Cameraman based in Edinburgh, employed by ITN, working for ITV's Good Morning Britain covering stories all over the UK and the world. War Zones, World Cups, Royal Tours and many other less exciting assignments, like interviewing current and ex Prime Ministers have kept me busy over the years working in Breakfast Television since GMTV came on the scene back in '93 and regional TV before that. In 2009 I began to record what it is like to work, the often strange and long hours needed to bring the hard news, human interest and fluffy fun to the UK's TV screens in the morning, mostly broadcasting live.

Wednesday 31 March 2010

Breaking News!


Wednesday 31st March


I thought that coming out to a snow covered car had ended for this year but not yet.


Snow? It's Nearly April.


Another Bleak Morning Overlooking the Castle.


The snow had eased and on the roof of STV it was not heavy but very windy. So all the snow did was swish around and manage to get to get under cover and through gaps.


So as well as the usual camera cover I put an old Tyne Tees jacket to good use, using it as an additional cover.


The Camera Under its Layers.


Still Useful After Nearly 20 Years.


There were still audio problems with the mics and audio inputs to the camera.


Alex the STV engineer rustled up a mic with a good wind shield for me to use until I got mine working.


The first broadcast at 6 am was touch and go right up until a few minutes to six because somewhere enroute from Edinburgh to GMTV in London via lots of cables the signal had gone astray.


BT were busy trying to find out where it was.


They found out in time and Jonathan did his first report.


What the Reporter Sees.


Then when were taking the opportunity between broadcasts to go down to the STV office to get warm the local GMTV bulletin came on.


Katie the news reader started by saying that there was some breaking news.


We pricked up our ears.


A bus filled with thirty nine teenagers, five staff and a driver had gone off the road and crashed into some water near Biggar, the place Jonathan and I had been at yesterday evening.


Immediately Jonathan called the police and fire brigade to get some more information.


At that stage details were very scant but it was clear that there was a major incident and there were serious injuries.


Jonathan Prepares to Report the Bad News.


Our next broadcasts now focused on the crash and getting updates.


Jonathan gets Details of the Crash.


By the last broadcast at 9 am we knew that there were four very serious casualties and another seventeen less badly injured.

No comments:

Post a Comment