Recent Trails for the BBC

I get most of my work from BBC Creative who use my writing, directing and editing skills to provide junction trails for the BBC.

Interesting series on BBC One about how the UK treats its fishing waters. It’s a tough life and I can’t imagine filming this was a barrel of laughs.

The BBC Creative News team asked me to sort out filming a social trail for the new Sunday show hosted by the inimitable Laura Kuenssberg. The big names behind the big stories. Laura Kuenssberg talks to those making the news, inside and outside politics. I enlisted the help of Patrick Fuller and spent most of the show’s testing day following Laura around, me with a BlackMagic 6k on a Zhiyun 2S gimbal and Pat with a portrait slung Canon C300 Mk 1 on a minirig.

The latest Talking Business promo starring presenter Aaron Heslehurst. This was a lot of fun to write and direct and Aaron is a joy to work with. Lovely camera work from Tom Webster and excellent sound by Rowan October.

A trail for the Future of Work season of programs on BBC World News. Shot by me on the departmental Canon C300 and lit by me and Production Manager Andrew Phan,who also gripped. Effects work carried out by Michael Drayton on the BBC Creative Design team. The entire project was written, signed off, cast, shot and delivered in two weeks.

Fast turnaround trail written and directed by me, camera by Paul Mullen and Andrew Phan and shot during the piloting for a new afternoon show on BBC News.

The Art of Directing 30 second trail with Cush Jumbo (The Good Wife and now The Good Fight) needed a fast turnaround idea that could be shot in 30 minutes. I put a script together and shot it in just under thee days.

The beautifully stylized look is entirely down to the D.o.P/camera operator Justin Evans.

The BBC One trail for Celebrity Masterchef 2016. It bears testament to the online pulling power of YouTube Vlogger Marcus Butler. Thanks to his involvement the trial had over 43k views in 5 days (15k views on the official MasterChef Facebook trail, 5k views on BBC One Facebook, 23k views on BBC YouTube)

One of those trails where the research for the edit makes you take a hard look at your current lifestyle;

Lovely read from Andrew Scarborough for the BBC’s Invictus Games trail.

Secret Britain gets the Catfish and the Bottlemen treatment;

A 30 second trail highlighting BBC One’s coverage of the Queen’s 90th Birthday Celebrations. One of the highlights was directing the voiceovers; Kirsty Young in the Desert Island Discs studio and Huw Edwards in the BBC news studio at New Broadcasting House. Both of them were wonderful to work with and consummate professionals.

BBC World News joins forces with Mercedes and UBS to go behind the scenes as they prepare for the 2015 Formula 1 season. Security was tight so I had to direct this with script notes and let Whisper Films do all the hard work. They did a great job and made sure David Coulthard was well looked after.

A BBC Two trail for three new films from Louis Theroux set in LA. Music courtesy of Cypress Hill.

Here’s a lovely bit of chemistry between Matt Smith and Dr Brian Cox. The trick here was getting a lecture that hadn’t happened yet to appear in the past in the screen that Brian is looking at and somehow get the whole thing to make sense;