And they're off...

Monday the 8th March came and we had scheduled in the all important first full day of filming for the 'ACM Gospel Choir Documentary'. This is how it went:

I was already half way to Guildford on Monday morning as I had spent the weekend at home for a friends 22nd. I was up and eating breakfast (eggs and bacon on toast!) when Cornish Mike and Thirsty Kirsty turned up at around 11am. We downed a quick cuppa, discussed the plans for the day and got on our way to the ACM.

We got there with good time and got straight on the phone to Emily Lambros and Rikki Ancell, two members of the Choir who had agreed to be filmed rehearsing. This was when our first problem hit. Julia, the lady who we needed to approve the filming of the ACM building was off ill and so, after a long discussion, we were restricted to filming only in one of the practice rooms. This was an positive outcome yet it would have been good to get more footage of the ACM and what it is about.

We got our video of the guys practicing, asked them a few questions regarding Mark and the Choir then moved on to Emily's house. We considered filming some of her everyday life in Guildford but decided against it as we already had one hour of footage from the rehearsal alone! Once again, we hit the road...this time, destination London...

We arrived in Croydon just before 4pm. We had a chat about what we were going to do then went in. Having looked around we decided to film in Marks lounge as the lighting was best, it was a more relaxed environment and the sound was better (no echos etc). We spent an hour and a half filming our interview with Mark and even got his wife, Tracy, to answer a few questions.


We hit the road for the last time at about 5.30 and, after escaping the London rush hour traffic made a quick return back to Bath. All in all it was a great day filming and I'm very happy we made the extra effort to go all that way as it will add so much more depth the the documentary...