A commissioned interview with Ex BBC Regional Editor John Bird and how I shot it affordably
It has been a while since I uploaded anything as there has been so many exciting things happening recently. One of the most significant things for me though, was the recent opportunity I had to interview John Bird about his role in setting up the Great North Run.
John Bird was the BBC regional editor for the Northeast and Cumbria and the Intake Editor for BBC’s national news on TV before that. He had an incredibly successful career, and his name is still known within the BBC today as a result of many years of dedicated hard work and enthusiasm for the job. 40 years ago, when Brendan Foster approached him for his help in making the Great North Run the huge event that it became, he leapt at the opportunity and in doing so played his part in the creation of a little piece of history.
Film Nova are making a documentary about the creation of the Great North Run, to celebrate its 40th anniversary, which is coming up in September. It will be a fantastic piece of television that combs over some of the greatest moments in the run’s history. A couple of months ago, Film Nova approached John to see if he’d be interested in speaking about his experience and of course he said yes. As Film Nova are based in the North of England, he put my name forward to shoot and record the interview on their behalf, which they happily accepted.
When I arrived for the interview, I decided to stage it in John’s office with pictures of the run dotted around him and his award in easy reach. We were sent interview questions to guide the conversation but when I arrived for the interview John had other ideas. He knew what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it and so we shot his responses in takes. I then took these takes and in post-production made a reel of the best audio and another of the best video to send to the company. I filmed the interview from front and parts of it also from the side as well as some closeup shots so they had options for cut-aways when editing.
Being relatively new to the freelance world I don’t have all of the equipment that someone more experienced might, but I still made sure I more than met the tech requirements. I used my ring light to correct the lighting and make sure John was shown at his best. I have the 12.6” Selfie Ring Light with Tripod Stand & Phone Holder Tall 74”, LED Ring Lights with 20 RGB Mode 13 Brightness, Dimmable Circle Light with Remote for Streaming Makeup YouTube Video Tiktok by GerTong (excuse Amazon’s unbelievably long names) which at the time of writing costs £31.99. This is an exceptionally good ring light for the price, offering an incredible array of light settings, with 3 daily lights, 7 RGB colours and 12 RGB dynamic modes all with 13 different brightness settings. Obviously, I didn’t film John with the rainbow setting on but the option was there.
I used the app FiLMiC Pro (£14.99) on my iPhone SE 2nd Generation to record the footage. This app has a range of features on it to guarantee a more professional result, for example ‘stabilisation’ which prevents quality loss by reducing unwanted shakes. Another benefit is that you can pre-set the audio quality.
I used the BOYA BY-M1DM Dual Omni-directional Lavalier Mic to record the audio which usually retails at around £24.99. This mic is exceptionally easy to use, very affordable and produced great quality audio. Having such great quality right from the source meant that I had little to no work to do in post-production on the audio reel. Having simply cut out the unwanted audio I exported the mp3 file at 48kHZ with a 24-bit rate as was requested. I use the Adobe Suite for all of my editing and in Audition I tried an edit where I normalised, used dynamics processing and a noise reduction process but the quality of the raw audio was so much clearer I decided against any editing at all.
And so with a phone, an app and a ring light and lavalier mic from the lower end of the price range, I produced footage and audio for an industry standard documentary. Film Nova said the interview was ‘exactly what we hoped for’ which is glowing praise for one of my first experiences shooting.
I won’t go into details about John’s responses as you will have to watch the documentary when it airs, but I can guarantee you that it will be worth it. It is such a fascinating story and I only heard a glimpse. I am also hoping to do my own interview with John soon for this site, digging further into his career: from chasing murderers across the moors for a breaking piece of journalism to leaving the BBC to set up his own successful company. This interview was a pleasure for me in many ways, to be able to hear such a successful man talk about one of the fondest memories of his past and have the opportunity to record it was incredible… the fact that that man is my grandfather made it even more special. It is such a wonder to hear the man who, when you were 7, you told to ‘eat a gobstopper’ to shut him up, the man who took you to see the Olympic torch and who gave me feedback on each and every one of the student radio shows talk about a career that I can only aspire to achieve.
I am not being paid to advertise any of the products in this blog, its sole purpose is to help others starting out have an idea of useful equipment.
