Hi everyone đđŒââïžItâs Boast OâClock! đ°ïžIâd love to know what you consider to be the pinnacle of your personal career, a moment that you feel utterly proud of yourself about. A time when you walked around with a smug face for about a week.Feel free to add your boast in the comments here or do your own post using the hashtag #BoastOClock . Photos and videos to go with your boasts are welcome... Read more
Hi everyone đđŒââïž
Itâs Boast OâClock! đ°ïž
Iâd love to know what you consider to be the pinnacle of your personal career, a moment that you feel utterly proud of yourself about. A time when you walked around with a smug face for about a week.
Feel free to add your boast in the comments here or do your own post using the hashtag #BoastOClock . Photos and videos to go with your boasts are welcome and encouraged!
Iâll start. I once directed an episode of Come Dine With Me where a snake pooâd on the dining table đđđŒ (Clip below- or Google âCome Dine With Meâ and âSnake Pooâ).
Itâs possible that this was just luck, and I was in the right place at the right time, but success has many mothers, and in this case I was one of them.
We were in the gorgeous city of York, and the dinner party host was called Claire. She was a fab, gregarious woman with a snake called fluffy. Fluffy lived in a tank upstairs, but she thought it would be fun to serve desert with him around her neck. Fluffy then slid onto the table, which the guests were taking in. Suddenly, Claire shouted âheâs going to poo!â This gave the brilliant cameraman Danny Rohrer time to get in roughly the right spot.
Iâd never seen a snake poo before, but poo it did, and Danny caught it all. (I realise now that this is Dannyâs boast Iâm taking the credit for đ). Coincidentally, the snake poo looked rather like the CrĂšme BrĂ»lĂ©e that Claire had served for desert.
Everything went a bit mad after that. One guest wanted to leave straight away, and I wasnât sure if that was right given they hadnât eaten the desert, because- how would they score the desert? But also, given there was snake poo on the dining table, we realised that health and safety probably meant no-one should actually eat the desert at all.
I seem to remember calls were made to the Series Producer at around 11 PM to discuss what should happen.
It was decided that everyone should not eat the CrĂšme BrĂ»lĂ©e, and taxiâs were called. One of the guests, Andy, scored Claire an extra point for the âsnake entertainmentâ.
When the show came out, I called the team at Harry Hillâs TV Burp to let them know - Iâve always wanted to get something on that. They didnât include it, but still, itâs something I often chuckle over.
I asked Danny Rohrer how he knew where the snake was going to poo- I seem to remember us all agreeing we had no idea where it would happen, but he was âdown the right endâ. I imagine they have more sophisticated plans than this in nature documentaries.
My father wasnât too impressed mind. âCanât you do those current affairs shows again? You were doing some good stuff in those days!â
âFather Iâve just seen a snake poo on a white tablecloth. Believe me life doesnât get any better than this đđ»đđ»â
Happy for this to be my TV legacy, clip below
⊠tell me your boasts!
https://m.facebook.com/Channel4Homes/videos/come-dine-with-me-snake-poo/462651167689925/
Itâs Boast OâClock! đ°ïž
Iâd love to know what you consider to be the pinnacle of your personal career, a moment that you feel utterly proud of yourself about. A time when you walked around with a smug face for about a week.
Feel free to add your boast in the comments here or do your own post using the hashtag #BoastOClock . Photos and videos to go with your boasts are welcome and encouraged!
Iâll start. I once directed an episode of Come Dine With Me where a snake pooâd on the dining table đđđŒ (Clip below- or Google âCome Dine With Meâ and âSnake Pooâ).
Itâs possible that this was just luck, and I was in the right place at the right time, but success has many mothers, and in this case I was one of them.
We were in the gorgeous city of York, and the dinner party host was called Claire. She was a fab, gregarious woman with a snake called fluffy. Fluffy lived in a tank upstairs, but she thought it would be fun to serve desert with him around her neck. Fluffy then slid onto the table, which the guests were taking in. Suddenly, Claire shouted âheâs going to poo!â This gave the brilliant cameraman Danny Rohrer time to get in roughly the right spot.
Iâd never seen a snake poo before, but poo it did, and Danny caught it all. (I realise now that this is Dannyâs boast Iâm taking the credit for đ). Coincidentally, the snake poo looked rather like the CrĂšme BrĂ»lĂ©e that Claire had served for desert.
Everything went a bit mad after that. One guest wanted to leave straight away, and I wasnât sure if that was right given they hadnât eaten the desert, because- how would they score the desert? But also, given there was snake poo on the dining table, we realised that health and safety probably meant no-one should actually eat the desert at all.
I seem to remember calls were made to the Series Producer at around 11 PM to discuss what should happen.
It was decided that everyone should not eat the CrĂšme BrĂ»lĂ©e, and taxiâs were called. One of the guests, Andy, scored Claire an extra point for the âsnake entertainmentâ.
When the show came out, I called the team at Harry Hillâs TV Burp to let them know - Iâve always wanted to get something on that. They didnât include it, but still, itâs something I often chuckle over.
I asked Danny Rohrer how he knew where the snake was going to poo- I seem to remember us all agreeing we had no idea where it would happen, but he was âdown the right endâ. I imagine they have more sophisticated plans than this in nature documentaries.
My father wasnât too impressed mind. âCanât you do those current affairs shows again? You were doing some good stuff in those days!â
âFather Iâve just seen a snake poo on a white tablecloth. Believe me life doesnât get any better than this đđ»đđ»â
Happy for this to be my TV legacy, clip below
⊠tell me your boasts!
https://m.facebook.com/Channel4Homes/videos/come-dine-with-me-snake-poo/462651167689925/
So my top boast happened in January this year, it was a bit of a surreal moment when I won a Prime Time Emmy in the âBest Hosted Non Fiction Categoryâ for the show I Series Produced âStanley Tucci Searching for Italyâ. I was convinced we wouldnât win as the show had won the award in the previous two years but was chuffed that Raw TV had flown me and the other Series Producer @FionaCleary & Execs @RobinO'Sullivan & @EveKay out to LA for the ceremony.
One chapter needs to be called: "InWhich I interview Penis Cam Man while up the duff". If you haven't read Sophie Heawood's The Hungover Games I think it could be up your street.
Over my 25ish years, Iâve done a few pivots, normally when my personal situation has changed or the industry has gone through a shift. Staying on theme, my boasts all happened during the times I did something other than docs to pay the bills.
When I came back from living / working in NYC as an AP and young dev producer in 2001 just post 9/11, there was a mini slump in production caused by the internet bubble bursting. I ended up side stepping from docs into the media PR side of things for a time. I worked on some big campaigns and produced EPK assets/Promos & feature film BTS films that were normally part of a movieâs DVD extras. In 2002, I worked on a movie with Jennifer Love Hewitt. One day she hauled up the leg of my jeans and asked if Iâd mind being her leg double for a WS of her characterâs feet walking along a corridor away from camera. We were about the same height, age and build then and she was lovely so I did not mind. For the record, she has very lovely, shapely legs, but for whatever reason, she hates her ankles.
I also helped to publicise the term metrosexual in 2003, which is now part of the vernacular, for the launch of a business/marketing/trend book. The book defined the term and used David Beckham (in his sarong) as the poster child for the new explosion in heterosexual male grooming. The press drank it up. My boss and I were interviewed on BBC breakfast news about it. Like most of us behind the cam people, I still cringe thinking about being on the sofa and NEVER want to see the evidence. But, any time I hear someone use that word, I have to say âthatâs cozâoâmeâ!
I was so cross! So OfC I was like âcan you ALL SHUTUP AND WATCH MY SHOW WHICH IS ON TV RIGHT NOW FFSâ. They were like âerm okay!â *handbag*.
âEr, whatâs in there?â asks the check in agent, understandably. Had to unzip the bag. In hindsight, we probably shouldnât have given him a name. It took quite some explaining.
Tried very hard to remember to make sure he was fully zipped up again for the oversized baggage drop off. Then they made us change flight
Many years ago, cutting a very tight turnaround daytime doc first series about the only hospital on Shetland, I had probably my greatest success as an editor.
Many stories came through to the cutting room and each was given a star rating by the shooting team. Some were obviously 5 stars, like the helicopter rescue of an oil rig worker.
Others were less loved.
One such story was "Shepherd John can't piss". A story about a man with an incomprehensible accent who hadn't urinated for 3 days. The crew on the ground had understandably low expectations for Shepherd John, hence, 1 star.
I however, saw potential in John's plight.
His enigmatic utterances, and stoic good humour in the face of having a catheter installed beneath the gaze of a young shooting PD made him a compelling screen presence. The doctor charged with removing the blockage was a charming, laconic woman with useful thoughts about how being a shift doctor at the Sheltand hospital meant you had to be multi-skilled, confessing that she hadn't installed a catheter since medical school, and describing the process as a "guddle". Look that word up and imagine it applied to the act of installing a catheter.
I cut the story, polishing this shabby little stone up nicely, and it went on the shelf while we cracked through the rest of the material coming in.
In a month or so we needed to start putting episode 1 together. It had to be a banger of an episode, obviously. It needed everything, action, drama, humour, and all of it shot through with Shetland vibes.
The first story was a no-brainer. The aforementioned helicopter rescue. A blazing hot 4 part story about a potential spine injury that would easily act as, well, the spine of the episode. But how to follow it up? Which would be our second story? After the drama of the helicopter rescue, we needed a change of tone, and ideally something with a bit of local character.
Of course I immediately pointed to the Post-It in the wall that read "Shepherd John can't piss" but was quickly shot down. Over the coming days many stories were auditioned for the supporting role, but each fell short. Eventually everyone had to concede that our noble Shepherd was indeed the perfect story to establish the world of the hospital and he was elevated to story 2 of episode 1.
I took this as a huge achievement as an editor. It's all well and good when you've got great stories and rushes to work with, but I think you really earn your money when you manage to see something in the material that others don't.
Honestly though, a lot of the best creatives are super humble - and often self deprecating- so this boast post is a must! In the current climate, itâs important we celebrate our achievements, now more than ever!
Youâre all amazing! Never let the badgers grind you down! đ«¶