LIVE Sports Coverage - eSkootr Championship, Sion Switzerland

Blending Worlds!

I’ve officially rewired my maximum enthusiasm circuits by becoming a Live Stories Producer for the Boombox Team.

I think I learnt to grit the clutch joke..at the perfect time by producing live stories for the 2nd Round of the eSkootr Championship in Sion. High five’s?

These factual shorts were globally broadcast on the BBC iPlayer, DAZN, Helbiz, Ryde TV and international sports channels for a first of it’s kind, sustainable, next gen electric-racing series!

As a story producer, I became part of the unstoppable Boombox/Esc editorial team. Finding my niche developing storylines amidst the electric atmosphere of the live race.

You would find me on track chasing down riders for their back stories…or with one of the Swiss racing favourites, Jam Guerchadi discovering an underground lake, the oldest Valais winery and Sion’s very own wind tunnel.

Coming up with ideas to drive story, prepping interview questions and producing one, or two studio shoots also helped me to keep up my pace!

In this completely new form of racing AND with the goal of being carbon neutral right from the jump, meant that the Boombox team approach to broadcasting the eSC was as unique as the on track action.

From go, the goal from the eSC was clear: Make this new sport look like a video game. With top speeds hovering around 100km/h - conveying the sense of speed was KPI #1. Using a combination of FPV drones and onboard cameras - the sense of speed came through on stream.

‍Thanks to Alexa Lavergne (Executive Producer) Will Nangle (Director), Verdy (Camera Man), Leisha C (Production Manager) and the rest of the edit and the live broadcasting team. It was an absolute pleasure to work with you all.

Location, Location, Location - C4

During the past 20 years, hosts Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer have helped more than 1000 British house hunters look for homes and, property.

Getting my break as a Producer on C4’s flagship property show, Location, Location, Location I was keen to find out why the show keeps millions of viewers worldwide tuning in.

At the start of the pre-production period, the team and I spent a couple of weeks looking at the houses that are on the market and finding others that aren't even on the market yet. These are whittled down and Kirstie or Phil looks around each of the homes in person before it is a definite to be shown to the house hunters.

Sometimes people who want to sell their home don't necessarily want it to be seen on television. In those instances, if we think the couple need to see it before making their decision, we help them to set up an off-camera viewing. They need to see the best of what is on offer to them and we'll work out how to tell that story on television, whatever happens.

Due to the collective experience of the LLL production team, we’re able to react immediately if we hear of something coming to market, and as we have feelers out all over the place we quite often find houses that aren't anywhere near the market yet!

It’s satisfying working with both estate agents and buyers as they soon realise LLL always has serious buyers, and with a success rate of 80% there's a good chance if their house is shown that it might actually be bought by either Kirstie or Phil's house hunters.

The home hunters often react in ways that surprise us, but we do our best to put it all on screen. It can be emotional looking for a new home and often there are tears. Kirstie and Phil are very good at judging when someone needs a moment and will sometimes even take them away from camera or ask if they want to leave the room. In terms of what they say about the houses, our view is that Kirstie and Phil always show them the best options. We can't control it if they disagree and speak their minds and we are happy to put that on screen – after all, we want them to be honest and the viewer deserves to hear the real story.

I tend to produce more of Kirstie’s shows, although I enjoy working with Phil, too - each team films for a week (with months of prep beforehand). We leave no stone unturned so that when we hit the ground for filming we've got the best possible houses lined up.

I honestly think they are right up there with the best-ever double acts on television. I can't put my finger on what works – but it just does. In many ways, they complement each other completely. Phil, for example, is very methodical, whilst Kirstie is very instinctive in her approach. Together, they tick every box. If I could bottle whatever chemistry Kirstie and Phil have, I'd quickly become the most successful TV producer in Britain.

The making of 'This Farming Life" Series 2, BBC

In this BAFTA winning BBC 12-part Documentary series, we followed the struggles and triumphs of different farming families in beautiful and remote parts of Scotland.

Staying true to its values of giving the public a real flavour and an honest insight into the everyday life of the farming community, I was honoured to be taken on as freelance Producer for the series.

The aim of the series was to represent as much of Scotland on screen as possible. Different terrain gives you different types of farming.

I started my role by sitting down with Joe Roe, the BBC Executive Producer to look at the farming calendar to plan coverage of lambing or a big bull sale.

I was tasked with scouting for the farming families before heading out into remote and rural Scotland, solo to shoot, research, cast and direct casting films of over twenty shortlisted families on a variety of dairy, arable, mixed and croft farms.

I think it’s about telling a good story. The audience goes on a journey with all the families involved in the series.

Farming is a unique profession, it’s humans dealing with the life and death of animals and the pressures of modern life as part of their everyday lives. You have a lot of autonomy, how you run your farm and how you look after your livestock.

I fell in love with Robin and Penny, in Sutherland, from the beginning as our team knew with her Parkinson’s Disease that we couldn’t predict how the year would unfold. It was lovely to see the shooting team made sure the audience got the sense that where they were for that year wasn’t a bad place to have Parkinson’s.

Being your own boss is probably the biggest motivator you can have to make you get up and work from dawn to dusk as a framer, which is why I think the public are naturally drawn to these experiences.

During the casting, I also followed Buffalo farmer and business entrepreneur Stevie Mitchell who proved a real hit on this years series. I caught up with him a year on at his Bogilly farm in Kircaldy where and I loved recently hearing about his plans for taking the mozzarella business forward and how since appearing on our screens business is booming and demand for buffalo beef is on the up

It’s been great to see the second series of This Farming Life has proved to be another spectacle hit with the Scottish public and beyond!

BBC NEWS - Coventry photographer Masterji, 94, has first exhibition

A photographer who has captured South Asian immigrants settling in the UK since the 1950s is having his first exhibition - at the age of 94.

Maganbhai Patel arrived in Coventry from India in 1951 and spent many years taking photographs of his community. 

The former headteacher's pictures became so popular he decided to open a studio at his home in 1969. 

His vast array of images was uncovered last year when his daughter showed them to a local exhibition group.

Seventy of them will form the exhibition, which is being held as part of Coventry's bid to be City of Culture 2021.

Tarla Patel, 40, said: "My father's photographs capture a time when Coventry was changing and developing, and people had many hopes and dreams about what they wanted to do."

Known as Masterji as a mark of respect because of his teaching past, Mr Patel spent many years working at the town's General Electric Company before taking up his passion full-time. 

"He had a box brownie camera in India, and when he came to England he also studied photography at night school," Ms Patel said. 

"People would ask him to take their wedding photos, but because he became very well known he started his own business.

Seventy of them will form the exhibition, which is being held as part of Coventry's bid to be City of Culture 2021.

Tarla Patel, 40, said: "My father's photographs capture a time when Coventry was changing and developing, and people had many hopes and dreams about what they wanted to do."

Known as Masterji as a mark of respect because of his teaching past, Mr Patel spent many years working at the town's General Electric Company before taking up his passion full-time. 

"He had a box brownie camera in India, and when he came to England he also studied photography at night school," Ms Patel said. 

"People would ask him to take their wedding photos, but because he became very well known he started his own business.

Mr Patel said he was "very grateful, very proud" that his photographs were to be shown after all this time.

"There was no Indian photographer, I was the first," he said. "They come to me and make friendships (sic). And the people I make happy, you know, they like me." 

Curator Jason Tilley, of Photo Archive Miners, said: "The work of Masterji is of huge significance not just for Coventry but the UK because it's a window into the lives of people as they arrived here and the image they wanted to send home.

"Many of the pictures were taken as portraits or for their official documentation so you see a very formal image. 

"In other photos, you see a more laid-back style and also some of the difficulties they faced so it really documents a very important part of the city's history and its cultural diversity."

It is hoped some of the subjects in the images will come forward as a result of the exhibition. 

Masterji's work is on show at The Box, Fargo Village, Coventry from 3 November to 20 November

Ilford's best of black and white

Soon after Jason Tilley left his staff photographer’s position on a local newspaper he began using my local city centre professional colour lab, in Coventry.

During the accumulating hours that he spent in that lab waiting for his 35mm films to process, watching small colour prints dropping from the conveyor belt from the end of the machine, he watched a short Indian man shuffle in through the door of the lab collect a small package of photographs then shuffled back out again. It was not until 2015 that Jason discovered that the diminutive and unassuming figure was Mr Maganbhai Patel, the photographer known as Masterji.

Masterji left his home and job as a mathematics teacher in Ahmedabad, Gujarat soon after India gained Independence from the British. He arrived in the prosperous English city of Coventry to meet up with friends and many other recent migrants from India in 1958.

To earn enough money for food and board he took a factory job, sharing cheap accommodation with his Indian friends. This was not Masterji’s future – he had come across the world to make his mark. Masterji had been nurturing an interest in photography, bringing with him from India a Box Brownie camera he used as a hobby. Unfulfilled with his mundane day-job, Masterji soon sought the company of creatives and struck up a friendship with local studio photographer John Blakemore, who was at the very beginning his own illustrious photographic career.

Time spent on evening courses at Lanchester Polytechnic and weekend courses with the GEC Photographic Society led to work, including photographing the visit to Coventry of the Indian High Commissioner and then onto portraits of the burgeoning south-Asian community. This led to a 1962 licence to start the Master’s Art Studio on Stoney Stanton Road, Coventry, which still exists today.

 
2015

Even though Jason Tilley has been printing my own black and white photographs for thirty years he had little experience of printing from other people’s negatives. "It is harder than you think, though no job properly done is ever straightforward. I recently printed my grandfather’s seventy-year-old 35mm panchromatic safety film for exhibition."

A friend, the photographic historian Pete James (@patinotype), advised that grandpa’s old negatives might print a little ‘soft’. His considered assumption turned out to be spot on: whilst handling these rare artefacts, damage was always an ever-present possibility.

A few months ago, Jason began working closely with Masterji’s daughter, Tarla, in Coventry University’s darkroom. They began to sort through her father’s negatives on the lightbox. He was in luck Tarla was a keen analogue printer. Jason and Tarla dusted off her father’s negatives with a soft brush and compressed air, and then tentatively placed the first negative (single cut) into the negative carrier. After the first exposure and development, it was immediately apparent from viewing the first test strips that a thorough cleansing process was necessary. Through his negatives, though debris was not visible to the naked eye, it had accumulated onto the surface of the emulsion. As with the majority of archives, Masterji’s negatives had not been kept in the most suitable of conditions: Tarla admitted that the archive was chaotic!

Using a couple of droplets of photo-flow (fairy liquid original) and a little patience, Tarla and Jason began to first soak then gently wash Masterji’s old film. This is not an easy process when his medium format film had been clipped from its ‘real’ into a singular 6×6 format, making safe handling and drying without damaging the films emulsion a delicate task. For Jason, this was the most nerve-racking process, but he could see from Tarla’s expression it was painful for her to watch too – this was her father’s life work, an Indian immigrant who had refused the menial jobs for migrants to be an artist. Those tough times were captured on this film, and we were the ones responsible for securing this legacy.

They had begun a restoration project and soon had beautiful fresh prints from Masterji’s old negatives. It is this story that inspired the making of the Masterji Short film posted on the Shorts section of this website.