The Making Of

On the 1st May the Wild Duck Productions team travelled down to Kent to shoot the match taking place at Priestfield Stadium, where past legends of Gillingham Football Club would take on a select group of fans. With five cameras - four video and one stills - you'd be forgiven for thinking it took a lot of preparation. Technically it did, but since they were only approached just over a week before the match, it was some pretty quick preparation.

The idea was presented by Robin Stangroom, who would be playing in the match but who is also one of Wild Duck Productions' freelance assistants. At first he just wanted someone to come along and film it for his own records, but that thought quickly developed - as ideas do - into something a bit more substantial.

To film a match on a full-size football pitch is, understandably, quite a challenge. To do so with limited cameras and operators and to go on to produce something that could be marketed to Gillingham fans as a quality product is even more so. The Wild Duck Productions management team, Tom Pearson and Davina Hughes, called an urgent meeting to discuss the feasability of the plan with Robin, head cameraman Alex East and our floor manager from Belief Encounters, Daniel Goodby. It was decided that each one would go away to make various enquiries and then meet once more. At the second meeting - with only four days to go - the team decided not only to go ahead and film the match, but also to film a behind the scenes tour of Priestfield Stadium.

When the Monday finally came around, Tom, Davina, Robin, Daniel, Alex and Daniel 'Taylor' Chesterton met for an early breakfast and a final production meeting in a rather wet-looking Kent. Camera positions were finalised, interview questions were completed and it was time to face the music - or more accurately the Head of Security at GFC, Malcolm Rous. Despite it being a bank holiday and his day off, Malcolm had agreed to meet the team at the stadium and escort them around the Priestfield complex.

With Tom and Alex on cameras, the crew began in the kitchen and worked through the Great Hall to the Piano Bar, and on to the boxes and the director's boardroom. Whilst wandering through the complex they came upon a door which had clearly been attacked; Malcolm explained that only the night before somebody had broken in through one of the stadium gates, and, although they had not taken anything, had vandalised parts of the Priestfield business centre. The tour continued though, and everything seemed to be going smoothly - the team was considerably ahead of schedule and feeling quite privileged to be seeing the raw essence of Priestfield's life and structure.

When they reached the Blues Rock Café however things slowed down. Malcolm went for the lights... and nothing happened. The next fifteen minutes or so were a blur of dark shapes as each member of crew fumbled around trying to find light switches. The bar lights were discovered, as was the control for the stage curtains, which proceeded in an attempt to swallow Daniel Taylor whole. The crew were about to give up on the hope of filming in there when Malcolm called the bar manager and discovered that the computer which controlled the lights had been switched off. It wasn't long before light flooded the room and the crew could get back to work.

From the Blues Rock Café it was on to the dressing rooms; Robin and Davina drove around to the Brian Moore stand with all of the equipment for the filming of the match while the others went to film an array of toilets, showers, baths and benches. The crew then reconvened in Match Control, where the fascinating technology and equipment was explained in detail by Malcolm in an interview for the DVD.

And that was the easy bit.

The next task was setting up the various camera locations; three would be connected to the mains power supply - two in the gantry above the Gordon Road Stand with Alex and Tom filming, and one in the Brian Moore Stand, taking power from Match Control and controlled by Daniel Taylor. The other camera, to be operated by Davina, would be situated at the Rainham End, but running on battery. The hard part was the logistics of filming the interviews, arrivals of players and supporters, warmups and dressing room talk and then making sure that all of the operators were in the right place for the start of the match. By this point Robin had left to become his alter-ego of FoGFC player, so the crew was one member down with the complications setting in.

Alex and Daniel Goodby were in charge of interviews, and Tom and Daniel Taylor were to film arrivals and warmups, which left Davina to find lunch (which, due to the fact that the food stands were closed and that the local shop had run out of sandwiches, ended up as a selection of crisps, biscuits and fizzy drinks).

Finally the match approached and everyone took up their positions around the stadium. The camera Tom had been using was returned to Davina in the Rainham End and Daniel Goodby distributed tapes and batteries as required. And then the match began, with Daniel radioing through instructions occasionally, the most prominent of which were those for half time; Davina would bring her camera to the bottom of the gantry for Tom to rush over to one of the dressing rooms, whilst Daniel Taylor went to the other with his camera. When half time actually came around though only Tom made it to the dressing rooms, since the rest of the crew were frantically searching for the spare tapes which seemed to have been left in Match Control - which was now locked. It was only right at the end of half time that Daniel Taylor managed to get hold of them, and managing to get everyone filming for the start of the second half was a close call.

At the end of the match, Davina and Tom swapped cameras again as Tom and Daniel Taylor headed back to the dressing rooms and Alex and Daniel Goodby ran to catch the players for post-match interviews. Davina and Daniel Taylor then began to clear out the gantry and move all of the equipment back towards Match Control as Tom grabbed some footage of those leaving the grounds.

The complicated bit was over; it was time to go for a proper meal down the pub.