New BBC Documentary

[Pullman99]

Just noticed this on another forum. The BBC has commissioned a Scottish independent production company - Tern TV - to make a new documentary about Donald Campbell. The programmes will be part of the new series that starts next week under the banner "The Genius of Invention". Sounds interesting and I trust that the production company will be / has been in touch with you guys.

Quote from the Broadcastnow.co.uk website: "The Scottish indie (Tern TV) has also been commissioned to make a 60-minute BBC2 film about the late speed obsessive Donald Campbell. Speed King tells the story of Campbell, who died in 1967 while trying to break the world water speed record with his boat Bluebird. Directed by Ashley Gething and commissioned by the BBC’s commissioning editor for science and natural history Kim Shillinglaw, it promises to unveil new footage of the crash. The BBC is eyeing up a Sunday night slot, potentially after Top Gear, in spring 2013."

More on the series here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latest ... ntion.html

[Renegadenemo]

Yup,

We had to get permission from Sky News to film with the BBC but the good news is that we're filming with the Beeb later this month. Should be good fun.

[ace_chris]

Just noticed this on another forum. The BBC has commissioned a Scottish independent production company - Tern TV - to make a new documentary about Donald Campbell. The programmes will be part of the new series that starts next week under the banner "The Genius of Invention". Sounds interesting and I trust that the production company will be / has been in touch with you guys.

Quote from the Broadcastnow.co.uk website: "The Scottish indie (Tern TV) has also been commissioned to make a 60-minute BBC2 film about the late speed obsessive Donald Campbell. Speed King tells the story of Campbell, who died in 1967 while trying to break the world water speed record with his boat Bluebird. Directed by Ashley Gething and commissioned by the BBC’s commissioning editor for science and natural history Kim Shillinglaw, it promises to unveil new footage of the crash. The BBC is eyeing up a Sunday night slot, potentially after Top Gear, in spring 2013."

More on the series here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latest ... ntion.html

Be interesting to see what turns up regarding new footage of the crash - wasn't the crash 'film' only ever covered by a small number of broadcasters?

[f1steveuk]

I know Neil was contacted, and I was in conversation with Christina and Amy at Tern, but all they seemed to want was Craig Breedlove's contact details. At no time was "new footage" mentioned, but they have been working on this for a good eighteen months, which bodes well that it's not a re-hash of all the usual stuff.

[Terminator]

Had Ashley,Julia etc from the BBC crew mentioned filming up at Coniston with Gina before Christmas. Ashley did say due to cash restrictions that he had to view personally hundreds of hrs of footage ( Normally a person would be allocated such a task not the director) and some of it had not been seen for years. Not sure if this is new stuff or Old Stuff we will all just have to wait and see. Great bunch of people socially who got all very techy once the camera started rolling who are aiming to produce a different angle. I once again shied away from the camera/interview thing don't care for that sort of thing much. They are due back at Coniston to finish off things I believe, I was half expecting them to rock up on the 4th January but no show.
Novie

[sheppane]

I believe this documentary should be something pretty special.

I have been working with Miranda Peters, from Tern, since October 2011, and Ashley Gething, since he was appointed director, last summer. The documentary will aim to cover the story form a standpoint of the engineering challenge DC faced with record breaking.

The interviewees are to be confined to people who knew Donald Campbell, as apposed to well meaning arm-chair experts.

Gina, Tonia, 'Robbie' Robinson, Craig Breedlove and David Wynne-Morgan are all featured, and the aim is to try and use as much unseen and undiscovered high quality film footage as possible. The template for the documentary should be pretty interesting, and certainly distinct from what has gone before.

Ashley's previous directorial credits include The Battle of Britain, which featured Ewan McGregor, his brother and a few WWII Merlin powered aircraft !

I am honoured to have been asked to act as a consultant for this documentary, and have told the Tern team that I'm happy to make any small contribution that I can, to help them produce a first class documentary. Needless to say, they also intend to feature DC's iconic machines courtesy of the BBP and the NMM.

[Pullman99]

As an "extra", if you catch the new BBC series "Motor Racing at the BBC" that started on BBC4 last Monday and is repeated today on BBC4 at 2100, as the first of a series of 5 half-hour programmes, there's a brief sequence of Donald at Ullswater in 1955, including a brief interview. Must look again to see if they've actually included footage of one of the early Coniston attempts too. This series has received very adverse criticism on the various motor racing forums after the first programme as there is a considerable amount of non-motorsport footage and quite a few errors have crept in. Shots of motor shows and traffic aren't really necesary in this cotext. But, at least they're making use of their archives; it's just that it could have done with the input of a motorsport historian or two! Part 2 is Monday at 2000 on BBC4

More details here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rhvc7

Watching this again, it looks like they've just included footage from 1955.

[f1steveuk]

Speed King!!!??? That doesn't show a great deal of imagination does it? The BBC have used this before, twice, as did the ITN sell through video. Hopefully I wont be so disappointed by the programme...................

[Renegadenemo]

Great photography, I thought, when they were at our place, and I'm sure Neil kept a tight rein on the historical accuracy. I never liked that projecting film onto stuff and I found the last doco with toilet doors, gravel car parks and gas tanks truly awful but that's just personal opinion.
It'll be interesting to see whether they can re-tell a story that's been done a dozen times, and called Speed King once already, and keep it fresh and informative. Certainly hope so...

[rob565uk]

Disappointing though that it shows Donald climbing into the 1950s revision of the boat (small tail fin, camera pod above cockpit) as the commentary suggests this is him getting into K7 on the fateful day.