During a recent glamorous motorway services based pow wow with my sponsor Mountain Horse we came up with a list of ideas for some collaborative activities, and last weekend we ticked the first item off the list.
I tagged along to Mountain Horse’s video shoot for their 2015 Spring/Summer collection and embarked on some covert filming of the team in action as the day panned out. You can see the video I made of the day below. To look through the full behind the scenes album of images I took click here (they are all on Mountain Horse’s Facebook page)
My job as ‘paparazzi’ was to document the day as it unfolded and produce some ‘behind the scenes’ content. Armed with my new fave toy, my GoPro, an SLR camera, my compact and as a last resort the camera on my phone I was hoping to capture something good on at least one of my devices!
The day began in the tack room with a Christmas-esque unwrapping of new boots and fancy clobber. There was much squeaking and smiley faces all round as next year’s range of leather long boots were unveiled which you will have to wait till next year to get your mits on, but trust me they are worth the wait (they smell good too! mmmmm new leather boot smell, yum)
The initial first few scenes were filmed in and around the tack room and yard and I did my best to stay out of every frame and focus on filming the unfurling action myself. I was shooting blind with the gopro as it has no display on it so I spent a lot of time pointing it at Matt the camera man, Angie from Mountain Horse and Goose another Mountain Horse sponsored rider and model for the day and just hoping it was capturing something useful. If I wasn’t going to be in the running for a Bafta then I at least wanted to cash in on £250 from You’ve Been Framed with my footage 😉
A quick spot of picnic lunch courtesy of Angie and her whistle stop tour of Waitrose and we packed up and set out onto the gallops and hills at the back of the yard. Goose then did a great job of keeping a lid on ‘Zi’ her fit and feisty event horse’s excitement levels as she cantered up and down the gallops on cue.
6 hours after the first frame and all the shots from the scene list were in the bag, and we all headed back to the yard to pack up and ship out.
Having been on the other end of the lens playing ‘model’ with Dustry when we were in their Autumn/Winter shoot it was fascinating to turn the tables and be the one behind the camera for a change, although that didn’t last for long as I got roped into an’end of shoot day team selfie’!
