Fast Turnaround.

I have been meeting Clients at Dublin Airport to shoot / edit / FTP back to their Broadcasting Base. These are fast turnaround stories often on the day for the evening news. There are many good locations and interviewees within the vicinity as often time has not been on our side.

There are too many Clients to list. Below are some of the more memorable moments. Please bear with me as I build this.

World Cup Qualifers / Ireland.

In October 2008 I was contracted to travel with The Republic of Ireland Squad to film behind the scenes footage of the qualifing campaign. This was to be FTP or sent via internet directly onto Eircom's Soccer Republic Website. This was a fast and furious job, sometimes sending up up ten pieces in a day. Good from the point of view that the best way of coming to terms with this new system of sending pictures via the net is to send loads! I quickly learned how to assess the speed of the connection and ajust settings accordingly. It is apparent that material has now to get to its destination more quickly and cost effectivly. FTP is a great system for this. No wasting time trying to find the feed point. There can be difficulties, particulary with the internet connection and sending large files which can be firewalled along the route. There are always ways around such difficulties. Wish we could say the same about Henry's handball which ended the campaign.

Lebanon

July 2006 Beirut. We arrived into the unknown. Parts of The City had been completely destroyed and other parts left untouched. There is always a great sense of uncertainty when you are posted into such a situation. I would consider myself a cautious person, it's important to calculate the risk as correctly as you can. There was a crew of two, myself and Mark Little working for Prime Time, Ireland's flagship current affairs programme. The local Hezbollah took us on a tour of the Southern Suburbs. The destruction was complete. Picture wise, it's in the little detail where you find the story. Amongst the rubble the discarded items of lives ruined, a children's toy, a flower which once stood proudly on a dinner table. If you can keep this eye for detail when the circumstances are so difficult then it is possible to produce really good stories which reflect humanity under such duress. In recent years it has become harder to see material on this level on our screens. The pressure of 'feeding the machine' has led to more and more meaning less.