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MY FIRST TRIP WITH A CAMERA CREW PARAGRAPH 1. It was books that first captured my imagination about faraway places. TV travelogues always seemed the poor relation to the classic written accounts, although of course the pictures were rather better. And then there was the issue of authenticity. AH those pretentious theatrical types dying of thirst in the desert, as if we didn't realise there was a camera crew on hand to cater for their every need. These days programme-makers know that the audience is more sophisticated and the presence of the camera is acknowledged. But can a journey with filming equipment ever be anything other than a cleverly constructed fiction? PARAGRAPH 2. I recentiy got the chance to find out, when I was asked to present two one-hour programmes for an adventure travel series. The project was the brainchild of the production company Trans-Atlantic Films, which wanted the series presented by writers and adventurers, as well as TV professionals. My sole qualification was as a journalist specialising In 'adventure' travel. However, I was thought to have 'on-screen' potential PARAGRAPH 3. The first programme was filmed in Costa Rica. Within 24 hours of my arrival, I realised that this was going to be very different from my usual 'one man and his laptop' expeditions. For a start, there were five of us - director, cameraman, sound recordist, producer and presenter. And then there was the small matter of £100,000 worth of equipment I soon realised that the director, Peter Macpherson, was a vastly experienced adventure film-maker. In his case, the term 'adventure' meant precisely that 'Made a film with X,' he would say (normally a famous mountaineer or skier), before describing a death-defying sequence at the top of a glacier in Alaska or hang-gliding off the Angel Falls in Venezuela. Invariably, these reminiscences would end with the words: 'Had a great deal of respect for X. Dead now, sadly...' PARAGRAPH 4. Part of the brief for the series was to put the presenter in unusual situations and see how he or she coped. One such sequence was the night we spent in the rainforest canopy near the Rincón de la Vieja National Park in Guanacaste province. I don't have a head for heights and would make a poor rock-climber, so my distress is real enough as the camera catches me dangling on a rope some 30 metres up, well short of the canopy platform. PARAGRAPH 5. Ironically, it was the presence of the camera, looking down on me from above, that gave me the impetus for the final push to the top. By this time, I'd learnt how 'sequences' were cut together and realised that one last effort was required. I had to struggle to stay coherent while the camera swooped within a few ntillimetres of my face for my reaction. In the end, it was a magical experience, heightened all the more by the sounds of the forest - a family of howler monkeys in a nearby tree, amplified through the sound recordist's headphones. PARAGRAPH 6. Learning how to establish a rapport with the camera is vital and it took me a while to think of it as a friend rather than a judge and jury. The most mtirnidating moments were when Peter strolled up to me, saying that the light would only be right for another 10 minutes, and that he needed a 'link' from one sequence to another. The brief was simple. It needed to be 30 seconds long, sum up my feelings, be informative, well-structured and, most important of all, riveting to watch. 'Ready to go in about five minutes?' he would say breezily. PARAGRAPH 7. I soon discovered that the effect of the camera on what was going on around us was far less intrusive than I had imagined. After a first flurry of curiosity, people usually lost interest and let us get on with our job. We were also flexible enough to be spontaneous. Our trip coincided with an 80 per cent solar eclipse, a rare event anywhere in the world. We were in a village called Santa Elena and captured the whole event on camera. The carnival atmosphere was infectious and made a welcome addition to our shooting schedule.

Questions 1-7

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