Day 1 (1:00pm - 2:30pm): Was a very short day and I spent just over one and a half hours at a meeting with the head of production (who I would be working with). It was quite an informal meeting where we disgust what/who I would be working on/with throughout the week. Although it was also subject to change. We also brainstormed some ideas for possible future programming and different formats of programs for the website.
Day 2 (9:30am - 2:30pm): I spent day 2 at a documentary shoot at Pengersick Castle. I spent most of the day observing the crew working (which consisted of a presenter/director and two camera operators) and helped out with carrying equipment. Whilst I didn't get to operate the equipment I did learn a lot about the way the crew worked together and shot different stuff. The presenter/director was really interesting to watch as were the crews methods of shooting. It will be quite interesting to see the finished piece. However, I don't think it will appear on the website until October.
Day 3 (4:00pm - 6:00pm): Finished off a short documentary at Gwithian Towans Beach that had been started the previous week. It was about how teaching people from the forces to surf can be a great way for them to deal with post traumatic stress, by helping them to forget about it and just enjoy the waves and the ocean and also by meeting other people dealing with post traumatic stress. I ended up helping with sound recording and held the microphone throughout the interviews. Hopefully I did a good job.
Day 4 (10:00am - 11:00am): We were supposed to be filming at Fifteen today, which is Jamie Oliver's new restaurant near Newquay. However, when we got there it turned out they didn't know we were supposed to be shooting there. So unfortunately we'd made a wasted trip. Although I did get a free orange juice!
Day 5 (9:30am - 2:30pm): Spent today filming on Tolcarne Beach in Newquay. We were filming this piece on this girl who won a bronze medal in open water swimming at the 2008 Olympics. I can't remember her name unfortunately but she was the "celebrity" of the day. The event was to raise awareness for the surf life saver organisation which helps young children learn about the dangers of the sea and how to look out for them and avoid them. I helped with sound again and held the mic throughout all the interviews that we did. The rest of the day was spent following the "celebrity" around and filming the different activities and races that she was in. Unfortunately I ended up in the sea as when we went down to film by the sea again later in the day the camera man forgot the mic lead was still attached and so when a wave came he just stood there, and since I was holding the mic which was at the other end of the lead I ended up getting wet too. The annoying thing was I knew the mic wasn't going to be picking up any important sound, so I kind of got wet for nothing.
This marks the end of the first week. Unfortunately I was unable to work the second week because I came down with pretty bad tonsillitis which I'm still recovering from. I enjoyed the experience though and whilst I would have liked to have a done a bit more, as a lot of the time I was just stood around watching, I did learn quite a bit. I'm definitely going to be getting more work experience in the future, but I'm going back to uni this month to start work on documentary making. So expect some more videos in a couple of months.
