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.

Friday 29 April 2011

Daybreak's Royal Wedding coverage in St Andrews.


Friday 29th


We might have been four hundred miles north of Westminster Abbey but in St Andrews there was still going to be a bit of an event to celebrate Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding.


The University at which they were students and had met was putting on quite a do to view and enjoy the marriage.


The stages and seating in the Thursday evening light.


The first thing that had to be done was to send the pictures that I had taken last evening to Daybreak in London.


There were some shots of the decorations around the town and the start of the ceilidh that started off the town’s festivities.


Testing the big screen with Lady Penelope.


The ceilidh in the quad....


......for old and young.


It was a perfect early summer evening in the home of golf.


The golf courses of St Andrews.


Golfers on the old course.


Dave and Bill with the satellite truck had already set up the radio camera and talkback that I would be using for the broadcasts this morning.


Our orange truck in the cluster of satellite trucks beside the university library.


All that was left to do was get Gregg the correspondent wired up with talkback and a mic.


Colin wires Gregg up and producer Christina chats to Daybreak in London.


Almost as soon as we arrived at 5 am the bands started doing their sound checks on the various stages that were set up for the entertainment.


Our first little broadcast tease was at the beginning of the programme along with many of the other locations around London and the rest of the UK.


The Band on stage sound checking.


We roped in one of the bands to be tuning up during our short transmission.


Obviously the main broadcasts were coming from the various important venues around London.


The BBC doing their television live broadcast....


..and waiting for a radio one.


There was a lot of stress around which could be heard in the voices of the various people on talkback.


A lot of planning had gone into the wedding and the way it would be covered. From the day the date had been announced there were meetings and discussions dealing with as may eventualities as possible.


No one wanted anything to go wrong so when Dave the technical director came over talkback to say that the studio could not hear any of our sound.


It was not long until the broadcast there was a moment of panic before we heard Dave’s voice say that he could hear us now.


Phew!!


If there was going to be a hiccup at least it would not be at our location.


Red gowned students start to gather for the fun.


The principal of the University Professor Louise Richardson joined us for one of our short broadcasts.


Christina dong the most important job. Getting the coffee!


Before handing the morning’s coverage over to ITN we had one final slightly longer broadcast at nine minutes past eight.


In this one we would be featuring a choir from the University that had done an accappela version if a Lady GaGa song with a bit of a change in the lyrics to reference the happy couple.


We had time to do do a couple of little rehearsals to get the timing right.


In between those we had to have a break and move out of the way to allow a pipe band to march into the quad and onto the largest of the three stages.


The band marches in.


Another quick rehearsal and then it was time for our last contribution to the Daybreak wedding proceedings.


The contributors to Daybreak's last broadcast of the morning from St Andrews.


After we came off air Gregg received a text from the boss in London to say that he was happy with what we had done.


So, we might still have jobs for a little while longer.


No comments:

Post a Comment