Report from the front

[Neil Rigby]

Last night I escaped the marquee where the television is and went down to watch the filming itself. Let me paint the picture. It is a truly beautiful setting, with one of Pensthorpe's many lakes - Moon Water - in the background. Terns fly overhead and occasionally dip down to the water below. Ducks are everywhere - flying in, flying out, flying overhead, and even - as we discover - waddling through the undergrowth around our feet. Birdsong fills the clear blue air and the moon is out.


(To see a 360 degree view of Moon Water follow this link to the BBC Norfolk website.)

At eight o'clock on the dot the programme begins. Kate and Chris are being filmed by a camera that is mounted on the end of a very long jib, itself mounted on the back of a jeep. As Kate and Chris walk towards the camera, Dave the jib operator moves the jib with his hands and uses his fingers to work two small joysticks. It is a complicated maneuver but the jib man is a genius with a joystick.

Moments later they cut to Simon and the jib has to be moved to where the bench has been set up for the rest of the evening's filming, right by the water's edge. Dave jumps behind the wheel of the jeep, attempts a three-point turn, and catches the camera in one of the trees. Obviously in these days of computer games, steering wheels are falling out of fashion. Luckily the branch snaps before the camera does and the Dave makes it to the bench just in time. All is well.

But the mosquitoes have made it there too and Lisa the make-up artist provides a thick mist of insect repellant that sends a few people behind the cameras into a coughing fit. Lisa, however, is unrepentant and has no pity for the local pests:

"Last year," she says, "I was wearing sandals while we were filming and a great big rat ran over my feet. I almost died."

As we watch the presenters I am in awe at their professionalism. It can't be easy talking to a camera that doesn't talk back and reacting to live feeds of birds that may or not be there. At one point, while the viewers are watching Simon in Wales, Kate responds to a message in her ear from the director.

"What greenfinches?" she says, slightly perturbed. As it turns out, the webcam team have just managed to get a camera on a greenfinch nest. "I tell you what, if something happens just chuck it at us. We'll deal with it."

Although I am impressed there are heckles from the surrounding wildlife, particularly the noisy terns. But these are all drowned out by the sound of fighter bombers zooming away from RAF Lakenheath. It's amazing the lengths people will go to catch a glimpse of Kate Humble...

Meanwhile the light is fading and a man turns up with a couple of propane hurricane lamps. This is despite the fact that Chris's bright orange t-shirt looks like it won't just glow in the dark but may give Kate a spot of sunburn down the right side of her face.

"Have you got fire extinguishers?" asks the floor manager.

"Don't need it," says the man with the lamps. "If they catch fire we'll just throw them in the lake."

Luckily it never quite gets dark enough. The presenters have made it through another programme.






More...