Lindsey Harris writes about her and co-producer, Tini Papatheodorou’s experience making “Uncovered: Historical Exeter Special”, their cultural features for XTV…
“Uncovered” has been a regular show on XTV for years, but when taking on producing this year we wanted to take it in a different direction to our recent predecessors, with more of a focus on the wider community of Exeter itself and its cultural aspects. This aim culminated this term with the idea of an episode on historical sites in the city, and the Uncovered Historical Exeter Special was born!
We arranged filming at Exeter’s Underground Passages, the Guildhall and Cricklepit Mill through the City Council and the Devon Wildlife Trust. Everyone we dealt with was really enthusiastic about what we were trying to do and very supportive! To tie the three features together into a distinctive show, we decided to shake up the traditional format of the show, with a continuous narrative following three presenters visiting sites around Exeter instead of two anchors introducing three disparate features. We also wanted the show to have entertainment value, introducing maps with effects and even a black and white skit to mix things up a bit. An unexpected source of entertainment was the Guildhall’s Mace Sergeant Alan Darbyshire, who was fantastic and has now built quite a fan base at XTV!
We were surprised that the only parts of filming that caused us real issues were actually the seemingly simple introduction and conclusion, filmed by the cathedral. We were exposed to strong winds which gave us “interesting” audio results and necessitated a second attempt at the shoot. The tape we used on this second shoot decided to destroy all of the introductions we had just shot, which we only realised just after the boom operator had gone home, so Lindsey ended up having to set the camera shot up with the presenters in place before moving round to hold the boom below the presenters, then Tini had to leave her position to check Lindsey was out of shot and to set the camera rolling, before rushing back to her position. We must have looked ridiculous! Not our most professional-looking moment…
However, we were extremely pleased with what came out in the edit and of all our episodes this year, the Historical Exeter Special is definitely our favourite. XTV have also entered it for the Best Light Entertainment category for the National Student Television Association’s awards, taking place in April. Fingers crossed!
Lindsey Harris
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