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.

Monday 5 December 2011

Panda Pad at Edinburgh Zoo.


Monday 5th


It was the big news of the weekend, the pandas arriving at Edinburgh Zoo from China.


I was got quite excited when I found out that Daybreak would be live from the Tian Tian (Sweetie) and Yang Guang’s (Sunshine) new home this morning.


That excitement rather diminished when we found out that we would not however be seeing the animals.


In fact when we arrived there was a possibility that we would not even get to see their expensive enclosure. After some delicate negotiation we were allowed part of the way along the viewing walkway to set up.


We had to be as quiet as possible for fear of disturbing the cuddly creatures. They were settling in separately in their respective areas and the experts did not want anything to upset them.


The £250 000 Panda Pad.


Setting up on the walkway.


Gary, one of the Panda Team chats to Gregg before we go live.


Technically it was an easy job, no tricky camera moves, no complex sound issues to deal with and no long cable runs.


It goes without saying that the course of live broadcasting rarely goes smoothly.


For fear of being upstaged by a pair of the world’s rarest and cutest beasts the far from rare and certainly not cute beasts the TV gremlins decided to make their presence felt by making the radio mic go off just after Gregg’s first words into a, thankfully short tease.


At least all the main broadcasts went off without a major hitch.