Quick update

As always, it's been months since I last updated the blog - and plenty has happened in that time. I'm still producing two weekly video programmes for the TSC channel on YouTube. I am now appearing on camera in the Tuesday news show, which has been quite a learning experience - not just because of the technical challenges of lighting, recording video and sound in a 'studio' type environment, but also because presenting to camera really isn't my thing; I'm much happier behind the camera! I'm rapidly discovering that reading a script, sounding natural and looking into the camera is quite a challenge, and I've developed a new-found respect for TV news presenters.

The BBC's newsreaders have nothing to fear!

On top of the TSC production work, I have produced a lot of videos for the CPSA, including reports from their major championships in 2017, instruction videos in their 'How to Hit' series, and promotional videos for Facebook and other social media platforms. There are more of these in the pipeline, with the CPSA Annual Awards and the CPSA World English Sporting Championship coming up later in 2018 - follow their YouTube channel and Facebook page to see my work as it appears. And members will have seen my regular articles and photos in the CPSA magazine, 'Pull!', as well as the occasional write-up in Clay Shooting magazine.

My photo of Austin Coxhead on the cover of Pull! magazine

Plus there's been a host of smaller projects for clients including Eley, Just Cartridges, Save The Rhino, and many more. In case you're thinking it's all about shooting, I have also worked on a number of non shooting related projects too - most recently filming a performance by the lovely Yasmine Giles.

I've continued to steadily upgrade and update my gear, so my main video kit is now based around the phenomenal Panasonic GH5 micro four thirds camera, with a selection of prime and zoom lenses. My main stills camera is a Canon 5D Mk iii, mostly with prime 35mm, 50mm and 85mm lenses, but also my trusty old Sigma 70-200 f2.8 which produces stunning quality on the full-frame format, despite being nearly 20 years old! For wildlife I reach for my Canon 300mm, another stunning lens. I edit video in Final Cut Pro X running on a 27" iMac.

A taste of real videojournalism at the World Sporting Championships

I spent a hectic and exciting few days working for the CPSA at the World Sporting Championships, at EJ Churchill's shooting ground near High Wycombe.

It was a terrific event, with all the atmosphere and excitement that you'd hope at a World Championship. That was no accident - the organising team from EJ Churchill, the CPSA and many more had worked hard to make it an event to remember.

I remember working in the Press centre at Woolwich at the London 2012 Olympics, and watching open-mouthed as radio reporters and videojournalists compiled their reports on laptops, uploading the finished pieces direct to their newsrooms.

How times change! Here was I doing the exact same thing - interviewing a sponsor or a winner, then rushing back inside to knock out a quick edited version to upload to YouTube, Facebook and the rest.



It was every bit as exciting - and nerve-racking - as I'd imagined. Normally I can take my time over an edit, fussing over a cut, tweaking the colour balance or the EQ on the audio. Here time was everything. I quickly learnt the value of having a basic "that's good enough" colour grade and EQ preset to throw onto everything, and covering up the odd jump cut with a simple lens flare transition.

The results looked a little rough around the edges, to my eye at least, but they did the job. It helped enormously that I had prepared some title graphics and selected a piece of royalty free music in advance. It meant I didn't waste valuable time at the venue, and it added a degree of polish.

All in all an exciting few days doing "real" videojournalism, a valuable learning experience, and most of all the client was happy with the results. So happy in fact they sent me a thank-you card. Isn't that lovely? People so rarely bother with cards nowadays, but it meant a lot to me.

I must give a quick shout-out to Lucy and Kate from Tweed Media, who were in charge of the social media side of things - posting a massive amount of material on Facebook and Twitter, and generally building the excitement around the event. Also to the lovely folks from Bucks New Uni media department, who were filming for EJ Churchills and were very forgiving when I stole part of their desk. Oh, and Carlito's Coffee which kept me going through the long days - a lovely guy selling some seriously good coffee!

To watch the rest of the videos, check out the CPSA's YouTube channel. And to see some of the great work done by the rest of the team, search on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for the hashtag #WorldESP

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A busy week!

Every time I look at this blog, I'm horrified by how long it is since I last posted. My excuse is that I'm rather busy. It is only an excuse - I'm sure I could make time if I tried, but there's so much else to do!

Since January I've been running the TSC Clay Shooting channel on YouTube. TSC, or The Schools Challenge as it was known, is an excellent initiative devoted to encouraging young people to take up shooting, identify talented individuals and encourage and help them develop into the shooting stars of the future. 2016 Olympian Amber Hill, for instance, cut her shooting teeth with the Schools Challenge, and there are other promising youngsters following the same path - Tom Scott for one.

Plus I'm busy producing video content for other channels too. Take this week, for example. If you're a fan of shooting videos, you've probably watched several pieces I filmed and/or edited, probably without even realising it. There's usually a credit at the end, but who reads those!

The week started on Monday with a piece that I'd filmed and edited for The Shooting Show, following long-range rifle shooter Mark Ripley on his mission to protect this year's crop of lambs from marauding foxes:

Next up, on Tuesday it was TSC Clay News, the channel's weekly roundup of all things clay shooting. This week's show included a fun item on Olympic gold medal winners Richard Faulds and Peter Wilson trying out the guns that belonged to the late Bob Braithwaite, who won Britain's first ever Olympic shooting gold medal at Mexico 1968:

Wednesday brought this piece that I'd filmed for Fieldsports Channel, a look behind the scenes of the Princes Trust charity clay shoot in Yorkshire, featuring Promatic Traps:

Tonight will be the weekly TSC Clay Shooting feature, which I can't put up here until it's released at 7.30pm. UPDATE: Here's that feature...

In the meantime, I've also produced a couple of IT training videos for a bank, done a selection of photos for a shoot, and even managed to win a charity clay shoot myself! I'm rather proud of that one. It was the World Pheasant Association shoot near Stockbridge, and I get to have my name engraved on this splendid trophy, a black grouse sculpture by the talented Simon Gudgeon.

Yes, that's me on the right, sharing an inappropriate joke with Jonathan Young of The Field.

So that's my week so far. Who knows what Friday will bring? But I'll be heading out with foxshooter Robert Bucknell to see if we can film him shooting a fox. Always a challenge that one - how many videographers are happy to work singlehanded off the back of a pick-up truck in total darkness? Filming a wary animal that most people only get a fleeting glimpse of at the best of times?

I'm not complaining. I love it! The only thing is, it does rather distract from updating this blog.

That parakeet video

Good grief, the tabloids had a field day with my short video on AirHeads, about decoying a parakeet that was shredding my apple trees. I was labelled "deranged" by the Evening Standard, and "super posh" by the Mirror.

In fact this destructive alien invader has been on the General Licence for a while, for the specific purpose of allowing people to protect things like... well, fruit trees. That didn't stop the RSPB, Animal Aid, PETA and other loonies making misleading statements to the press, giving the impression that shooting parakeets was probably illegal and I would most likely be banged up.

The video attracted some classic "hate" comments - the usual threats to kill or maim me (you gotta love these animal lovers), including one from a chap so incompetent that his mobile phone number is still just two clicks away from his threat to "put me in a wheelchair for the rest of my life". My favourite was the one that said I deserved to "be sodomised by a large African man". Tautology, racism and homophobia in one short phrase - that's got to be some sort of record!

Anyway, enjoy the video!

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Shooting rabbits off a quad bike

Just go and film Geoff, they said. He's shooting rabbits off his quad bike, they said. Sure, no problem. Filming off a quad bike zipping across rough ground - I can handle that. Oh, and it's in the pitch dark...

Actually it came out not half bad, with the aid of some cunning lighting rigs powered by the fabulous Deben lithium lamping batteries (how does the film industry cope without these things?).

Mind you, my thighs took a week to recover from all that clinging on. I don't ride horses, but I imagine the problems are similar - at least, they would be if you were riding a horse and trying to hold a camera steady at the same time.

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Filming foxshooting through a thermal imager

The second half of this episode of the Shooting Show is a piece I filmed with foxshooter Robert Bucknell and his friend Nigel Fulton - we were trying out some night vision gear, including a thermal imager. I managed to rig up a recorder to the thermal viewer, which gave a unique view of the night's events. Scroll to 11:32 for my bit.

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Foxing Irish style

Filming this one was a real challenge - not just the fact that we were going round on foot in the pitch dark, but busting through a herd of cattle in the dark is a little unnerving! My piece starts at 10 min 44 secs into the show.

It was an exciting night's shooting though, and interesting to see how different laws mean that Irish foxshooters go about things slightly differently to how we do it in England.

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Pigeon shooting in Ireland with Jason Doyle

Here's a film I made for The Shooting Show with Jason Doyle in Ireland.

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A foray into corporate video

Most of my videos are filmed as part of a regular programme or series, and usually tell a story such as a foxshooting outing, or a day's game shooting.

Recently I tackled a different sort of project - a couple of 'corporate' videos for accountants Saffery Champness.

These present a very different challenge, not least that the poor 'expert' is on-screen throughout, making it hard to edit so everything flows well. And of course you have to trust that the audience is sufficiently interested in the subject matter, and hold back on the distracting bells and whistles so they can really listen and understand.

The results are on Saffery's website - click on the images below to see them.

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My sheep video is famous!

Well it's not Fenton, but my little clip of a sheep tiptoeing across a cattle grid made it to the Huffington Post's animal funnies page.

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Driven grouse - wow!

Here's a sight to stir the blood. I had the opportunity to film driven grouse shooting near the Cumbria-Northumberland border - and what a day it was! The birds had grouped up in packs earlier than usual, and came over the butts in a tremendous flurry. It was a struggle to remember I was supposed to be filming, rather than just stand and stare.

This is a still from a slow-motion sequence. There are plans afoot to do something with the footage, but I'm sworn to secrecy. Watch this space!

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Airgun hunting on Skye

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AirHeads - shooting ginger rabbits on Skye

Postscript: My Mum found this one on YouTube and I got a right telling off, cos she doesn't like us to shoot the ginger rabbits!

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Driven grouse and partridges at Farndale

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Crow shooting in Ireland with Jason Doyle

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Pigeon shooting with a young shot

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Fox control with Geoff Garrod

Good heavens, it's more than two months since I posted here! Not because I've done nothing, but because I've been so busy!

Here's a piece I did for The Shooting Show, waiting with gamekeeper Geoff Garrod for some fox cubs he'd spotted and wanted to clear off the shoot before they did any real damage.

Next up I'll post a few other items that have appeared recently, on The Shooting Show and on Fieldsportschannel's AirHeads series.

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An interview with gamekeeper Geoff Garrod

The latest episode of The Shooting Show features an interview I filmed with gamekeeper Geoff Garrod. He's a lovely chap, conscientious about his job but with a deep love of the wider countryside and wildlife generally - exactly what the antis find impossible to understand. But then people like that could never get their heads round the idea that a livestock farmer loves his animals then sends them to slaughter.

Filming was a challenge; it was a very bright day, and windy too, and I was desperately short of time. I wished I could spend a whole day just filming him going about his work - or even a year, chronicling the life of a keeper. Still, in the real world who's going to pay for that?

As always, back in front of the computer I kept wishing I'd done things differently; it's always a learning experience. Overall, though, I think the real Geoff comes through reasonably well, and by the tone of the comments it seems viewers like this slightly different style. I'll be trying to improve and refine it in future work.

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Barnaby the bully

I've been experimenting with video settings on my Canon 550D, and I recently got an adaptor so I can use it with an old Olympus 300mm f/4.5 lens that was sitting around gathering dust. Here is a little clip I shot from the bedroom window. The chicken house is 40 yards away, but with the crop factor of the APS-C sensor I'm getting the equivalent of a lens of 450mm or so.

I'm pleased with the result - the colours look natural even after I've boosted the saturation and added a bit of S-curve in Hawaiki Autograde.

As for Barnaby, he's a complete hooligan. I'm going to try putting up a few short sections of low fence in the hope of keeping them apart, or at very least giving the chickens a head start when he gets a mood on.

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England's shooting team prepare for the Commonwealth Games

I made a short video for the CPSA about the England shooting team's preparations for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. It's up on their website - click the pic below to visit the page and view the video there.

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