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

A Dearth Of DayGlo...

This sort of thing happens every now and again. PR outings to interesting places, under the heavily watchful eyes of the corporate press officer who's duty it is to keep you safe, out of harms way, and clearly visible to the man in the moon. I'm all for the staying safe bit, i like that. I don't want to be crushed by a 10 ton tarmac ripping machine that turns once smooth road surface into dust. I don't want to be reversed over by a digger as the driver drinks tea whilst reading the Sun newspaper on his way to lunch either...

Playing a game of "spot the journo"

And so it was that i found myself wrapped in DayGlo jacket and hard hat on another tour of the major roadworks on the A3 at Hindhead, or rather what was the A3, as most of it is now ripped up, covered up, and returned to nature following the building of the tunnel that now snakes it's way a few hundred feet beneath us.

Following a safety brief from the safety officer, we were safely herded into minibuses and were safely driven to a safe part of the site, where we could safely film the works under the watchful eyes of the safety officer... So far, so safe.

The senior Engineer wears special trousers...

But i am a rebel. I don't go in for following the masses or doing what i'm told, i like to break away, free in the knowledge that i am a member of the free press, at liberty to take pictures and inform and educate the news watching public. Sod the PR people, the health and safety brigade who want to keep me safe, to hell with it... so i didn't tell them that my boots were not steel toe capped. There, that showed 'em. I wandered the scene knowing the risk i was taking, and smirking inwardly at the safety officer full in the knowledge that i had beaten him and the PR machine.

ITV Cameraman... in full Health and Safety rig. Also behind barriers, naturally.

Oh yes... i laugh in the face of impending danger. I snigger at the god of sod's law and give the one fingered salute to the 'elf 'n' safety nazis that follow our every move. I filmed my story without mishap until we were safely shepherded back to the minibus, whereupon i stubbed my unprotected toe on the rear safety step into the minibus. Emitting an audible "oohyafucker" the safety officer turned and enquired if i was ok. I bit my lip and replied that i was... thank you very much. Nothing to see here. Im sure i saw a smirk on his face. The bastard.

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter.

www.media-attention.co.uk

The Fucti-Fyno News Quiz...

Listen up TV News bosses of the world...! Bare with me here... you are going to love this. I have ideas all the time about how to bring knowledge of current affairs to the general public. You remember them, the great unwashed who we try and vox-pop on their opinion of just about everything... And those that get their news from Twitter, blogs and Facebook where rumour and false information is rife.

Now i’m just a mere freelance cameraman in the world of TV News. I do my bit and feed it into the churning mass of pictures and journalism the fills our very existence. But I often wonder what most people think of the news. How much do they realise the importance of current affairs, it’s relevance to the modern world and the history behind the stories told. Now i don’t expect many people to instantly know who the foreign minister from Burkina Faso is, but how about the foreign minister from the UK..? Or the Prime Minister for that matter? Watching the news can be like a conveyor belt of bad news at times with no, or very little back story to explain the current issues. And the interest of the general public waxes and wanes. We need to keep them on the edge of their seats. We need to test their knowledge.

The news can be a very insular, specialist thing. If you don’t follow a particular story, how are the viewers supposed to make sense of the current story? What led to the current maelstrom of information now being read to me by the delightfully pert news reader? The journalist may be a specialist in his or her field. Economics, Politics, World Affairs. They all have their own backstories and histories that lead to the current story, one which the journalist knows about... but the viewer? Exactly how much do they really know? Here is our chance to find out.

The Fucti-Fyno Red button... All kinds of interactive fun.

I’ve got an idea for a new interactive news quiz for the tellybox. It’s called the Fucti-Fyno scrolling news quiz bar. This will replace the scrolling headline strap which only repeats the news reader anyway, you know, that annoying lower third information ticker bar that cuts off one third of your tv picture... normally the bit that shows what happened... but i digress.

The days news would be packaged up into categories such as conflict, disaster, politics, celebrity and finally, was that newsworthy? The news would then be read by the news anchor, video reports shown and discussed by guests from the world of politics and journalism in a normal newsy type manner... So far, so very normal.

But heres the twist. Whilst the said TV Journo’s and expert blow holes discuss the current story, the television news watching audience would be invited, via the red button, to guess an answer to a question posed along a rolling bar at the bottom of the screen. The Fucti-Fyno rolling question bar.

Imagine the lovely Sophie Raworth finishing up a story with “For more, press the Fucti-Fyno button” Go on... imagine it.

Here’s an example. Violence has again erupted in the Middle East. Fundamentalists from Gaza have fired rockets into Israel killing many people. The panel discuss / vilify / take the piss. ( Delete as appropriate ) A question then pops up on the Fuct-Fyno scrolling bar for the viewers at home.

What or who started the current intifada..?

Please press the following buttons to register your answer.

RED BUTTON: The building of a Berlin style wall, surrounding Palestinian territory, thereby restricting the movement of goods and people. ( News junkie button )

GREEN BUTTON: Religion, it’s the cause of most conflict. ( Knee jerk reaction button )

YELLOW BUTTON: Justin Bieber. ( Trick question for the celebrity obsessed )

BLUE BUTTON: Fucti-Fyno. ( Default setting for the blue button, which takes you to a web page, explaining what the fuck is going on )

I think the answers would give a very real idea of what goes through the heads of most news watching people. And... And... we could give prizes to the 1000th person who gives a correct answer, to encourage them to find out more, such as tickets to the next studio filming of Have I Got News For You, or free flights to a dictatorship of your choice, so they can witness the news first hand... The interactive potential of news broadcasters engaging with their audience is huge, and for the commercial stations, a huge money spinning venture, with link-ins to the X-Factor, natch. It’s a win-win proposal..!! So come on BBC, Sky, ITV News... Give it a go.

I give you the Fucti-Fyno scrolling news quiz bar... ( Patent Pending )

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter

www.media-attention.co.uk