Phil Peel

After all day in the studio and working with the choreographer for Gary’s dance track, then onto a 3 hour final rehearsal with En Masse with a live band.

I’m working out camera shots for their come back concert.

High adrenaline.
Great to see Gareth singing again!

It was a beautiful autumn day. Ollie and Jess in best retro 1980s gear.  They are playing the younger versions of two modern day adults  (if that makes sense?) in the film adaptation of Michael Sands play “Autumn Leaves”

Jess had learnt all her lines, but as I had unwisely spent a long time setting up the camera and radio mikes, she got tired and announced after the rehearsal that she didn’t want to do any more!

Luckily I had filmed the rehearsal…and after negotiations with her agent Sasha Paul (Mum) she also agreed to do some more takes.

Ollie and Jesse were both fantastic. I can never learn lines.  I suppose it’s in the genes!

The crew were mostly Pauls  (Witcombe and Francis)  and Robin who’s taking the photos.

I used the small HDMI monitor on top of the camera so Paul could see the shot to keep the boom out.

Though the scene worked well, I realised in retrospect, it might have been more sensible to have shot with multiple cameras (which I could have done as I had other ones there). This would have greatly eased the difficulty of matching the changing eyelines between the close ups and wides.

Thursday night was the annual “turning on” of the Christmas Lights in Salisbury, which I’ve been covering on multicamera for at least the last 10 years.

When doing live multicamera events I always have technical backups, as it’s surprising how often equipment goes down. I think probably the new generation of digital computer controlled systems that can do things we only dreamt about a few years ago are amazing,  but have a nasty habit of crashing when you least expect it.  Gareth Henderson from River Studios told me today that he’s gone back to using analogue audio mixers for live events because of similar problems.

I was using the new ATEM Television Studio HD mixer. It had arrived the week before and immediately failed, so this was my second one in a week. This one also had been showing some intermittent faults, but I didn’t have time to return it. I hoped it would be alright on the night.

Well it wasn’t. After  all the cameras were set up and we ready to go,  the mixer locked up and decided it was going to show green   …and nothing else for the rest of the evening.

So onto plan B. I had brought along and set up an standard definition mixer, as a back up. I knew that the large LED screen, though impressive is actually only standard definition. Of course all the cameras had been originally cabled for High Definition SDI, but I had put in extra sd composite cables for this eventuality.  I didn’t really have enough preview monitors, to be able to preview all the camera  feeds, so the vision mixing couldn’t be quite as slick as I would have liked. But the audience didn’t know and it looked great on the huge LED screen.

Here’s Paul vision mixing. Bit of an untidy monitor stack.

The show included Salisbury Rock Choir, singers Jamie Eldridge and Steph Murray,The Delorans and the mandatory celebrity…this year Keith Chegwin, who counted down to the fireworks.

My natural tendency when directing is to point all the cameras at the action, which at the end of the show is the fireworks, but I realised that this is a bit pointless as the audience can see the real thing, so I point the cameras at audience and do an artistic mix of faces and fireworks. The kids in particular love seeing themselves up on the bit screen.

Robin on camera in front of the Guildhall.

Here’s Paul Witcombe on camera

Terry resolutely ignoring the wonderful display behind him!

..and the view from the audience

It’s going to be a busy week. So it’s good that my broken rib is mending.

Saturday we start filming my adaptation of Michael Sands’ play “Autumn Leaves”

“On a park bench in Greenwich, two friends meet for the first time in years, but as they discuss the past, the man has to say to her something that will change their friendship forever. But is the risk of losing her too great to say what he wants? ”

We’re filming with the lovely Sasha Paul’s two kids, who are playing the younger versions of the adult couple in flashback. So it’s 1980s style costume, and complete with legwarmers!

Just to make life confusing, most of the crew are called Paul! {:-)

Later scenes are in the London Underground. Should be interesting.

Then Sunday is filming some football scenes for the dance rap music video linked to the Football/ Cowboy/ Time travel film. Yes you heard right!

Thursday is a live multicamera going to giant screen for audience of 5000.

Then a few days later filming at River Studios, the second day of the recording of the rap dance track. phew!