The next day the presenter was to meet us close to the first house, and we were driven there by Jess, who is an absolute sweetheart and always had a huge smile. She had a lovely aura of serenity despite working hard to cover all the bases of organisation throughout the day whilst the others concentrated on their specific tasks. Jess's role that week was runner, which is often the landing page job that can kickstart a career in the film industry. She was responsible for making sure everyone involved fills in an image release form, lunches are ordered, bags are carried and the houses we viewed were left as we found them with lights off, locked up, and no equipment left behind. She told us that ordinarily she would have been the researcher responsible for finding the properties, but that she only joined the team on the Friday before to replace Eleanor.
Along the drive Liz spotted a 'For Sale' board, and pointed it out. Jess remained tight lipped and so we suspected this was our first property. It would still be a surprise as the house was not visible, promisingly tucked up a track off the main road. After much winding road we parked up at the romantic ruin of Carnasserie Castle.
We got our mics on and chatted to the estate agent, Johnny, from Argyll Estate Agents who had been invited to talk about property trends in the area. After he had gone we talked together quietly about which property we might be about to be presented with. We had skipped over houses nearby during our search and dismissed them, so our imaginations were in overdrive imagining what was in store for us, how we might react and whether we would have to hide disappointment or be thrilled at something amazing. John mentioned one particular house a few miles down the road, and I reminded him that I hadn't liked it. And then, suddenly conscious of the microphones, I shushed him and as a test whispered into my cleavage 'Adrian can probably hear this'. Sure enough his head appeared from behind the car and he grinned at us, saying, 'You can't hide now!'
Sonali Shah, our presenter, joined us on location a short time later, after we had filmed some more shots of us walking up the path towards the castle, which was beautiful. Sonali had been presenting live from London the few days before. Being a former Royal Correspondent she was in demand for the build up to the Queen's funeral and she had flown up to Scotland that morning and collected a car to drive another hour from Glasgow airport.
Nicola also joined us today, having been at the houses we would be viewing the previous day to do the 'magazine shots' (ie. with us not in the way!) So, whenever Sonali points out an amazing fireplace or beautiful kitchen, the program would show one of Nicola's arty shots of that thing.
Sonali was great and we both instantly felt a little more relaxed and at ease being in front of the camera for real, where our reactions and ideas were being scrutinised. Due to the time constraints and the presence of a celebrity we wanted to get things right first time, looking friendly, eloquent, intelligent - a tall order perhaps?
We were glad to now have two cameras manned by Nicola and Owen, but we occasionally still had to re-do the same conversation a couple of times to get 'wide' angle views, or shots from behind us. So Sonali led us through the process that we would repeat many times throughout the next could of days - walking into the shot, having the chat (twice or thrice over), and then walking out of the shot, always making sure there was continuity of who lead the way, or was stood to the right or the left. We picked it up quickly and hopefully did what was needed of us without too much prompting.
Sonali brought the charisma to the filming - she was animated, enthusiastic, inventive in her narration and questioning, and unfalteringly positive! But she was also alllll business - she was quick-witted, snappy with her reactions and knew exactly what was needed from her. Sonali asked us questions whilst Nicola filmed the wide shot, and Owen filmed John and I (I think), and then Nicola announced that Sonali needed to film her 'singles', which was so that the cameras could focus in tight on her whilst she repeated the questions again. It was impressive how she could remember pretty much word-for-word what she had asked us, along with the gestures she used, like nodding, smiling and other expressions and hand movements. It felt very odd to have her fire questions at us, one after the other without pause, with steady eye contact, without having to respond in any way.
I wondered how they would play us as a couple in the programme. Sonali asked about the property that we fell out about - Loch Droma. I'm annoyed with myself for not telling the whole story, instead cutting it short, because really the full story was so much more entertaining, with more friction between us. I knew we were short of time so I rushed it, and it was before I really realised that we could say as much as we wanted because they would just cut out any fluff they didn't like. I should have hammed it up more for the entertainment value...
And then it was time to head out to our first property!
Owen now took the wheel, after offering us some sustenance from the 'snack bag'. The filming days are long and breaks are not built in at normal times, so these snacks were a bit of a life-saver. Although, Liz was so nervous that she didn't feel hungry at all that day. Owen was very enjoyable to watch at work - focused, sharp and bang, bang, bang - totally on it, like he could see each shot, how it would work, how it would look in the editor's cut on TV, a vision if you like.
After a short 'detour' (aka getting lost) we made it to the property - the 'For Sale' board we had spotted earlier - and were asked to hang on in the car and keep our eyes down to maintain the element of surprise for as long as possible.....
Comentarios