on assignment : ronnie corbett and co. for comic relief
March 9th, 2009 | Published in on assignment
Following a successful shoot with David Tennant, Comic Relief asked me to shoot the filming of a special Red Nose Day episode of “The Sarah Jane Adventures” featuring Ronnie Corbett as a special guest “baddie”. The filming took place at the BBC’s studios in Treforest, where they also film Doctor Who and Torchwood.
The crew started at 7am, but I was asked to arrive for 12 noon and stay until about 7pm when filming finished. Comic Relief needed pictures of the filming taking place and also studio style shots of Ronnie Corbett and Elisabeth Sladen (and also K-9). They also needed a specific shot of Ronnie for the cover of Radio Times, which was going to print the next day!
After a quick chat with the producer from Comic Relief and a couple of the BBC crew, I set up my portable studio in an empty TV studio. The massive amount of space was a real luxury. TV studios are, by definition, the ideal place to set up an on-site photo studio!
Here’s the setup, ready to go…
Once the studio was up and running, I shot a few pictures of K-9 (who, incidentally, was very easy to work with – a true professional!). Then I started shooting some on-set stills during breaks in the filming. Since, I don’t have a (very expensive) sound blimp, I was unable to shoot during takes, but I got what I needed during rehearsals.
Next we shot a set of pics with Ronnie and Elisabeth together, followed by Elisabeth on her own while Ronnie went off to makeup. I had probably 5 minutes with the two of them together and another 5 minutes with Elisabeth on her own. TV stills usually involves a LOT of waiting around and then frantic 5 minute bursts of activity when there’s a suitable break. Today was no different.
Here’s some shots from the brief session…
After some more on-set stills, I then had to wait until Ronnie had finished filming for the day and got out of his makeup and costume for the main shot of the day – the Radio Times cover shot.
He’d had a very long day (it was about 7pm by this point) and gave me 5 minutes to get what I needed. The great thing about working with professionals is that 5 minutes is enough. Ronnie “switched it on” and ran through a great series of poses, giving me exactly what was required. Five minutes later and we were done…
