The village media project

For the past year I’ve been involved in a village media project. A local media company have been making a radio play for the BBC set in our village. It was based on stories we provided about our life here. Last Sunday they were making a film to accompany the play. The film will go out on the BBC Iplayer and is a sort of background illustration of the play.

It was decided that at the end of the play the film would show someone switching off a radio. He would be standing on the stage and the film would then pan out to the village hall where a fete was in progress, as a way of showing the real villagers. It turned out to be absolutely hilarious. The main theme of the play was based on one villager’s experiences as a travelling libarian in the 70s. He is now quite elderly and it was decided that  he should be the one to turn off the radio. You would think that would be quite a simple shot, a close up of Graham switching off the radio panning out to the village hall.

At the first attempt Graham turned the wrong knob; at the second he got the right one but didn’t turn it far enough; at the third it was noticed that we had started with the radio still off. It was an old fashioned radio with a light on it as the play was set in the 70s.

‘Cut’, shouted the director, ‘Graham, we need to start with the radio on.’

‘Oh, I thought you wanted me to turn it off.’

‘Yes I do but it needs to be on so that you can turn it off.’

‘Right.’ Graham turned it on.

‘Right’, said the director, ‘Let’s roll.’ Graham turned the radio off.

‘Not yet, Graham, when I tell you.’

‘Right’ Graham turns the radio back on.

It went on like this for about five minutes with Graham’s even more elderly wife trying to coach him from the floor of the hall. By this time Graham, who is 80 next month needed to have a sit down and a chair was brought.

‘He’ll be asking for a caravan next.’ shouted one bright spark.

We did eventually get the film shot. It had been a lot of fun. We had all scoured our houses for things from the 70s to use as props. The play was set in the year of the queen’s silver jubilee, 1977. I contributed, among other things, a jubilee teapot and a 1970s edition of Dr Zhivago which was actually mentioned in the play.

We are now looking forward to hearing the play and seeing the film in September when the company will be coming back to the village hall.