VIDEO FOR A ROYAL VISIT
Peter and Bruce Dawes
Bruce and I are not noted for our speed in doing things especially
in video, it usually takes a month or two thinking about an idea,
a further month or two getting the ideas down on paper, and then anything
from a year or two or three filming and editing.
It came therefore as rather a shock to our system when on April 19th
we received a letter from N.C.I. (National Coastwatch Institution).
This is the organisation that has taken over the visual watch keeping
duties from the Coastguard agency. They asked if we could produce
a short video about Coastwatch in general, with particular reference
to Gwennap Head station (near Lands End) that could be shown at the
forthcoming visit of Princess Anne on May 10th.
Looking at our calendar we were going away from the 4th - 12th May
so it left us with only 5 days maximum to get something done! Thank
goodness we do keep a reasonable index of all the material we shoot.
Certain subjects do have an ongoing separate tape, which was the case
with N.C.I. so it did make things a little easier. We used the opening
sequence from our 1999 documentary entry, and parts of an interview
with Commander King one of the senior executives of N.C.I and Gwennap
Head Station Controller that we had recorded about the same time.
We then inserted pictures relevant to the speech. The complete tape
worked out at around 8 minutes long.
We subsequently learnt from a letter we received from N.C.I., that
the video had been shown twice during the visit. Once to Princess
Anne's and the N.C.I entourage while the Princess was in the watch
room, and again when she was in the visitors centre.
Have we proved to ourselves that we can produce something to a fixed
timetable and dropped ourselves right in it, or was it just a flash
in the pan? Until the next time we will never know.
(Editor ~ note: does his mean Peter and Bruce will now display
'By Royal Appointment' on their title sequences??)
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