Blog 21 Phew! Just finished another 5 hours of filming
10 comments
Today we had our second session of being filmed for the Christmas Special of Gardeners’ World.
This was a “work in progress” session – pruning acers, taking the side-shoots off the bamboos, painting preservative on wooden containers, trimming the topiary animals. To save time, I had four large hanging baskets and had prepared each of them in the progressive stages of filling them – as though I was doing just one. We had “walk by” shots of us trundling the wheelbarrow, sack truck, containers filled with plants and dustbins brimming over with prunings.
At the end of it we were exhausted – and sat down with a bottle of wine to recharge our batteries!
We were also given two tickets for Gardeners’ World Live so aim to go on Sunday – take the car and see what bargains we can get when they start dismantling the stalls!
The next filming session will be at the beginning of August – between our next two open days. The plan is to film all four seasons, with time lapse photography of certain views. Just got to keep the garden up to scratch in the meantime!!!
13 Jun, 2008
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Comments
What a cheat! I don't know - you can't believe anything you see on the box these days, can you. LOL. Now we know how they do it - you've let the cat out of the bag!
13 Jun, 2008
be really good to see your garden on tv, i can keep saying to everyone i know them , i know them lol.. really looking forward to seeing it.
14 Jun, 2008
There's a lot of play acting! Having just scalped the winter flowering pansies so that we can get another flush in July, the camera man said, "I know it sounds daft, but could you just put all the flowers back and start cutting them again - let's really get the sound of the secateurs"!
We were talking to some gardeners who have finally been accepted into the National Garden Scheme. The BBC television series followed their trials and tribulations as they failed, initially, to get approved. It seemed as though the filming covered many of the winter and spring months. In fact, they had to keep changing their clothes to look as though it was cooler or milder than it actually was!
A garden centre owner told me of a BBC filming session when they were selling christmas trees. Because of repeated postponements of the filming session there were only 20 trees left - but the final film looked as though there were hundreds!
14 Jun, 2008
Glad the filming is going well.We did say how exhausting it is having the film crew around, but its fascinating seeing how they put it all together just for a three minute clip on the programme.Its amazing how much filming they actually do before it goes back to the B.B.C for editing and compiling. We were also told that the costs are enormous which we can now understand.There was a producer, sound people, a researcher who doubled up as 'continuity' person, and someone seemed to be on the phone a lot to the B.B.C. They seemed to film everything out of sequence, but when we had our slot on Gardeners World it was wonderful to see the final result . You mentioned the play acting -we had to do lots of acting as well, and sometimes it was hard to keep a straight face! Then we all laughed when the 4pm flight of 'Easyjet' flew overhead on its approach to Bristol airport just as I was talking about applying liberal doses of fish, blood and bone to my pots!, Then a group of school children passed by and were so excited when they saw the film crew.Proceedings were held up for a while.Its all great fun. Looking forward to seeing it on the programme.We are just doing our final inspection for our first 'open day' today, so its all hands to the pumps!.
Best wishes from Alan and Grenville.
14 Jun, 2008
Grenville, how do you have time to respond - with an open day and your injuries!!
14 Jun, 2008
Looking forword to seeing the xmas special
14 Jun, 2008
Sounds an exhilarating as well as exhausting experience, I am sure you deserved a relaxing drink at the end of the day. Have fun on Sunday, and let us know what trophies you manage to secure ;-)
14 Jun, 2008
What absolutely wonderful inspiration!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am in AWE!
19 Jun, 2008
This might sound an unsual comment, Four Seasons,but thank you for making your post in quite short paragraphs. By your doing this, it is easier on the eye to read.
Yours is so much more user-friendly than when writers put all their text in one large block without any separate paragraphs.
I guess you will now be ready to accept an Oscar, Emmy or other filming award?
An Oscar would be the perfect decoration amongst your beautiful plants.
26 Aug, 2008
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Looking forward to seeing the completed prog at Christmas time. Hope you enjoyed the wine : )
13 Jun, 2008