Page 11 - Fujifilm Exposure_4 Samantha Janus_ok

ts up the ratings war.
tv production news
N SPANDEX
N SPANDEX
budget went on building the sets alone. cameraman, gave him a few pointers and reviewed “For a start, we were dealing with a lot of syn- his tapes. Then Neil just got better and better. He
thetic ice, white plastic stuff. The ice floor is real really flew round the ice like a professional.”
ice but all the ramps and so on are synthetic. Everywhere I’d been up and down the country, I’d never seen people bend or ramp it as much as we wanted to. It was a huge step into the unknown and when you’re doing that you’re spending money, money you can’t recoup because any mistakes you make, you just have to hope you learn from.
“We put this one ramp up and the skaters - who are good, tough skaters - said ‘You are joking! You want us to go down that?
Get real!’ but after they’d tried
it, most of them were doing it
quite happily, laughs Norgate.
“We shot a show a day, so there were nine days of filming. We were originally going to do seven shows, which built in a couple of days off, then we upped it to nine which meant we couldn’t have any days off . We’d already built the schedule and nothing else could give. It nearly killed us.”
Actual filming then posed additional problems. As with any sporting event, the bulk of the big cameras were arranged on cranes and rostrums around the side of the playing area. But Norgate’s experience on Gladiators had taught him the importance of getting closer.
“It’s like a football match.
without actually getting on to the field of play. But we wanted to be in amongst the skaters, to make people feel they’re part of the action, so we put three cameras on the ice, two Betas and one DVC.”
The first two were manned by professional cameramen who happened to be able to skate a bit, but, says Norgate, it was the DVC cameraman who really made things come alive.
“The DVC cameraman, Neil Francis, was an ice hockey player and reserve Ice Warrior,” explains Norgate. “He’d never worked as a cameraman before. He just picked up the camera and ran round the ice with it. Lisle Middleditch, our chief
Thetrickybit,though,iswhenyouwantshots from a cable cameraman who can be both on and off the ice. As the crew quickly realised, he can’t be taking skates on and off all the time. “And this cameraman, John Turnbull, in particular, couldn’t skate anyway” says Norgate, so they went through several different types of footwear in an attempt to find something that worked for him.
“Firstly John tried these things called kippers, like overshoes with studs, that came from Canada. They quick- ly went out the window because he wasn’t mobile enough in them. Then he went to golf shoes with spikes on the bottom but the spikes got blunted too quickly off the ice on the concrete. He finally ended up in spiked running shoes and adopted this strange running technique. He bridged the gap between ice and non- ice absolutely brilliantly, to
give him full credit.
“The floor crew that went
to change things on the set had exactly the same problem. There we were trying to get them to move huge bits of kit on and off the ice and some- times they’d be pushing some-
thing and just slipping, not going anywhere.”
The end result justifies all of Norgate’s and his crew’s efforts. Fierce, fast and fun, Ice Warriors is slick and - with its laser lighting and Mad Max style costumes - visually spectacular. But will that be
enough to make it a success?
“It is a feast for the eyes, but at the end of the
day it is all about the games that are played,” says the Norgate. “There’s lots of fantasy and lots of costumes, but it all depends on what’s going on the ice and whether that’s exciting enough to grip the viewer. We know it will!” ■ CERI THOMAS
Fuji Professional Video are delighted to be the major supplier of acquisition
You can cover it