In the last few weeks, we've not been out and about filming so much as the focus has been on handing over Lucy's job to Clare. Lots of training have been done and copious lists and procedures written for the technical jobs to do with editing, encoding and data storage - a boring but important task! The hand-over, which has taken 2 months, is now complete and Clare and I have done our first two filming days without any major hitches, in fact we even finished with a smile on our faces which is a big relief! Fortunately, the lack of outings hasn't caused any problems as we have built up a good supply of videos over the last few months, waiting to come onto the site.
The sun shone on our first day, which was cross country schooling. This was a blessing as the session had already been postponed twice due to bad weather. The sun brought out my freckles but also posed a problem with the light. I've come to the conclusion that here is no such things as perfect weather for filming!
Alex Peternell rode for us. He is a talented and fearless rider who completed his first 4* at Burghley last year but started life as a ballet dancer (the sight of Alex schooling in the summer bare chested is enough to make a grown woman weep)! I love working with riders who are on the ascendant because their insights are fresh and as they are not used to filming (they usually haven't done any at all), they don't have any rehearsed way of describing things. Also, they are more than prepared to criticise themselves which makes very good filming and means we can leave in what doesn't work (along with their constructive comments). Poor Alex was nervous to start, partly due to the camera being there but also because the maestro Andrew Nicolson was working his horses at the same time!
One thing about the camera is that it highlights your personal gestures and this is often a source of great entertainment. While I didn't notice any during filming, once we started editing, we found that Alex put his hand on his hip and beamed profusely at the end of each section of each video. Charming as this was, we had to delete most of them because it made each video seem like it had several endings. It's quite tricky to get the continuity right between different scenes on the day - we never know exactly how we will string it all together until we start editing. So we try to cover our options by getting cutaways (shots we can use to cover difficult edits), which we on this occassion we mostly forgot to do!
All three of Alex's horses were impeccably behaved, much to Alex's relief and he certainly didn't embarrass himself infront of Andrew Nicolson! I also met Alex's friend and sports psychologist Charlie Unwin (an equestrian and past GB high jumper) who was doing some filming with Alex after we left. Charlie and I got found we had quite a few parallels in our backgrounds and are now planning to film him working with some top riders.
Next was the massage filming! I had been contacted by Beth Butler, an equine masseur, about doing a piece. As massage had been on the list for some time, I thought it would be a quick win - Beth was local and I could film her working on my horse Norris.
Norris is usually laid back to the point of being horizontal, except of course, when he's not! Being a TB, he has a 'switch' and unfortunately, it was on most of the day of filming! A bright, cold and windy day, his friends were calling him from the field, so instead of capturing a soporific horse enjoying the benefits of massage, he was a complete live wire! But it's one of the great things about horses, you really can never take them for granted! Beth was patient and we managed to make a number of pieces including some specific exercises for jumping and dressage horses and how to assess your horse's training by palpating (technical term for feeling) their soft tissue!
On a different subject, I am off skiing tomorrow for a couple of days, but before you fall over with surprise at the idea of me having time off, it's actually a working holiday. Sally, who helps me on SEO (search engine optimisation) not only loves horses but is a skiing addict. In fact, she loves skiing so much that she and her husband upped sticks and moved to France (along with their horses) to be close to the ski slopes. So she has invited me over to discuss strategy in between enjoying the piste. I can't wait and pray I can remember how to ski, as the last time I took to the slopes was nearly 30 years ago! Needless to say, the camera is staying behind!