Twenty-six years ago I was given the opportunity to assist a senior Grip at Yorkshire Television, on a drama called A Touch of Frost. As well as a great mentor we became good friends, I later became a staff Grip at YTV and eventually went into the freelance sector.
The two most recent jobs I have worked on in Yorkshire was a feature film called Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, which was shot in Sheffield. I’ve also recently worked on an Aldi commercial involving the Brownlee brothers in Ilkley.
‘Challenge’ is one of the main reasons a Grips role in the industry is so important. Every shot conceived needs to be logistically and safely thought through. A good grip will know which piece of equipment to use in order to fulfil the brief and if there isn’t a piece of equipment out there then it usually is created for the job.
One example of this, from my experience, was back in 2006/7 on a job called Ghostboat, which was set mainly on an abandoned submarine. The brief was to create a way of tracking the camera inside the submarine without taking up room and without taking up too much time setting up – access and egress being very, very limited. So we built a couple of monorails on either side of the main section of the Sub. They were fastened to ceiling sections, dulled down and left in shot – as they now looked like pipes. As underslung, single track, tracking shots were few and far between at this time I also had to fabricate the carriage which would support the camera. I later developed the carriage to run on cable, which was used for some very high wide shots on the first series of Peaky Blinders. Before drones I might add.
I love the rural access which Yorkshire provides. You can be filming in a modern city centre or suburban estate and ten minutes down the road you could be in the middle of green rolling hills and not have a sign of civilisation in sight.
I also love Yorkshire because of the concentrated amount of industry talent found here. Every colleague I’ve had the pleasure to work with has such a high standard of work. You know every project created in this region is a success.
Even though the industry is expanding I feel the opportunities to enter into this world are getting harder, especially compared to opportunities that would arise in London. My advice is to be committed, be respectful and not to expect results straight away. Take your time to learn, don’t jump the gun. Most of all persevere.
Production standards are higher. Projects are becoming increasingly more challenging: be it either access, safety, timescale or creativity. Also some productions have grown in scale, for instance, a multi camera drama isn’t just 2 cameras it could be 3 or 4.