Pop Shield

Over the past months, each of the studios used by the Nations Favourite has received an upgrade to make it more aesthetically pleasing and ready for filming.  Once a mish mash of duck poo green baize walls clashing with every available colour on the selectable LED lights, it is now a black box full of about five little black robotic cameras that look like Death Fader which stare down at the hosts and guests.  Understandably, some presenters have not embraced the change, any many bookings now begin with the engineer needing to either repower the confidence monitor next to the presenter, re-sync the presenter camera which has been unplugged, or reach up to the ceiling to unfold the black metal flaps around the bright floodlights.

One presenter who has embraced the visual aspect of this transformation is Waylon Wine, a technophile who arrives camera-ready for his lunchtime show having presented a live TV morning show every day and is used to being under the spotlight.  Other presenters prefer to lurk in the gloom.  From an engineering point of view, whilst it’s nice to have new gadgets to play with,  the installation of all the new kit has pretty much entirely eroded any possibility of eye contact between the presenter and the engineer, as well as designating the worse-sounding guest microphone position as the most attractive one.

The new system readily provides content for social media, and the presenter camera also feeds the video input to Room for remote interviews.  A new large screen on the wall facing the presenter is able to display the engineer’s desktop at literally the push of a button.  If the engineer has performed this task correctly, and at the correct time, the presenter will be able to see their interviewee.  If not, they will see bored engineer’s cat videos and their inbox showing the latest promotion on Ripples bundles.  In typical fashion, I try and learn all the necessary ropes to make this new workflow run smoothly and promote the new facility to others where I can.

Eccentric journalist/cowboy Waylon Wine is a lovely man.  He is tall and slim and likes to wear jeans and statement shirts and is a big fan of the raw hide comfort boots gifted to him by Dave Wrong.  When animated (particularly during the year he appeared on a season of Not Strictly Dancing) he is all windmill arms and big leggy, a little like his predecessor David Sleet at 3am on election night.  Except that instead of riding a horse through the desert he generally rides a bicycle through the West End.  Waylon very much likes to meticulously film, edit and then spew footage from his helmet-cam onto his Twaddle feed.  This allows him to freely comment on to what extent he judges that each driver who has overtaken him has adhered to, or is in contravention with, The Highway Code.  In fact, Waylon is such a huge fan of travelling on two wheels that he recently bought himself a penny farthing.  Somewhat of a challenge, the saddle of a penny farthing is much higher off the ground than a normal bicycle, and the wheels are ridiculously mismatched in size.  In view of the fact that Waylon’s head is already a long way off the ground as it is, this renders him a good couple of meters of the ground on a precarious saddle.  I’m no expert, however a ‘working from heights’ course certificate and a basic grasp of physics leads me to understand that the forces at work may accumulate sufficient kinetic energy to be potentially damaging.  And indeed, a couple of weeks ago Waylon managed to knock himself whilst out setting off from his house in his jodhpurs and cycling helmet across the vast Texan plains of his constituency, promptly colliding with a tuft of grass and flying headfirst over the handlebars.  Thankfully, he got away with a black eye, and some back pain, however these – plus the discomfort of his embarrassment – were perfectly counterbalanced by his glee at crowbarring the word ‘divot’ into an on-air discussion with Dave Wrong about the incident.

Today, I report for duty at Waylon’s production desk and routinely listen across the two-way with Zen Hoots to find out what is in store for the show.  It’s typically a mix of serious and offbeat items, however, seems fairly serious today.  The Ukrainian refugee crisis, waiting lists for NHS operations, cyber warfare and an interview with the survivor of a crocodile attack in Zambia.

As it is an in-depth feature, we have decided we will interview the crocodile attack survivor via Room, in vision.  I check the outgoing camera feed, then line up the incoming and outgoing audio by selecting the relevant soundcard sources and testing the I/O by using the be-be-deep-ba-dup-boop! tones, dialling the clean feed into Room back by -8db and toggling the ‘use original sound’ in-call feature.  I do an off-air test with our guest, who is sounding like she may benefit from using a headset mic, so I ask her, with a couple of minutes to go, if she has one available.  She says she will go and get one and gets up…slowly… but makes it back in time. It is only later, during the interview when I discover the attack left her with a mauled lower leg, dislocated hip and badly injured foot that I begin to feel the guilt rise up into my cheeks.

Anyway, this is nothing to what happens next.  Waylon starts the item, during which I sense him physically reach out and adjust the camera in front of him.  I don’t see what he does, but these cameras are eminently twistable and tiltable.  Manual handling generally breaks the connection with the remote control. Waylon, throws to the guest, I reveal the cameras on both sides at the last minute, which is our new customary practice, and in an instant I hear the very serious item start with an on-air announcement  ‘Oh. I’m realising as I speak to you that you might be seeing me upside down.” “Yes, I am, Waylon.”

Oh god. I swiftly cut the camera to save the guest’s sanity, whilst Waylon starts fiddling and swivelling and thanks to his confidence monitor, turns it up with right way and we carry on.