Production in Deep

 

Hey Mediadreamzers

OMG! Seriously how long has it been since I lasted posted on my blog. I feel like I have been on the Channel 4 show ‘The Hunted’, where you disappear off the grid. My reason for not posting for such a long time is one of my colleagues was signed off with stress a few months ago, so I have been working a lot of shifts in the production gallery. With working a lot I haven’t been able to attend networking events or do as much as other media work; my colleagues health is more important and was happy to hep out. With the amount of work I did in the gallery I think I was on course for getting a blue plaque, or even an OBE.

I digress a little, so back on track after so long I attended a RTS event in London and it was a lot closer to the main train stations in London and I shocked myself in finding it and not needing to resort to Google Maps.
The venue for the networking event was practically round the corner from Kings Cross so not far from Platform 9 3/4 shop for those who like Harry Potter. Made it to Kings Place in plenty of time and I also discovered that there are a lot of publishing houses not far from Kings Cross station, and I now know where The Guardian and The Observer are in London.

 

 

 

 

 

The event I was going to was ‘Diving beneath the Waves:The Making of Blue Planet II’. Yes the natural documentary series narrated by the legendary Sir David Attenborough (wish he could have been there too). However, the special speakers were an Assistant Producer called Sarah, Executive Producer James and the Natural documentaries Series Producer Mark with the event chaired by Torin Douglas.

 

 

Once we were in the hall, the whole place was illuminated with guess what colour light, o.k I’ll tell you-Blue. Once in Torin introduced the guests who said a little about themselves and their work background on projects and how they got involved in this area of media. The questions that were asked were things that I guess we have thought about when watching these types of programs how certain things are filmed, how production teams capture certain shots and clips; are they planned or is it just by sheer luck, locations, scripting, choosing music, the work relationship between the scientists and the media teams in creating the episodes etc.This was interspersed with clips chosen by the panel that they said where there favourite. One clip was Sharks enjoying seafood spoils, seeing a media sub and attacking it (Sharks thought the sub was a threat to the food they had and were constantly colliding with the sub) Luckily the people in the sub were unharmed and the Sharks then realised the sub was no threat (clip chosen by Mark).

The next clip was narrated by Sir David about a sea creature called the Bobbet, I admit I had never heard of a Bobbet and knew nothing about it. Well, a Bobbet is a sea worm that eats fish- yes there s=is such a thing. Seeing the clip made people jump when it went in for the kill. (clip chosen by Sarah).

      

The final clip shown was again narrated by Sir David and it showed a cluster of small fish were forced to clustered together by dolphins and how this attracted not just dolphins but birds, swordfish and other bigger fish to eat the smaller fish and how in less than 20 mins they are gone.

        

The audience was then invited to ask questions and there was a mixed bag of things people were asking the panel and it was interesting to hear and learn more about. Before this ended we were treated to clips featuring other members of the production crew and their contributions to creating the series. One clip really amazed me; how crew manage to get the cameras onto the animals in order to capture footage of what they see and where they go and how the footage is used in the series.

  

  

 

Afterwards, the bar was open and time to network was everyone. Before leaving to head home, I got the chance to chat the the people on the panel and was a great evening.

 

 

I am happy to say that the next event will be in about 2 weeks and I am happy to say that I am off work on that day so more to follow. Hopefully there will be more events coming up to share, and it won’t be a long gap before my postings.

Nuquam Deditionem