Sunday 3 May 2009

Islands of Britain

Last July I spent a week on the Small Isle of Eigg, south of Skye. While we were there, the weather was rather temperamental and the islanders were getting rather excited by the prospect of a film crew arriving. The crew arrived duly with Martin Clunes to film on the island has part of Clunes's forthcoming series of Islands of Britain.

How lucky to catch the programme tonight after a day long of rather boring computer chores. How lucky also to catch exactly that episode that included Eigg. The crew stayed for four days, and while we never saw them filming all the talk across the island revolved around them and their staging of an impromtu bonfire on the beach. Unfortunately, it kept raining evening after evening, which didn't stop them though as you will see.

It's funny to see people from the week again - the guy from Glasgow with his front teeth missing, that German family who went swimming when it was freezing cold, and the piper who was very excited by Clunes's presence.

I don't know how these videos, catch-ups and various links will work if you try and access them from outside the UK - so apologies if they don't work. I also don't know how many episodes there are, but this is the bumpf for the first one:

  • Martin Clunes's Islands of Britain, Episode One
  • and the general STV website here
This was a sketch from the one day of sunshine - you will recognise that day straight away in the programme...

Singing Sands
Singing Sands, Eigg
Pastel on Board, 35x25cm

PS:
Ach... looks as if STV/ITV doesn't even do proper 'watch it again' - the full programme suddenly reverted to a 2min preview... apologies for that

5 comments:

Making A Mark said...

That's a fabulous pastel Gesa. I didn't see the programme last night but I'm hoping that they'll repeat the series.

I was once involved in making a television programme for the BBC. There is even a picture of me painting in Provence somewhere in the BBC film archives! There's an awful lot goes on which people don't realise. I couldn't get over how many people have to stand around holding things!

Jeanette Jobson said...

I really like the colours in this piece Gesa.

Singing Sands....what a lovely image that conjures up! My router is having issues right now so video is out til I sort it today. Technology either works - or not.

Lindsay said...

Lovely sketch and it really has the feel of wind and water in it.

Alas, the link does not work Stateside. Boo hoo. Looks like a good series and maybe public television here in the US will pick it up for here.

Gesa said...

Singing Sands - yes... I'm very susceptible to such names, I must admit, Jeanette :)
Thanks for the comments on the pastel, everyone.
Katherine: yes, filming is such a intriguingly and bizarre business... my ex worked as a location scout so I got some sense of the multitude of jobs, people and tasks involved in a single commercial. There is also generally a lot of filming going on around where I live and work... very interesting, but also slightly weird - it made me stay away from the filming on Eigg (and so did the bad weather :)); I've just got a request from a filmmaker to talk about some of my work on surveillance for a documentary he's making. I am very undecided on that, and now prob took too long to reply in any case...

vivien said...

I loved the work you did there

It looks like being a good tv series too :>)

It made me really want to get to the islands