Alan Taylor

With regards to dodgy catering at Wembley, there used to be a company called “Chef In A Box”, who supplied meals to the crew.  Each meal came in a large, rounded  expanded polystyrene container approx 30 cm wide, 30 cm high and 40cm long with moulded compartments for each item (1970s, so environmental issues weren’t considered ).  There was always a piping hot container of tomato soup, the usual range of sandwiches, snacks and fruit together with the worst Rum Baba ever created.  I had never had one before and didn’t fancy them after that, but one day I was served a proper one at a dinner party and it was excellent.

The problem with all those polystyrene containers was that each one was about the size of a hat box and occupied just as much space empty as when full.  A van would arrive and unload 50-100 boxes, and then go away.  The crew had to find a way of disposing of all the empties.

Meals provided by production were a bone on contention.  At one point they would supply the most basic of sandwiches and call it a meal.  The union got involved and it was decreed that unless a meaningful meal was provided, the crew could claim a standard rate meal allowance.  The definition of a meaningful meal called for a starter, main and desert, of which at least one had to be hot – hence the tomato soup because it was the cheapest way to meet the union requirement.  

I don’t recall ever having anything other than tomato soup in those boxes. As it happens, Alec Weeks (or a least I think it was him) despised tomato soup and when arranging for football clubs to feed the crew on MOTD, would specify that any soup served must be anything but tomato.

 

Dave Plowman

I well remember working on the Cup Final at Wembley while on attachment to OBs. Covered by ITV too.

Our catering consisted of a cold pack lunch, supplied by a budget airline food supplier. ITV were grilling steaks in the TV compound.

Decided it was time to defect.

 

Pat Heigham

Oh Boy! Was I ever glad I went freelance!

One reason for liking freelance work around the world was the opportunity to eat well, and differently, on someone else’s check!

A situation, shooting at the Wimbledon Theatre – there were two crews there, I was working on one using the foyer as a set, another commercials company had the stage. Both had own catering trucks outside, and as I knew both, and they knew me, it was easy to pick and choose from either menu!


I heard about a job that the company I worked through did not put me on. Apparently, the runner appeared with burgers at lunchtime for production. When asked where was the grub for the 3 camera crews – nothing doing!

Had I been on the job, I would have packed up the camera kit into the car I was driving and left. (Bolshy? Moi?)

Luckily I never worked for that production company and never ever would – I know who they were!

Look after the crew and they will work their bollocks off!

 

Bernie Newnham

It always seemed just plain good management to look after the staff, whoever they were. Jobs get done better, and it’s the director who has to live with the result, so being pleasant and efficient  is sensible.    It’s a two way street though, and one thing about everyone being freelance was that you could ask for people again – or not.

I was at Duxford once, on the shortest day of the year. Absolutely clear blue sunny sky, but not for long. At some point I declared lunch and said to the (staff) crew ” Can we make it a reasonably quick lunch please?”  The cameraman said “We get an hour for lunch”. “Ok”, I said reluctantly. Him –  “From when we get to the pub”.  It’s 28 years on, and I’m still annoyed. I was being a really nice director. Still, it did all just get done, as the sun grew low in the sky.

 

Alan Taylor

As Bernie says, the relationship between freelancers and clients is a two way street and it works both ways.

Some American TV directors can be very tricky to work with.  Colin Callow, the excellent freelance unit manager was working with a rather notorious director who fired yet another freelancer, and then expected Colin to arrange a replacement. Colin explained to the director that there are only two types of freelancers of that grade in the UK.  The ones he refuses to work with, and the ones that refuse to work with him. 

Soon after starting freelancing, I realised my that some clients were not worth the hassle. Once work built up, I decided to avoid working with such clients.   Initially it seems like a bit of a risk because you’re turning down work which you could otherwise have done, but in reality, other clients filled in the gaps and as most bookings tend to be repeat bookings, you end up only working with nice people, rarely needing to enforce the “only nice clients” rule.

There was one OB company which had been problematic for some time. I reached the end of my tether with them and had told them that I didn’t want to work with them any more.  Despite that,  their booker subsequently  phoned me and said “I gather you’re available on Saturday”, I said “You need to understand that there is a difference between being available, and being available to [ your company ]”.

On another occasion I was working with the managing director of a big OB company.  During a chat, it became obvious that he believed that freelancers were always trying to screw his company.  I pointed out that freelancers often believe that clients are screwing freelancers too, but the reality is that both views are wrong. The relationship between client and freelancer is symbiotic.  Facility companies invest millions of pounds in state of the art OB trucks, but those trucks are worthless without people who can operate them well.  Similarly, freelancers have spent a lifetime developing skills which are worthless without the expensive equipment to operate. Freelancers need the client to be sufficiently profitable that their investment pays off, while clients need freelancers to make a sufficiently good living that it’s worth staying in the industry. If either party truly screws the other, they risk killing the goose that lays the golden egg.  He conceded that he had never thought of it in those terms before, but it made perfect sense. 

 

Pat Heigham

Working under contract for Thames TV, I discovered that it was heavily unionised. Whilst camera and sound were ACTT, the unit drivers were NATKE and extremely militant. On the way back to base from a shoot somewhere in Essex, the particular driver announced his intention of stopping for his 20 minute tea break. However, threatened with GBH if he didn’t take us back to base PDQ, he grumblingly carried on driving!

A shoot in the Lake District had a lovely director who asked us that if we were happy with a sandwich for lunch, he would take us to dinner that evening. He took us to the Miller Howe, probably the finest restaurant in the UK. Dinner was a superb production, no menu – one ate what was served that evening.

The lights were dimmed as the girls brought in the dishes, all synchronised for each table, and the meal was an experience to enjoy. We were very happy to work with our director after that!

But I nearly caused a NATKE strike! Lovely shoot in Iceland for a schools programme with Pam Rhodes presenting. We leapfrogged around in a Twin Otter aircraft, and picked up self drive Land Rovers when we landed. I had taken some 8mm cine and was running it in the crew room when the NATKE drivers realised that we were self driving and got pissed off that they weren’t taken on the trip. It was one of the best jobs I had ever had, as we had the experts with us for all the sites visited, better than a package tour! Some of the place names gave rise to awful jokes: “It’s a Long Way to Akureyri” and “Do you come here Hofn” for instance! Overflew the new island of Surtsey which had just emerged as a result of an undersea volcano eruption, and stood on a live one – couldn’t put your hand down on the ground for more than a few moments. Rescued an abandoned puffin chick which Pam kept warm inside her anorak! Puffin was also on the menu for one place we ate, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to partake. Discovered some interesting facts – the volcanic eruption which did for most of the town of Heimaey had deposited loads of ash which protected their roadways before the lava encroached, so the canny Icelanders swept it up and flogged it to West Germany to be compressed it into insulation boards.

Another sequence showed the knitted wool industry. The sheep’s wool is fashioned by splendid ladies into jumpers, hats, socks and blankets and the natural colours maintained. Our director was working out the next set up, turned round to find no crew – we were all in the downstairs shop, buying up the place. I still have the woolly hat I bought for my mum, which is stretchy enough to fit over the Sennheiser headset when working outside in winter. Eating out was expensive as most foodstuffs are imported, and transferred around the island by juggernaut lorries. One place was so quiet, ideal for recording dialogue, except one could hear the lorries ten minutes before seeing them and ten minutes after they had passed.

At another place, Mývatn, we suffered a plague of small black flies. Kept the chatterboxes quiet, though, as you daren’t open your mouth! We gathered that that location was used by the Americans to train the astronauts before the moon landing, as it was thought to be similar to what they might find.

A totally fascinating country and well worth a holiday visit.

 

Alan Taylor

When we were shooting “Box of Delights”, they wanted genuine snow as it was central to the story.  The main location for those scenes was the grounds of a hotel near Aviemore and the shoot was in very early January.  It initially looked as though the snow would not be making an appearance and then it snowed suddenly and in massive quantities.  The riggers had a hell of a job getting to the location through the snow, but managed it just in time before the weather got too bad.  The crew flew up.  The heaviest snow fell during the night while we were all tucked up in bed.

The caterers planned to arrive for the middle of day one, but the roads were totally blocked and they got stuck for a few days near the border.  The hotel was happy to cater for the entire crew, but were only accustomed to providing silver service, so meals were superb,  rather formal, but unhurried. 

Shooting so far north, so close to the winter solstice meant that it was only light for a couple of hours each day. The original shooting schedule stated that the unit would break for lunch, but that would have meant stuffing our faces during the only decent bit of daylight.  Without being asked, we suggested working continuously from first light to dusk and only eat afterwards.  The Production Manager later told me that he would never have dared to ask a crew to do that on day one as meal breaks were traditionally such a sensitive subject.  For those who saw the series, you might remember that those snow scenes were awesome.  Virgin snow two feet deep for as far as the eye could see with a clear blue sky while shooting the scenes that really needed it.

The caterers did finally get through several days later.  It’s probably the only time I’ve known the crew to be disappointed when some particularly good caterers turned up on site.  The weather was so cold that when the caterers put out tea, cakes and sandwiches, the banana sandwiches froze solid.

As if shooting daylight scenes up north near the winter solstice wasn’t absurd enough, industrial action interrupted some later parts of the shoot and subsequent scenes had to be rescheduled to be shot down south later in the year, which is how we ended up doing a complex night shoot on 21st June in southern England, when it was only dark for three or four hours.

 

Nick Ware

While we were still living in Ripley, a neighbour of ours had registered their huge open-plan kitchen with Location Finders, and it became quite common to find either commercials or TV drama units based there. Quite a clever idea really, when you’ve just spent a fortune on a new kitchen!  

On two or three occasions I joined the queue for location catering. That was at a time when there would invariably be people there who you knew, so it never got questioned. It always felt good to be scoffing their nosh without even having to work for it!

 

Dave Plowman

It’s quite common for neighbours to be invited for lunch at the caterers.

One way (and a cheap way) of thanking them for not complaining too much about disruption.