"I think I saw you on TV!"

The dreaded words you dont want to hear as someone who works behind the camera is "I think I saw you on TV last night!"....

Hiding behind Lord Seb Coe

If you are it means you were either not doing your job right or the director made a mistake and cut to the wrong camera. This is the main worry on a live programme when you do your upmost not to be seen. All crew mostly wear black to blend into the background and most of your time is spent avoiding being seen rather than making the programme. I am forever spending my time diving to the ground hiding behind the audience or behind the scenery. This week Lord Seb Coe became my human shield on a BBC debate.

This was an unusual day as we were given crew tops when we arrived that were white. White is not a good TV colour. It glows on most backgrounds and adds a halo around you, and all TV environments are filthy.

Wet Paint

The equipment is dirty the floor is dirty and there is wet paint and dust everywhere. After picking up the camera I had black streaks down my nice white top. All I did was pick it up! During rehearsals you plan out your shots and where and where you cant fit. At the same time the set team are touching up the set covering over marks and moving the set after lighting and cameras point out gaps or symmetry errors. so stepping backwards I walk into a screen that wasn't there originally and has just been painted I now have a nice blue line down my back. Now if I was wearing black this would have been fine as you wouldn't really be able to see it, but white shows up everything and now I look like I'm part of the set team not the camera department! As the show starts I'm onto my third crew top and the Unit Manager is beginning to think I'm stockpiling them or something to sell on.

Wide Shot

So you do your upmost to avoid being seen and still someone says they have seen you... on a live show at some point this is inevitable as things happen and people don't stop on the mark they where supposed too, someone says something different that throws the action somewhere unexpected or you are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. But on a pre recorded programme its very unusual. This means that there has been a mistake and to cover it they have cut to a wide shot, this is usually a camera on a lock off at the back of the room, an unmanned camera just there as a back up. Sometimes they use this out of context to cover up a jolt, or a boom that slips in, or a shadow, and you can see yourself in a wide when you know at that point you were somewhere else entirely.

TV a Family Affair

Right I'm fresh faced and just out of university and have to decide where I want to live.

London would be the obvious choice. It's fast paced, lots of work, plenty of networking opportunities and lots of TV companies. It's also expensive, I don't know anyone there and  did I mention it was expensive? No? Well it is expensive.

I lived in the Midlands at this point and there was not much going on there. The Mailbox had just opened but no TV companies where using it so I had to look elsewhere.

Whilst at University there had been rumours of the BBC selling up and moving to a new site in Manchester. Manchester was cheap, it had a TV studios that was producing work and lots of independent companies too. I'm sure one will give me a job. I thought I'd get established up there, get to know people up north, get the industry to know me, and when the BBC do move there I'll get a job with them easily. I'll know the area and it will be prefect!

So I set about moving to Manchester. Looking for jobs and trying to network.

TV a Family Affair

This is easier said then done. Not the moving to Manchester that was easy, it was the networking and job hunting that was difficult. Unless you have a sister, brother, mother, father, aunty, uncle or next doors pet orangutang working in the industry already its difficult to get your foot in the door. It really is a family affair. Just in the one production house you have numerous amounts of fathers and sons, uncles and daughters working along side each other, all helping each other get a job on the next production.

Finally there was an advert online for runners on a new talk show in Manchester. I spend hours filling out the application form and wait to hear back. Nothing....... And then a phone call I hadn't got the job but would I like to come in for Work Experience.

Work experience is the word we all dread both sides of the barrel. If you are being offered work experience you dread it because it will involve you working your butt off for hours making tea and proving yourself for free. Thats right no pay and no guarantee of a job at the end of it. The other side of the barrel is if you are employing a work ex its a nightmare, they invariably don't want to be there but have been forced to find work as part of there college course and will want you to fill in an evaluation of them after. Or they really want you to employ them so are over keen and annoying. Asking questions and talking about themselves to much. The key is to strike a happy medium between being keen and asking the right amount of questions.

If I'm going to get my foot in the door though I'm going to have to do it, its for a one of the UK's leading channels and hopefully I'll make some links and found out better places to look for work.

So off to work I go.