Snow falling on crews

Sunday 23/03/08

 

Story:  Snow falling on crews

 

It was just my reporter and I who left the office at 0830 to go to Heathrow airport’s Terminal 3. We had permission to film on the forecourt only, not in the departures building at all. The reason given was that this was Easter Sunday, which meant the airport was very busy but that both Virgin and BAA staff numbers where at a minimum and so no one was able to escort and supervise our filming.

It was strange weather, which would have been more suitable to Christmas than Easter, snow flurries and a temperature of 1 degree C. On the way down from the car park I stopped to try and capture a little of this setting from the second floor. Once on the forecourt we saw crews from Fuji and Asahi, so at least everyone was having an ‘un-eggciting’ Easter.

 

It was still only 0920 and we wanted a wide shot of the Terminal so we moved to one corner to take it. As I started rolling my reporter noticed Asahi’s cameraman moving, “oh, oh” she exclaimed and then Asahi’s shooter was joined by Fuji’s, signalling that “it” was happening and we were not in the right place. So we ran over to join the other crews, fast, and were just in time to get a group shot of the Hawker family (parents and two daughters) walking towards us with their suitcases. They kept walking, broke into two groups of two and entered the terminal building. What was going on? They were very early, had not stopped to talk to us and then went inside at almost the opposite end of the building from where the Virgin check-in desks are located. As I was thinking this Bill popped out again and said that they’d be coming out to speak to the press later.

 

Whilst we were waiting around, literally chilling, the group was joined by a crew from Sky, some photographers and a solitary cameraman for the BBC. I took this chance to get some general shots of passengers, the terminal and the falling snow.

 

After the producer from Fuji got a hot phone tip from Exclusive PR, which he generously shared with all of us, we all moved over to just outside the Virgin Atlantic doorway, set up in a semi circle and waited. This being Easter most of us were operating on minimum crew too and so we had the reporters kneeling in front clutching the microphones whilst the cameras stood behind them. Do you know what this ended up doing for our pictures? Well when the Hawkers finally came out and gave their statement and answered questions it was not to the cameras but to the reporters, which meant they were looking down most of the time. Great. Not.

 

On the way back up to the car I had a chance to get a general shot of a Virgin plane at its gate and then we were gone.

 

A quick edit, choosing the best sound bits from Bill and Lisa, then fed it by 1230 so that Tokyo could use it from its 0030 news onwards. This piece of news having messed up my Easter lunch was to be my reporter’s treat and so we went to eat Thai in the Churchill Arms pub.

 

The snow had stopped but the chill remains.