Crane Training

Mole Crane

Nigel Saunders

In 1987 Nigel Taylor and I were asked to run a course to train junior members of the Camera Department in Swinging and Tracking Camera Cranes.

We had Chapman Nike and Electra Cranes, Vinten Herons and Kestrals as well as Mole Cranes at Television Centre and these were all operated by members of the camera dept.

The course started off with Crane Safety and basic manoeuvring and finished with the assistants working is groups of two to camera scripting a music number they were given and then track and swinging the crane on the performance. During the course, one of the exercises was for them to operate the crane on one of the numbers we had scripted and so to help explain and guide them through we produced three demo tapes.

All three are on You Tube (or the Tech Ops web site):

BBC Television Centre Camera Crane Training “If I Should Love Again”
In 1987 Nigel Taylor and I were asked to run a course to train junior members of the Camera Department in Swinging and Tracking Camera Cranes. We had Chapman Nike and Electra Cranes, Vinten Heron’s and Kestral’s as well as Mole Cranes at Television Centre and these were all operated by members of the camera dept.

BBC Television Centre Camera Crane Training “Life Will Go On”
In 1987 Nigel Taylor and I were asked to run a course to train junior members of the Camera Department in Swinging and Tracking Camera Cranes. We had Chapman Nike and Electra Cranes, Vinten Heron’s and Kestral’s as well as Mole Cranes at Television Centre and these were all operated by members of the camera dept.

Mole Crane Training

You can hear the bar count on the track, each of the moves was given a specific number of bars so that we could time the whole sequence of moves and be at the right point for the shot and performance. Nigel and I were both trained by Senior Cameraman Roger Fenna at Television Centre but Roger was not available on the day we had TC1 to record the demos so we were delighted that the amazing Ron Green agreed to be on the front of the mole for these recordings. I feel the skills we all learned on the back of these cranes led us to be better camera operators when our time came.

If you just want to hear the bar count, see this version from YouTube:

[Ed: for copyright reasons, the song has been muted (“Weekend in New England” by Barry Manilow) but the talkback is present and the bar count is clear]