The Wales edition
Wales was beautiful! There was snow on the mountains, mist in the air, and sheep everywhere! And these sheep have long dog-like tails! All the sheep that I've ever seen have had short tales, but not the sheep of wales.
As you may remember I am traveling for work, so there wasn't a lot of time for play. The day I arrived I was extremely jet lagged, I couldn't sleep on the plane so it felt like I was awake for 36 hours. I took a power nap and started prepping for our shoot. I had no idea what my work flow was going to be and how this new show was going to work, but I would soon find out the next day....
The Recce. I come from a scripted work world, and I have now entered into reality television, so for those of you who don't know, a recce is a combination of location scout & camera test. We HIKED our desired location and pointed out where the cameras should be positioned, only to find out that we lost that location so we drove to our next quarry location. I was slowly learning what I had gotten myself into: mud, climbing, and wading in small streams of water.
This quarry has the most beautiful purple slate, with some more rare turquoise pieces, it also has caves to climb through and in. You can't see it in this photo but the small lake of water was a brilliant aquamarine color. Here you see Stani, our safety team watching across the cliffs.
Yep, safety team, in scripted world we have stunts here we have safety, and oh man he made sure I was safe. He wouldn't let me climb up the waterfall, he wouldn't let me climb up the cliff, he gave me disapproving looks when I didn't wear a helmet in the cave....ya know safe ;)
Before I continue on with Wales, lets talk about other differences between scripted and reality terms:
-VTR-now where I come from VTR is a position of a man whose sole job is to provide playback for paranoid script supervisors such as myself, directors and producers. VTR in reality stands for Video Tape Recording, they even put this on the call sheet. They have to tell us that we are going to record something that day....
-PTC- stands for parts to camera, host talks to camera
-OTF- on the fly...I think you can figure that one out.
-GV- Grand View, in scripted world would translate to a big huge wide, usually establishers of beautiful locations
-In Fil & Ex Fil- (only on our show) is how we get our host in and out of the episode.
*We shot lots of GV's
Our next location was this other mountainous area that contains a Mine. A mine that is no longer used for mining, a mine that goes 6 stories under the earth, a mine that I had to go into and try my hardest to not freak out!! Mind over matter= you can convince yourself you aren't going to suffocate or get trapped in there with no way out, you trust your guides and your safety team, the only way to survive when you're slightly claustrophobic.
I wish I had taken photos of this mine, we had to go in there twice and hike down a hill 2 stories deep. The first time I was so scared I couldn't look around at how cool it actually was, and it was cool! They had an old mining car eroding still sitting on the track, there were various tunnels, and pipes left lying around too. When we reached the bottom it was pitch black, the only way to see is your headlamp (or head torch as the British call it).
We also shot deep into a cave full of sheep shit, lovingly referred to as sheep shit cave :) We brought super cute wolves in to chase our host out of the cave. They were super cute, very well trained, and did I mention super cute? Oh, I also took my first HELICOPTER ride.
Our third location is a waterfall, a 20 minute hike down to a beautiful but low key waterfall, where we would play more with the wolves. The hike back up from this waterfall was a great test of endurance but like all beautiful locations so very worth it.
4th up were sea cliffs along the Atlantic ocean. There was an old beautiful castle in the distance, and Ireland (although you couldn't see it) was just on the other side. Now, I've been to the Atlantic can before, but not like this. When it was low tide, the water receded back over half a mile, allowing cars to drive up onto the sand and dogs to play where there was once water. There were sea caves lining the beach and where this crew photo was taken.
SHEEP!
How'd you like to rappel down there?
Castle!
Toy dino found on the beach, eating the mountains.....
Our DP capturing the beautiful sunset over the Atlantic!
Welsh is a language all it's own, so many letters for one small word...check out the sign below it ;)
As you may remember I am traveling for work, so there wasn't a lot of time for play. The day I arrived I was extremely jet lagged, I couldn't sleep on the plane so it felt like I was awake for 36 hours. I took a power nap and started prepping for our shoot. I had no idea what my work flow was going to be and how this new show was going to work, but I would soon find out the next day....
The Recce. I come from a scripted work world, and I have now entered into reality television, so for those of you who don't know, a recce is a combination of location scout & camera test. We HIKED our desired location and pointed out where the cameras should be positioned, only to find out that we lost that location so we drove to our next quarry location. I was slowly learning what I had gotten myself into: mud, climbing, and wading in small streams of water.
This quarry has the most beautiful purple slate, with some more rare turquoise pieces, it also has caves to climb through and in. You can't see it in this photo but the small lake of water was a brilliant aquamarine color. Here you see Stani, our safety team watching across the cliffs.
Before I continue on with Wales, lets talk about other differences between scripted and reality terms:
-VTR-now where I come from VTR is a position of a man whose sole job is to provide playback for paranoid script supervisors such as myself, directors and producers. VTR in reality stands for Video Tape Recording, they even put this on the call sheet. They have to tell us that we are going to record something that day....
-PTC- stands for parts to camera, host talks to camera
-OTF- on the fly...I think you can figure that one out.
-GV- Grand View, in scripted world would translate to a big huge wide, usually establishers of beautiful locations
-In Fil & Ex Fil- (only on our show) is how we get our host in and out of the episode.
*We shot lots of GV's
Our next location was this other mountainous area that contains a Mine. A mine that is no longer used for mining, a mine that goes 6 stories under the earth, a mine that I had to go into and try my hardest to not freak out!! Mind over matter= you can convince yourself you aren't going to suffocate or get trapped in there with no way out, you trust your guides and your safety team, the only way to survive when you're slightly claustrophobic.
I wish I had taken photos of this mine, we had to go in there twice and hike down a hill 2 stories deep. The first time I was so scared I couldn't look around at how cool it actually was, and it was cool! They had an old mining car eroding still sitting on the track, there were various tunnels, and pipes left lying around too. When we reached the bottom it was pitch black, the only way to see is your headlamp (or head torch as the British call it).
We also shot deep into a cave full of sheep shit, lovingly referred to as sheep shit cave :) We brought super cute wolves in to chase our host out of the cave. They were super cute, very well trained, and did I mention super cute? Oh, I also took my first HELICOPTER ride.
Our third location is a waterfall, a 20 minute hike down to a beautiful but low key waterfall, where we would play more with the wolves. The hike back up from this waterfall was a great test of endurance but like all beautiful locations so very worth it.
4th up were sea cliffs along the Atlantic ocean. There was an old beautiful castle in the distance, and Ireland (although you couldn't see it) was just on the other side. Now, I've been to the Atlantic can before, but not like this. When it was low tide, the water receded back over half a mile, allowing cars to drive up onto the sand and dogs to play where there was once water. There were sea caves lining the beach and where this crew photo was taken.
This trip was fun and challenging and opened my mind up to wanting to try new things, like rock climbing.....
Here are more photos from Wales for your enjoyment! Next stop is Switzerland for our next 2 episodes!
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