... Oh no. I will leave the fearless reporting to the fearless reporters. And anyway, i have a bad back. So why am i telling you this?

Well i found myself in London this morning covering the deportation hearing of said honey trap/Spy/Secretary. Deportation? i hear you say... Well yes. You see the lady in question was not a high class hooker, a disenchanted socialist bent on the downfall of British imperialism, nor was she an upper class English rose, turned by the FSB whilst her diplomat father traded cocktails at the Russian Embassy. She is a Russian... From Russia, with a well known liking for bumping uglies with diplomats on a regular basis, yet still found herself hired by a British MP, given a pass for the halls of Westminster, and all this with added benefits from said MP which involved pillows, beds, and oodles of sweat.... I will say no more.

I am not making this shit up... Honest.

So there i was, standing in my usual place on the street corner, whilst the plot of an early eighties Bond film played out inside the hearing rooms. And having filmed the protagonists entering and leaving the building, i guess that a few spying careers may have gone down the gurgler. I imagine it thus...

"Ah... Mr Bond, i've been expecting you. I saw you on the BBC News..."

But no matter. The world of treachery, spies and the shagging of important people by undercover Mata Hari's goes on as it always has, and always will. And if a good looking woman approaches me and introduces herself as Pussy Galore, then sign me up... MI6 with a license to kill. But if i were a Member of Parliament, in my fifties and over the hill, and were romanced by a pretty 19 year old Russian girl with a keen interest in defence matters, alarms would start ringing, and so would the phone on M's desk.

But i guess some people just don't see it the way i do...  Nope, instead of hosing them down with bullets from my trusty Walther PPK, I shall do so through the lens of my camera. Bring the whole sordid mess into the glare of the public eye... But from now on, if you call me on the phone or meet me in the street, the phrase you must remember is...

"The wind is cold on Westminster bridge..." And i shall reply, "It is the winter winds from the East..."

Then i will know it is you.

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter

www.media-attention.co.uk

Getting Sweaty...

The Olympics are not very far away, so i have a feeling that i will be filming a lot more sweaty sports people over the coming months, in their attempts at golden glory and possible MBE's. Today, i found myself in Guildford, Surrey, with a differing array of sports junkies testing out the facilities at the sports centre. I lugged my lardy arse around various gymnausiums... yes... gymnausiums, basketball courts and swimming pools all in the name of news. And if it's got an Olympic theme all the better.

Getting poked in the eye with a sharp stick... or Fencing.

Now i know all too well that my sporting god days are well behind me. My sixpack has turned into a party seven ( for those of you old enough to remember them ) and i start to sweat at the merest hint of having to carry my camera kit more than a couple of hundred metres. So it was with relief that my news day was all in one place, for those would be olympians to show their prowess at poking people in the eye with sharp sticks, or fencing as they like to call it, wheelchair basketballers and synchronised swimmers, all of whom i have the greatest sympathy with as they have to visit gyms and other houses of pain in order to become good at what they do.

I bet he does crunches... me, i do crunchies, or a mars bar.

Me..? i get an adrenaline rush from the smell of a bacon sandwich and a cup of hot sweet tea. Or being targeted by unruly youths in public spaces. Yep... in the run up to the Olympics i'm going to see more blood, sweat and tears, biceps, calf muscles and shiny thighs than you can shake a stick at. Just don't tell the fencing people... they will have your eye out.

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter.

www.media-attention.co.uk

Big Time Charlie...

Most of my loyal readers ( Yes you..! ) will know by now that i spend most of my time committing TV News around the highways and byways of the South of England. Local news. Regional TV. But occasionally, someone up on high gets a bright idea and i find myself crawling into my nations capital city of London. Imagine it... bright lights, big stories and correspondents with bigger brighter teeth and firmed up hairdo's.

200 Grays Inn Road. Home of ITN.

This time, i was called into ITN, to cover a cameraman shift and be on call for whatever came up. This could mean an interview with the Prime Minister, Hobnobbing with the rich and famous London glitterati, Serious in depth filming with a top journalistic name and top journalistic hairdo, exposing the underbelly of political life in the Court of Westminster. I was looking forward to my day playing with the big boys and girls of national TV Newsgathering...

I got a court story.

I say court story, but it was of an international nature. Some halfwit banker has again allegedly squandered the thick end of one and a half billion pounds and has found himself in pokey... Oh dear, how sad, never mind. We took a taxi to the court. Hey, when in London hang the expense, this is the big time. As we drove toward the court, my journo applied the slap, dusted off and brushed her hair. Very nice she looked too. On our arrival the media scrum was in force, we did our bit and took a taxi back to the office. That was it. My big day in London was a court story, and a court story is a court story, no matter where it is or who is involved. Your journo may be a bigger kahuna than your average, but she did the same job as any TV News journo does, just a bigger audience.

So now i sit in the crew room with a cup of tea and a sticky bun. The big stories of the day are elsewhere, including the sad story of four Welsh Miners who have died in a tragedy overnight. But here i sit in central London with bugger all else to do... Hmmm... It might be busier in the regions.

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter

www.media-attention.co.uk

Ahh! Death... I Was Expecting You.

It's the fate of many a news cameraman. Just as you plonk your arse down for a meal at home the phone rings, and before you have swallowed the first forkful you're on the road heading towards what was described as... "Large fire.. explosions.. local airport.." Nothing more was known, just reports from locals in the area that something big was happening at the airport, and it had only just happened.

Filming in fading light...

Having left the Missus with her head in her hands again, i hurtled towards Lasham Airfield in Hampshire thinking the worst. Now Lasham isn't a major airfield, but does handle large passenger aircraft that fly into the airport for maintenance and suchlike. It didn't bode well... Looking at the large toxic plume of smoke from over 10 miles away as i raced towards the scene made my heart sink and various probable causes infiltrate my thoughts.


As it turned out, the disaster i was expecting turned out to be not of an aeronautical nature, with no loss of life. As a nervous flier myself, i wouldn't wish that scenario on anyone. As it was, the fire services from three counties found themselves battling a large inferno fuelled by around 300 tonnes of recycled batteries... batteries that go bang when hot, sending them arcing over the fading evening sky like a fireworks display. It was quite a sight, let me assure you. Having settled myself and my camera into a safe spot where being brained by a flying molten battery was of no risk, i took to filming what i could as the sun disappeared, taking the light with it, to be replaced by a soft orange glow from the fire...

Filming in the dark...

As i was thinking artful soft glows in the distance, i knew there to be many brave men and women of the Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service battling the intense heat and poisonous smoke from the battery warehouse, still occasionally spitting hot missiles from within. But for me, the show was over. Darkness finally took a grip and nothing more could be seen from that distance. So we took to the airwaves, conducted interviews and beamed out the news from our satellite truck, and when not bumping into each other in the dark, we sat and watched the glowing horizon, feeling sorry for the firefighters who had to deal with it.

Now don't get me wrong, i live for a story with a little bit of adrenaline. Things that go bang make me go all weak at the knees. Anything to avoid the court steps. But expecting a plane crash with all the misery that entails, it was a relief to be confronted by destruction that involved no loss of life, just the loss of an awful lot of money and someones livelihood.


That i can deal with. Buildings can be rebuilt, business insurance can be claimed and lives carried on with, however hard the future. And, as the chief fire officer on the scene remarked, Life goes on. I thought about that as i lumped my kit around a dark field as i waited to go live into the late evening bulletin. Life does go on... But my dinner? well, that was cremated with due reverence in the oven at home as it lay in the warming tray, where every ounce of moisture was sucked from it leaving something resembling an old mans scrotum. But at least everyone got to go home.

Sweaty fire chiefs... better things to be getting on with.

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter

www.media-attention.co.uk