Gustav Holst

Tonight I filmed with Tony Palmer for his BBC4 documentary about Gustav Holst the famous composer. the filming took place in Whitefield near Manchester with an amazing Band, Besses o' th' Barn. There was a few of us from Salford who went along to the venue and we set up three cameras to capture the footage from a collection of angles in as few takes as possible. I was keen to get onto the sound recording side of things for this as it is something that I really enjoy and the challenge of a Brass Band in a tiny room was to big to pass.

I did make a mistake early on, however I am thoroughly pleased with the final results. The footage will form a small part of Palmers two hour documentary but it should be aired mid march.

Tony Palmer

We had a guest lecturer the other day named Tony Palmer who has created some fantastic Music documentaries with the likes of Leonard Cohen, Frank Zappa as well as some great popular music documentaries for the BBC and many many more! This really got me thinking as for a long time I have enjoyed music documentaries and it is a challenge I would one day love to tackle.

Through his discussions he talked about how he was allowed complete access while working with Leonard Cohen, with no industry figures or PR even present for the majority of the filming. In this day and ages, this kind of access would be close to impossible to achieve, nevertheless I do feel that there is still the capacity for some truly amazing music documentaries.

Dan of Geek discusses some really great docs here, with each one have a a true depth that really pushes the boundary of simply following the band around while on tour. Finding and getting access to individuals who are places on such a commercial pedestal and seen as so important is undoubtably a tough challenge. EVen cutting ones cloth on lesser known acts requires such a huge amount of luck, I think the music documentary will be a goal of mine for some time to come.