Make Great Video

My time at BBC Radio Nottingham was invaluable, as was my time as a television weather presenter at both BBC East Midlands and ITN/Channel 5. But it was returning to BBC East Midlands Today as a features reporter that it clicked. I made over 500 films for the programme, often working alone, and was acknowledged nationally within the BBC as one of their most creative practitioners in Britain. It was here I discovered my affinity for self-shooting and editing films. I went on to spend a spell at the BBC's training centre, showing other BBC employees how to capture their stories single-handedly. This taught me that training people was far from easy... I made a voluntary film through the BBC that helped secure a year’s new funding for a local charity. I saw the need for strong storytelling beyond BBC television and in 2004 I set up Coracle Films to help organisations tell their stories well. During this phase I made over 1,000 video features for broadcast. But then I was being shown around a brain injury charity, ahead of a corporate video they were asking me to produce, when I looked in some of their rooms, saw the work they were doing right there with their clients and it struck me that THESE were the stories they needed to tell. Over and over again. And the people best positioned to tell these stories were them, not me. So I set about devising a way to train them. Smartphones came along and these dispensed with most of the complications of video-making. And by now I'd thought about it so much that I knew precisely what I need to say... I started running smartphone video training Masterclasses for the Guardian. I became an instructor with LinkedIn Learning based in California. 'Make Great Video' is my latest way to train cohorts from around the world through online tutorials, live consultation clinics and feedback.