Over the 4 days over the August bank holiday, I usually end up going to a massive christian festival called Soul Survivor attended by around 25,000 people over the course of 2,5 weeks. I have been attending this event for the last five or so years, and every year, as I have gotten more and more into film and creative media production, have noticed how good the media coverage is. There are always camera operators floating around taking b-roll footage, or crews going round shooting interviews or taking photos of people for their brochures and websites.


Fast forward to early July.

A message was posted up on the festivals Facebook page, outlining some opportunities that had become available to be part of the media team, working in crews to film around site and generally help out. Naturally, I emailed them as soon as I can, linking them my blog, some of my work and my CV. I got no reply for quite a while until I got an email on the day of the event. At first I was a bit frustrated, but after organising a lift up and all my camping gear I headed up in the morning for a day of production work. I got on site and met up with the production team and was shown around the production office. I was immediately blown away by the efficiency of the team, as well as the amount of kit at their disposal. The thing that caught my eye first was the DJI Ronin, a motorised gimbal stabilizer used in many feature films worth about 4500 pounds. Unfortunately you had to have special training on it, but the owner of it kindly showed me its workings. The owner of the gimbal was also the proud owner of a DJI Phantom 3, a motorised drone you can  attach one of the many GoPros they had to get stunning arial shots. Once again, I wasn't able to use it but it was very interesting learning its benefits and drawbacks and actually seeing the results of the footage it takes. Amongst this there was also a plethora of 5DMk3's with a whole assortment of different lenses, different mono pods, tripods, sound gear and microphones. I even had a chance to do sound for the first ever multi-channel, multi-camera shoot using three Canon 5DMk3 and a lapel mic wired up or connected to a H6 Zoom recorder, which allowed multi channel recording via xlr cables. This was high intensity and put alot of pressure on me because I was finally able to test my skills out that  I have learnt at university. It was also an incredibly rewarding and it helped me learn a lot more about how efficient a crew can and should do to operate effectively as a unit.

During the same day we also  filmed a foam party. My role in this was basically to around in a crowd of about 1000 people in an enormous cowshed with a go pro and trying my best to get good shots. I was part of a crew of around 8 people, all of which had 1 or more go pros attached to them in some way or another. One guy managed to attach two either side of an enormous Rode boom pole, which meant aerial shots were absolutely no problem.


Unfortunately, due to a recurring back injury, I had to leave that same evening, but the people from the media team were very understanding and were very keen for me to come back for the next festival beginning only two days later.

Fast forward those 2 days.

Just before I arrived at the site  I received an email from the head of the media team with an urgent request asking if I could basicallyedit all of the seminars that have been recorded at the festival over the course of the three days and place them on a USB drive to sell to the festival goers for about 30 pounds each. Obviously, being keen to help out and get involved, I obliged, and effectively ended up editing approximately 45/65 of the seminars. I ended up starting at about eleven every day and working as late as I was allowed to (usually til about 12) simply because I had a deadline to meet.

We edited the sound using a program called GoldWave, which was tricky to learn at first but after a bit of practice it became second nature and is not that dissimilar . I now feel significantly more confident with