I must have been very good in previous life because my last minute move by the powers that be to a new venue has really been a fortunate one.

Originally Camera Corps had me based at the Excel centre, I had settled into this idea although many of the sports here are not really my thing (Fencing, boxing, Judo) and also the thought of working inside a dull exhibition centre for 28 days was not really filling me with joy.   At the final hour Debbie from Camera Corps called me with news good and bad.

Bad news was they had cut my days, 8 days less work, good news they had moved me to Beach Volleyball!

Now I’ve never really paid Beach Volleyball much attention either but it has its obvious advantages along with a daily sprinkling of dancing girls!

Working on this smaller venue with a small team has been fantastic, the red tape and issues associated with larger Olympic venues are greatly reduced and there are much fewer people to deal with.  At this venue we have a 7 meter jib, a Hi-Low platform, a commentary camera, a VHR remote head, 2 Camera corps Q-Balls, a Toschiba IK-HD1 minicam and a beauty cam which is a Hitachi DKH camera in a weatherproof housing.  Not tons of kit but not one of the camera positions or rigging was straight forward, I won’t bore you with the details!

The venue is just amazing, a temporary stadium nestled between The Mall, Downing Street, Whitehall and St James park right on horse guards parade.  From the stands you can see the london eye, big ben and the rest of the Westminster skyline.

The atmosphere at the Beach Volleyball has been just amazing, the crowd really get involved and the commentary team, the DJ’s and the dancers really make sure there is never a quiet moment.

More to follow from Horse Guards Parade…

Once again the FOS team had expanded and improved on previous years, it’s not all about cars driving up a hill, black tie dinners and celebrity spotting.  The “Goodwood Action Sports” arena had been increased in size and had five huge freestyle ramps, a reworked trials course, two super-technical BMX dirt jump runs, a raised BMX flatland platform and the pedal-powered might of the Animal Bike Tour team. The GAS athletes – hand-picked from the ranks of the biggest action sports stars on the planet put on a series of shows that left the Festival visitors open-mouthed at their sublime skills, commitment and courage as sporadic strong winds, and at times heavy rain, combined to push them to the limit.

The GAS athletes are no strangers to TV crews and minicams so were in there comfort zone with us strapping cameras to mudguards, helmets and handlebars.

As always the action on the hill was non stop and there are just too many amazing cars and drivers to list in on here now, Both Jenson Button and Henry Catchpole put in very impressive times in the Maclaren MP4-12C super car which we worked closely with all weekend, other cars we featured in the super car paddock were the Benley continentals and the Lotus, I am probably a bit biased when it comes to lotus being a Norfolk boy and all!  My personal favourite in the super car paddock was the Noble, looks and sounds incredible, hand built to your specification on a small industrial estate in Leicster, the Noble team build just 12 cars a year and have pretty full order book for 2012.

Our on board camera team worked tirelessly all weekend, we had over 20 minicams at our disposal including Sony MC1′s, Go-Pro’s and Panasonic POVCAMs.  Every shot requested by production we captured and we also captured lots of extras from intersting features like the “Race to recovery” trucks, lots of Lotus “colour”, an incredibly quick Mazda MX5, the Maclaren MP4-12C GT3 and many more.

I could bang the Goodwood drum all day long about how brilliant and well organised their events are but best to go for yourself and make your own mind up, be warned tickets sell out quick!

The timings for the Festival highlights are as follows but  subject to change:

- ITV4 on Tuesday 10^th July at 20.00

- ITV1 on Wednesday 18^th July at 23.05

Started with a 3hr drive from Lowestoft where I had been filming the previous evening down to Arena Aviation at Redhill aerodrome.

Despite the low cloud and driving rain we were told we had just 1hr to rig the Eurocopter AS355F2 IFR Twin Squirrel with 4 minicams and 2 mic’s.

We needed to film 2 of the rear passenger seats which would be filled by Paul Di Resta and Martin Brundle flying round the Silverstone F1 circuit.  We managed to get some good camera positions.   Amongst all the rattly and vibrating parts of the interior of the helicopter there were a few good mounting points.

Comm’s between the passengers were recorded on the soundmans recorder, video and back up mic’s recorded to hard drives under the passenger seats.

Now for the best bit………… Martin and Paul were not in Redhill with us, we had to fly up to Silverstone, meet them, film a few pieces to camera around the aircraft then they would hop in and do some laps of the circuit.

So Adam the soundman myself and Chris the Pilot jumped in and took off to Silverstone following the Sky News heli which filmed some nice air to air shots using its CinFlex HiDef stabilised camera.

The flight over central London was incredible, fantastic flying so low over our capital and having time to take it all in, you could clearly make out all the landmarks and you could see all the preparations in place in the parks for the Olympic events.  It was a great flight.

Once up to Silverstone we were quickly guided into land and the rest of the F1 production crew were waiting for us, they had filmed both the landings with a slow mo camera and a standard P2 camera.

Martin and Paul were both in a hurry to get off to fulfil other filming commitments so wasted no time in jumping and taking off, we barely had time to hit record and they were gone!

They did a few laps of the circuit, nice and low and did a couple of nice low passes over Pete the who had the slow mo camera, it all looked pretty dramatic with splashes of sunlight coming through the dark moody skies.

Once they returned we checked back and all looked great, quick sandwich while backing up all the footage to the production hard drives and then we flew back to Redhill, all in all a pretty amazing day, few more like that please TV god if your reading!

It’s been a real boys week! It all started bright and breezy on a Monday morning in Guildford with five super cars, 10 journalists, a bundle of media crew and some stunning locations to follow.

The car we were travelling in ourselves was also pretty impressive – an AMG E class Mercedes estate, driven by our very own tamed racing driver. Some say he doesn’t eat dessert because it makes him grumpy, we say “thank you Matty” for getting us there safely and without any mishaps.

So first a few tracking shots leaving town and then a fairly rapid blast down to the Euro Tunnel.
The Euro Tunnel was uneventful but as we left the tunnel compound in the French side we could see our journalists going off in all directions. Everyone was meant to be following a special on-board GPS/road book system, just like pace notes when you are rallying. Its main downfall was that if you missed a checkpoint it would not direct you to the next one, you had to go back and go past the checkpoint before it started directing you properly again. It was not ideal and we could see journalists using their phones to get to locations. We just used the onboard Mercedes sat nav that was pretty reliable throughout the trip.

So unsurprisingly the cars had all got split up and we were on our own so all we could do was get to the end of day location and get ready for the champagne reception.

The Châteaux where the Journalists were staying was stunning and as the sun set the front of the Châteaux and the cars were bathed in beautiful sunlight and the champagne flowed.

Needless to say the mechanics, film crew and photographers were not staying in the châteaux but down the road and the much more reasonably priced golf club! Once back at the hotel it was time to charge all the batteries from main cameras and minicams and review the footage and have 3 courses of French gastronomy.

The first photo opportunity the following day was at the abandoned race track at Reims. The pit buildings and grandstands still remain and the start / finish straight is now a road full time. All the remaining buildings have been preserved by volunteers led by the granddaughter of one of the original founders of the circuit.

For almost 50 years it was home to Formula One, sports car, bike and touring car action. Its long straights produced fantastically close racing; the narrow roads and dangerous cars of the time also meant it claimed many lives. A sign of its status was the building of the impressive permanent pits and tribunes on what was essentially a street circuit.

We shot some great footage of the cars in front of the old buildings, some of the journalists took the opportunity to do a little piece to camera and others took the opportunity to open up the cars along the start / finish straight so we could hear the engine noise reverberate around the old buildings. We were all fascinated by the amazing work carried out by the volunteers and we all agreed it is a very fitting memorial to all those who lost their lives on this track.

There are some nice pictures of the circuit here if your interested:

http://www.speedhunters.com/2009/08/temple_of_speed_gt_gt_reims_the_home_of_slipstreaming

The rest of the day brought some great driving past Dijon and up through the hills to Annecy to a Hotel with an amazing view over Lake Annecy.

We woke early the following morning to take some shots of the cars next to the lake and prepare all the minicams for the day ahead.
Although similar in miles this day did feel a bit epic with many of the miles covered being on small mountain roads, the views we were rewarded with made it all worthwhile tho!

The day ended with some nice pieces to camera at the Monte Carlo Beach Club and an evening presentation in the Maclarren dealership.

It was an incredible trip, fast cars, quick driving, stunning locations and some great footage for the media clients.

Really enjoyed working with such a small team with everyone helping out in every department, mucking in to make a unforgeable experience for the journalists.

I have always kept up to speed on The Guild of Television Cameramen’s events and awards as my father is one of the very early members he has always passes on his copy of “Zerb” once he has finished with it.

The magazine is a great read, there are always articles on technology and shoots relevant to current projects and it’s always interesting to read articles written by people you have know for years but maybe don’t see as often as you should.

The GTC also does a great job of bringing together industry professionals and providing it’s members with a forum to learn and pass on information.

I was recently invited to join and as it’s been on my mental list of things to do for some time I decided to do it. I was quite surprised to be told that Dad and I are the first father son members of the GTC, I thought nepotism was rife in the TV industry, maybe not so!

As a member I was invited to attend the AGM, workshops and Awards this weekend in Birmingham. Although I was not able to attend all the things they had planned I was able to make the awards and the dinner dance after.

The Event and the GTC itself have many sponsors in the industry, most noticeable is “Vitec Videocom” who not only own Vinten but have recently bought “Camera Corps”. It was great to see Bill Vinten at the awards, 90 years young, still supporting the GTC after nearly 40 years of involvement.

Bill Vinten was awarded in 2010 the most prestigious GTC award the “TiCA” award. It was not the first time the name Vinten has been etched on the award as William Vinten collected the first GTC award in 1974 for the “Fulmar Pedestal”. You can read more about the history of Vinten here:

http://www.vinten.com/en/timeline

The TiCA is awarded to an individual who has furthered the cause of the GTC by fostering and improving the art and craft of the professional television cameraman over many years.

The previous role call of TiCA winners is pretty impressive, Barry Dodd, John Brennan, Ron Green, Clive Lovell and Sir David Attenborough to name just a few.

Now to be honest I did know Dad was going to be awarded something on the night, I had no idea it was the TiCA! As time went on and on and the table of awards was depleted, some choosing to make a short speech and others choosing to take the award and scuttle off to admire their prize I started to wonder if someone had got it wrong and he was not going to get one at all!

So they came to the final award, the TiCA, and they moved quickly on and suddenly they were playing a short video of some of dads early work including, Z-Cars, Doctor Who, top of the pops and Tales of the unexpected along with a few shots of him in his finest flares and bushy 1970′s beards.

It was very funny and when it ended there were rapturous applause from the audience.

Dad made a short speech and credited lots of people including previous award winner Ron Green who was his camera supervisor at the BBC in the early days.

Safe to say the award will be taking pride of place in the Greenway household and I was very privileged and proud to be there to see Dad receive the award.

The dinner afterwards was very relaxed and informal and good chance to meet and chat to all the people we hadn’t met earlier in the day.

Lots of people keen to see dad’s award and the first father and son members and many interested to hear more about what I do, all the different minicams and remote cameras available, and what I do day to day.

It was a great weekend, disappointed with myself for not getting more involved with the GTC earlier on in my career but it would be safe to say I will be more involved from now on.

A pretty tricky late night rig of 6 x Sony BRC H700 cameras in BBC Radio 2 studios whilst the studios were live was rewarded with a fantastic intimate days filming the following day.

I have worked at Radio 2 before filming bands in the live lounge with Jo Wiley. It’s always so relaxed and low pressure in there, be happily set up and having a cuppa, chatting to someone and then all of a sudden the band pick up their instruments, launch into song and you remember why you’re there!

The first band up were The Musgraves who played one of there own tunes, Comfortable Shoes, and then did a great cover of I Need A Dollar, what a fantastic tight group, they really set the whole tone for the rest of the day.

Throughout the day we saw appearances from Dave Pearce, Clare Teal, Steve Lamacq, Kelly Jones, Damon Albarn, David Rodigan, Richard Hawley, JD McPherson, Huey Morgan, Will Young and of course we have to give a mention to Sir Terry Wogan.

Most memorable for me were the performances from Paloma Faith and Carol Decker. Before her first track, Paloma was relaxed and joking around with her manager/agent and a couple of people from Radio 2, in the background her two backing singers in 7” heals and short skirts were pretending to be robots, trying to shake each others hands and drink tea all jerky and weird nearly tripping over the cables and mess on the live lounge floor. It’s and image that will stay with me and always make me smile.

As for Carol Decker, well she certainly looks a little older than when China In Your Hand was first released… I am sure we all do! When it was released it was a school-disco favourite, not a favourite of mine at the time I have to say, but having seen her bang out that song with just her guitarist to assist her, I’ve got to say – she’s still got it!

All the artists and Radio 2 DJ’s were on great form all day, it was a really unique intimate atmosphere and this really came across in the broadcast.

The day didn’t go without a few hiccups, including the audio feed for our web stream being pulled from the patch panel by BBC engineers on three separate occasions, even with a big sign on it saying “LIVE STREAM AUDIO, DO NOT TOUCH”

It was a real pleasure working with everyone at Radio 2 and the BBC digital/online guys and I look forward to doing it all again soon.

The footage is on the BBC website for the next 5 days then on a file sharing website somewhere else!

We rigged the Premier League Poker in Vienna at the end of March and it only got de-rigged last night after the final tournament which had been a 48hr poker marathon!  It was an epic shoot, thankfully for my own sanity I decided to split the job so I did the first 6 days then someone came out to take over from me for the next 10 days of filming.  All the kit behaved itself although it was very hot and smoky in the casino so the temperature inside the TV table was much hotter than we are used to but the Sony BRC H700′s worked faultlessly throughout.  Although it was an epic shoot, making over 30 1 hour programs for Sky there were some pretty interesting goings on, most memorable was when one player put over 60,000 euro into the pot, to call the other player, the other player showed his cards and the player who had just called thought he had a worse hand and folded his cards!  Just goes to show even poker players get tired not just the crew!

This month our Bradley Engineering remote camera kits has been very busy, filming Million Pound Drop every weekend and we also filmed an Orchestra in Westminster Central Hall.  Titanic Requiem was a massive shoot with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and above the orchestra there was huge screen on which was meant to be holographic images in time with the music, however when we turned up we were told that there had been problems with the truss holding the screen.  One of the motors had failed and one corner of the truss had come down and ended up resting on top of one of the priceless chandeliers.  Overnight the riggers had come in and fixed the problem and secured the truss, however the hologram projectionist had not had enough time to program and set up the equipment to the new position and needed another 12 hours to get set up.  The end result was that the whole lot came down and there was no centre piece, no holograms and no screen.  The show went on anyway and our little cameras were scattered amongst the orchestra and provided great close up shots of the woodwind, brass, choir and conductor.

And finally on the Million Pound Drop last night a nice young couple won a nice £125,000, it had been a bit of a long run since anyone has won a decent amount, some really stupid contestants, some people who just mis-read the questions and then some nasty questions.  However Stuart and Karen broke the current bad run of luck and walked way with a whopping £125,000, the money clearly meant a lot to them and Karen was speechless at the end of the game, needless to say everyone on the production team were really pleased for them.

Thats all for now, not had time to mention the new motoring show I have started filming, save that for next time, still not fully sold on the Sky F1 coverage, it’s bloody good but I do miss DC, EJ and Jake having a bit of banter in the pits!

Thursday had me back to Dunsfold with McLarren, this time with the GT3 car, a million miles away from the road going MP4 12C. Had a couple of hot laps with one of the technicians at the wheel getting some nice exterior shots using a combination of Go-Pro and Sony HXR MC1 minicams. We got all the footage we needed from his laps but the subsequent laps with Lewis Hamilton at the wheel were in a different class. Lewis managed to get it a little out of shape on one corner, that really put the willies up our presenter who was in the passenger seat. From the in car camera you can see him hanging on for dear life! The presenter got out grinning like a cheshire cat, the on boards looked great, watch out for them on an F1 channel near you!

So do I stay loyal and watch this season on BBC or turn and see what Sky have to offer?
I think I’ll have to watch the first few on Sky just to see how they cover it!

It’s been a great start to the year with lots of work from clients old and new and lots of bookings coming in for the summer months.

This week we are on the Bank Job again, I was told the viewing figures for last week were OK but not great, there were a few technical problems with the questions system and a few stumbles by Goerge Lamb the presenter but on the whole the show looked great and our Bradley Engineering system of 4 cameras worked faultlessly throughout.

Lets see how things go tonight, we have a different director, new contestants, fingers crossed for an exciting show.

Earlier this week I was working with a fantastic little crew filming a press day for the new McLarren road car.

It’s the 4th of these press days we have done, press are flown in from around the world to have a tour of the factory then they get to drive 3 different MP4-12C cars.  I have 4 Sony HXR MC1 minicams rigged as in car cameras, at the end of the day each member of the press gets a hard drive with all their in car footage on along with interviews with the car designers, Ron Dennis, Jenson Button etc and beautiful stills shots of all the cars.

Thats all for now, post again soon