Saturday 12 April 2014

Sir Tony Robinson's Tour of Duty History Channel - Hahndorf Shoot - 2014-04-12

Sir Tony Robinson of Time Walks, Time Team & Baldrick of the Black Adder Series is currently shooting in Australia and New Zealand the next TV series for the History Channel called Tour of Duty.
 
Today he was in Hahndorf here in South Australia.  We decided to go and have look to see how an episode is done.  Also to see another Sir (have also seen Sir Bill Oddie of the Goodies fame).
 
Was really interesting.  Thought we'd be "watching from the outside", but the next thing we know we were among the people crowding around as the "audience".
 
So I can say "I'm on TV"!!  Well, have to wait till January 2015 to see.

This is the show that it was being filmed

Sir Tony Robinson having some pre-shooting photos

He was practising his craft here not complaining
(funny how a photo can make something look like something completely else)
The next few photos are of Sir Tony just standing, going over his lines and how he feels to present it.  A true professional. The director is getting everything else ready for the shoot in the background.
 


 
 
It was interesting to see how much preparation there was prior to actual shooting
 
That's the boom camera in the foreground.
Was fascinating watching it being setup and used.

Getting crowd shots as Sir Tony is mic'ed up in the background

Like this shot as is gives a great vision of behind the scenes setup with
Sir Tony on the platform looking at the Hahndorf Town Band

Getting the shot prepared, or was he saying how big the fish was, or has he taken up opera?

Before the shooting began the director & Sir Tony explained to the crowd
what was going to happen and things that we should be prepared for and do.
 
Sir Tony was explaining (& quite relaxed and funny) what to do.
Although it looks like he's scalding us (not true though)

About to hand over the mic to the director so shooting can begin!

It was fun to see the number of takes (usually 3) for each little segment of the intro.  All to get different camera angles and shots.  Overall, closeup, crowd etc.  Each time we had to be as if we hadn't heard it before.  Quite fascinating on how it works and all good fun. 

There are no shots of the actual shoot, as I thought that wouldn't be right.  Besides it was too much fun being a part of it.

Between the next shoot, I took some photos of the autumn leaves of the many trees that line the main road of Hahndorf.   

 
 

The intro segment done & a small break.  Straight on with ..... the Closing segment!  For this we all had to move around to a different part in the crowd to make it look like it was done at the end and not directly after the Opening segment.

All up close for the shooting of the Closing segment
"Closing, Take 1 ......  Action"
Was a real fun time, in seeing how this was shot.  Can not wait till January to see the edited production piece.

So look out for the History Channel - Tony Robinson's Tour of Duty!