Owen Gay, Executive Producer
| 09:50 UK time, Sunday, 18 May 2008
Arriving on site at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show yesterday morning it felt as though the intervening 51 weeks since last year's show had simply disappeared. Chelsea is always like a grand family reunion. This is the eighth year in a row I've been in charge of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Chelsea coverage, and there are many more of us - from the ´óÏó´«Ã½ and the RHS - who wouldn't miss this one week in May for world.
I hope we're still learning - even after eight years - about how we can improve the TV shows we make...And this year we'll be featuring more of the plants in the Great Pavilion than ever before. In fact the whole of our Wednesday coverage will be devoted entirely to plants.
What's for sure is that each year brings its surprises. My first came within seconds of entering the ´óÏó´«Ã½ compound. Even before we were on air we were a presenter down. This year Rachel de Thame has designed one of the Urban Gardens, and as of lunch time on Saturday not a single plant had been planted. Which means our hopes of having her on camera at seven o'clock on Sunday morning just weren't going to happen. Chris Beardshaw has gamely agreed to come into London a day early to help out.
It's Andy Sturgeon - who's presenting some of our daytime coverage - who's usually amongst the last to finish; but his garden for Cancer Research looks - to my untrained eye - pretty much complete.
Technically Chelsea is the most complex TV coverage I've ever done. Unlike the FA Cup - which was playing in the Production Office as I write - you can't just set up the cameras and wait for the match to happen. You really do have to go out there and find your stories. My "Worst Job at Chelsea" medal would have to go to our scheduler, Raewyn Dixon. Her task is to make sure every presenter and every film crew, down to the very last minute, is in exactly the right place.
Alan arrived on site at seven o'clock this morning, and apart from a couple of texts, I hadn't heard from him since last year; but he really is as charming and funny off camera as he is on-screen. Added to that, he is absolutely one of the most professional presenters I have every worked with. Ask him to wrap up the show in 23 seconds and he'll do it in precisely that time and make it pertinent and poetic to boot. When he arrived through the Bullring Entrance it felt like the final family member had come home. And what a place to spend the whole of next week!
I hope we're still learning - even after eight years - about how we can improve the TV shows we make...And this year we'll be featuring more of the plants in the Great Pavilion than ever before. In fact the whole of our Wednesday coverage will be devoted entirely to plants.
What's for sure is that each year brings its surprises. My first came within seconds of entering the ´óÏó´«Ã½ compound. Even before we were on air we were a presenter down. This year Rachel de Thame has designed one of the Urban Gardens, and as of lunch time on Saturday not a single plant had been planted. Which means our hopes of having her on camera at seven o'clock on Sunday morning just weren't going to happen. Chris Beardshaw has gamely agreed to come into London a day early to help out.
It's Andy Sturgeon - who's presenting some of our daytime coverage - who's usually amongst the last to finish; but his garden for Cancer Research looks - to my untrained eye - pretty much complete.
Technically Chelsea is the most complex TV coverage I've ever done. Unlike the FA Cup - which was playing in the Production Office as I write - you can't just set up the cameras and wait for the match to happen. You really do have to go out there and find your stories. My "Worst Job at Chelsea" medal would have to go to our scheduler, Raewyn Dixon. Her task is to make sure every presenter and every film crew, down to the very last minute, is in exactly the right place.
Alan arrived on site at seven o'clock this morning, and apart from a couple of texts, I hadn't heard from him since last year; but he really is as charming and funny off camera as he is on-screen. Added to that, he is absolutely one of the most professional presenters I have every worked with. Ask him to wrap up the show in 23 seconds and he'll do it in precisely that time and make it pertinent and poetic to boot. When he arrived through the Bullring Entrance it felt like the final family member had come home. And what a place to spend the whole of next week!
Comment number 1.
At 20th May 2008, WendyBurgess wrote:I watched the coverage last night on ´óÏó´«Ã½ 2 and was rather disappointed. There was so much close up camera work during pieces on the show garden that I was unable to create a cohesive impression of each garden. By pulling back the camera on occassions we would have had the benefit of a 'Visitors Eye' view. I appreciate the plants should be the stars but given that everything is green this year I couldn't tell one garden from the other I'm afraid.
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