TV Cameraman And The X Factor Fandango.

Greeting dear readers, and this week i would like to tell you about my brush with celebrity, the bright lights of a London theatre, streets paved with gold and a very weak, nay, tenuous link to the X Factor.

Rhydian Roberts... Making it on his own.

Having been booked by ITV a few days before, my briefing sheet contained the tantalising words "X Factor' along with 'Finalist' 'London recording studio' and 'Rhydian.' Hang on, i hear you say.... 'Who's Rhydian..?' Come on pop pickers, you remember the X Factor final of 2007 don't you..? Rhydian... platinum blonde hair... opera / show tunes singer extraordinaire... runner up...

So, it turned out that i was not to be sharing champagne cocktails and a sofa with Simon Cowell, nor had i been booked to film the latest in a long, long line of showbiz wannabe warblers at his Bond villain hideaway in the Caribbean whilst having my earlobe gently nibbled by Sinitta,* as she runs her fingers through my hair and... (Ahem, sorry... Did i type that out loud..?)

No... Instead, i was to head to a small unknown recording studio at the stage door entrance to the Palace Theatre, just off a wet and cold Greek Street, London, take a rickety Victorian era lift to the 4th floor, and try not to trip on the loose, frayed carpet. Oh the glamour of it all...

'So, where's all the under dressed, giggling blonde groupies..?' i thought to myself as i imagined a sordid, drug fuelled orgy of rock music inspired debauchery going on in the recording studio. Surely everyone who has ever entered the X Factor gets this treatment for the rest of their lives, courtesy of Mr Cowell's capacious bank accounts..? No..?

No... No they don't.

And anyway, Rhydian has been beavering away with his own management making his 5th studio album of rock opera style tunes with a voice that makes your chest vibrate in it's intensity. It was a real pleasure to see and hear him at work. His days in the bright but all too fleeting hot lights of the X Factor juggernaut are far, far behind him and he now finds himself as one of the very few who have made a career in good music that see thousands of others floundering in the intense pressure of modern manufactured pap... sorry, i mean pop.

Instead of a spotty limp haired youth in the grip of the ever expanding Cowell cack machine, i found myself with an assured 30ish man with the voice, charisma and friendliness of a genuinely good singer with his own niche and the ability to make his mark in the world of music. Not only that, the three hours we spent filming were made easy thanks to his relaxed and friendly manner. Whatever i asked of him, he obliged. I could even say we got along very well.

It may have been a small recording studio in a back street of London rather than a sun drenched exotic beach villa with the lovely Sinitta, but it was a good days filming non the less.

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter.

*The author would like to reassure his Wife that the Sinitta ear nibbling thing was for comedic effect only...

The Story Of A New Journalist On His First Day.

A well dressed man entered the new TV news station* and soon realised that he was lost. Having climbed yet another set of stairs he looked over a nearby balcony and saw a man walking below.

"Excuse me..?" Said the man, "Can you help me, i seem to be a little lost. I promised the senior news producer that i would meet him here today and i'm already late."

Little did he know, room 54B had other uses...

 The man below stopped, looked up and said, "You are on the second floor in the East wing, next to the edit suites. If you go to room 54B in the West wing, next to the coffee machine on the fourth floor, you will see him there."

"You must be a TV news cameraman." Said the man on the balcony.

"I am indeed, how did you know?" Said the man below.

"Well," He replied, "Everything you just told me is factually correct, concise and to the point. However i have no idea what to make of your information and the fact is, i am still lost. Frankly, you've not been of much help to me at all and you have delayed me even further from my meeting with the boss."

"Ahh," Replied the cameraman. "You must be the new TV news reporter?"

"I am the new reporter, how did you know that?" He said.

"Well," Said the cameraman, "You don't know where you are or where you are going. You have risen to what you think is a lofty position by walking around with no clue as to where to go. You have made a promise which you cannot keep and you expect people you see below you to help you out of your predicament. The fact is, you're lost, in trouble and with no idea what to do about it... But somehow, it is now the cameraman's fault."

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter.  *This story may contain traces of bullshit.

TV News Cameraman And A Fistful Of Nothing.

The business of TV news often means covering stories involving the misery of others. There is no sugar coating it, wrapping it in cotton wool or the touch of a velvet glove.

Take a deep breath... and knock.

Often, this means as a TV news cameraman I, along with a reporter, have to approach relatives, friends or colleagues in the aftermath of something awful in their lives or drag up memories they wish they could forget, and ask them a straight question at one of the most difficult times of their lives.

"Hello. We are the press. Would you like to invite us into your life and home and tell us about your dead wife..? Just between you, me and around half a million viewers..?"

OK... So we don't exactly put it that way. Tact, discretion and understanding are warranted in a situation like this, but it sure as hell feels like it when you are stood on a man's door step unannounced, asking him in a slightly kinder manner, to do just that. That's what I did yesterday.

I was grateful to him that we were indeed invited into his home, given a hot drink and spoken to with a respect for our jobs as journalists that in this day and age can be a limited experience, given what we had just asked of him. A quick "No..!" and a slammed door in the face is as likely to happen than a warm invite with tea and biscuits.

We talked for a good few hours. He knew what we wanted as journalists, the human angle to a difficult story involving the sad death of his wife of many, many years. Space to fill on the airwaves as a slot between crime and the football. He was no fool.

In the end though, with the kindness and grace of a gentleman still in mourning and wondering where to go next in his life, he declined the offer of tea time exposure on the nightly news. He even thanked us for coming to see him and with a genuinely warm handshake, we took our leave and left him to the rest of his life. I genuinely hope that we didn't upset him too much in the pursuit of our work, but i guess we left a little upset behind as much as we try and avoid it. There is after all, only one way to ask.

Sometimes, a heartbreaking story is to be told. And sometimes, it's just between them and us over a cup of tea. We got the whole story, we just couldn't tell it properly without him. Either way, as journalists, we don't always get what we want in the rush to deadline, but i was grateful for the tea and warm welcome.

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter.

TV News Cameraman And The Brazilian Burn Misunderstanding.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may think that we TV news cameramen don't get to eat during the day due to constant filming deadlines, travelling between news stories with too much to do and no time to do it in... And you would be right. But on occasion, we do get to stop for a while, much to the chagrin of your average news producer who thinks that by stopping to eat, we are killing his first born and wrecking his freelance budget for the next quarter.

Bolinha's to this...

For the first time in a while though, I got to stop for lunch... At lunchtime. I did however make the monumental mistake of listening to my reporter who 'knew a little place around the corner...'

'Fancy a Brazilian..?' He said.

'A man's personal hair removal regime is a private matter... And you're not going anywhere near my nether regions with an electrical clipper and a hot wax spatula you utter lunatic...' I thought.

'Ohh... You mean food...' I said.

'What did you think I meant..?' He replied.

'Nothing... Nothing at all... Yes, let's go for a Brazilian...' I said, burying any thoughts that my reporter had taken a fancy to me and wanted to shave me bald before whisking me away for a romantic weekend in the country...

You see how easy it is to get yourself into a mess with a reporter whilst on the road..? Too easy. Misunderstandings can arise from seemingly innocent conversations about Brazilian food. It's a minefield I tell you.

Anyway, my reporter took me to a hip looking building that is quite obviously the meeting place of local hipsters, world food enthusiasts and Brazilians. I looked at the menu and was shocked... Shocked I tell you, at the lack of anything recognisable.

'How do you like your rissoles..?' Said my reporter.

Do you see..? There he goes again. One misheard mention of a rissole and this cameraman is rolling on the floor laughing. I just can't help myself.

Dip comes in two varieties... Hot and Scorchio.

 I scanned the menu for bacon, sausages, lumps of beef or chicken. Nothing. Not even a bottle of brown sauce. But being the adventurous sort, I opted for a coxinha, a sort of chicken dumpling with a spicy dip. This was not to be your average Cameraman's lunch of something bland and rubbery from a petrol station forecourt.

My reporter on the other hand, a fit, rock climbing, surfing kind of dude relished his choice of Brazilian cuisine with the gusto of someone who has been here before and knows nothing of a TV news cameraman's normal day to day diet of fatty roadside food. It is nice though on occasion, to try something a little different, even if the dip does blow your head off and leaves your tongue burning like... Well, like a Brazilian wax to the nether regions.

Next time, I'm taking charge and we're off to sample the culinary delights of Fat Mike's roadside hotdog van on the A34... And I can ask my reporter how they like their sausage.

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter.

TV News Cameraman And Catharsis In A Council Corridor.

As I sit there, outside meeting room K, in the labyrinthine corridors of a large city council building, I got to pondering. I like to ponder, I ponder a lot. As a TV news cameraman we get lots of time on occasion to sit, have a coffee and partake in a little pondering. Let's face it, there was nothing much else to do.

Council corridors and coffee...

 Waiting for a meeting room full of councillors, officials and lawyers to debate the machinations of a certain politician and his alleged sexual preferences made my brain spin. I have written about his alleged predilection for Russians before, ( yes... him again...) but it is now also alleged that it extends to other, more vulnerable members of society, so I let the very big brain of my reporter take care of the finer legalities of reporting such stories.

So I sit outside meeting room K and let the legal and moral ambiguities of such a thing wash over me. I am only allowed to film what they let me, which in this case is not very much. Meetings such as this don't like to be put under the searching gaze of a clean TV lens attached to a muttering cameraman. No matter, the truth will out.

Looking around me I see signs for Union meetings, the office of the chairman to the committee of this or that and notices for every conceivable goings on that occur in any council building the world over. I read them and wait, noticing that the toilets on level one are out of order. Money is being spent in colossal quantities just the other side of the door. QC's, Lawyers and councillors don't come cheap, and it won't get the toilets fixed.

So what was I pondering..? Well, I wondered at this point just how many other TV news cameramen around the world were doing just the very same thing. Sitting in a nondescript corridor and waiting for something to happen. Poised like a coiled sponge. Quite a few I bet. Quite a few.

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter.