August 17, 2025 • 47 mins
Emmy award-winning cinematographer Keith Partridge takes us behind the scenes of adventure filmmaking, revealing the extraordinary skills and mindset required to capture footage where few dare to venture.
From dangling 3,000 feet off Angel Falls in Venezuela to filming on the summit of Everest, Keith has made a career of putting cameras in places that seem impossibly dangerous. What's remarkable is how his journey began – not scaling mountains from childhood, but working in a factory making pressure switches for electric showers after failing his A-levels. His path changed forever when he spotted a BBC job advertisement at 18, beginning a journey that would eventually lead him to resign without another job lined up, simply because he felt called to adventure.
The heart of our conversation explores a particularly harrowing moment during the filming of the BAFTA award-winning documentary "Touching the Void." Keith recounts finding himself on a hanging sheet of ice just an inch thick in the Peruvian Andes, where his guide could only mouth the words "don't fall." This story perfectly illustrates Keith's approach to extreme filming – it's not about recklessness or being "gung-ho," but rather about preparation, situational awareness, and team trust.
What comes through clearly is how Keith views fear as a positive force – a natural pause button that makes you assess situations carefully. For anyone fascinated by adventure, filmmaking, or how people perform under pressure, this conversation offers rare insights into a truly extraordinary career. Keith's journey proves that sometimes the most remarkable lives begin with simply being open to opportunity and saying "yes" when adventure calls.
If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a five-star rating and review, and tell a friend about the show.
WANT TO BE A GUEST? You can submit your own career story through our website at noordinarymonday.com or email us at hello@noordinarymonday.com.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hello and welcome to another episode of no Ordinary
Monday.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
I am your host, chris Barron,and each week I sit down with a
guest whose job is far fromordinary.
We explore how they got there,what it's really like behind the
scenes, and then we'll deepdive into the single most
(00:26):
unforgettable experience oftheir career.
Today I've got a fantasticguest and someone I've actually
had the privilege of workingwith several times over the
years.
He is Emmy award winningcinematographer and filmmaker,
keith Partridge.
Keith is basically the guy thatpeople call to film something in
a place that seems absolutelycrazy to put a camera.
(00:47):
He has spent decades capturingjaw-dropping moments in places
like the summit of Everest andunderground rivers in Papua New
Guinea, and then also with medangling off the world's highest
waterfall in Venezuelawaterfall in Venezuela.
In Keith's big story, herelives a terrifying moment
(01:08):
while shooting the incredible,award-winning documentary
Touching the Void, when he andthe crew found themselves
hanging perilously off an icewall in the Peruvian Andes.
It's the sort of place whereone wrong move could have been
fatal for he or the crew, but itreally shows the skill and sort
of teamwork and commitment thatkeith and other guys in the
crew.
Uh, need to capture thesemoments on film.
(01:29):
With all that said, I'mabsolutely thrilled to bring you
my conversation with keith.
I hope you enjoy.
You're listening to no ordinarymonday.
Let's get into the show.
Cool, all right, keith?
(01:51):
Welcome.
Welcome to the podcast.
How are things today?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Good to see you.
Actually, the last time, ofcourse, was on the west coast of
Alaska that we spent timetogether.
I believe, if my memory servesme right, that was a fun shoot,
wasn't it?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
And we said right, that was a fun shoot, wasn't it?
It was indeed.
That was a couple of years ago,I think.
Now we were having a jaunt onan archaeology shoot on the west
coast of Alaska.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
That's right.
Far too many body parts beingwashed out of the crumbling
permafrost as it melts fromthese low muddy cliffs on the
Alaskan coast.
Yeah, it was good fun.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It's very fun.
Um, so just give us, uh, Iguess, before we get into things
, just kind of tell us what youdo for a living okay.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
So most of the time if say, if I was in a bar and so
.
So what do you do for a living?
I say I.
I film really scary stuff.
Most of the time that seems tobe like, oh, what does that mean
?
I say, well, I go on these wildadventures and expeditions all
over the world with a camera inmy hand and try and capture the
action as it unfolds.
But of course that's led intoall manner of other stuff.
(02:54):
So be it feature film work orfeature documentary work, and a
lot of it is sort of specialistfactual documentary style stuff.
But basically, basically, Iwould describe myself in a very
simple way as an adventurefilmmaker and obviously you and
I know each other pretty well.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
We've done a few projects together in the past,
um, over the last seven, eightyears or so.
I was working as a director,producer or producer in some of
those roles and you were thecinematographer on a lot of
those.
So you say you're an thecinematographer on a lot of
those.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
So you say you're a venture filmmaker, but on a lot
of these projects your primaryrole might be cinematography,
director, photography that'sright, because my speciality
really is getting cameras intoplaces where not many other
people can get them into byusually rope access techniques
or mountaineering techniques,caving techniques, all of those
sorts of stuff which you know asan adventurer is one thing, but
(03:48):
then you stick a camera in itin the mix it takes it to an
all-new level really ofcomplexity and sort of head
stress.
But actually head stress, I mean, is in a good way, you know,
because I love problem solvingand um, but yeah, being an
adventure uh, filmmaker,adventure, cinematographer is
about as much fun as you canhave in a toy shop and a sweetie
shop combined, and that goesinside.
(04:10):
Where we first met was, ofcourse, dangling off the angel
falls of venezuela, so, and ifyou got it wrong there, it's a
full 22 seconds to think aboutit before you splat into the
river below.
So you know a full 3 000 foot,1 000 meter drop, and so you
know it's great to work withpeople who have that element of
understanding about theenvironment and where you're
(04:31):
going, and that's where the teamis super important.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Venezuela.
A thousand meters, as you say,3000 feet off the ground, which
was an extraordinary experience.
But you said you know it'sabout as much fun as someone can
have, but there's probably alot of people out there that
that might be their worstnightmare.
You must've dealt with thatbefore.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Well, yeah, it's not everybody's cup of tea, is it?
But of course I haven't reallydealt with acute levels of what
you might describe as fear.
So you have to be supermotivated to go into these
environments.
Of course you do.
But the other thing is you haveto be super prepared and you
can't just rock up and go andhang yourself off a 3000 foot
high waterfall.
That is just craziness.
(05:15):
That is absolutely where it'sall going to go wrong.
So, starting small, addingelements into the mix, which
increases the complexity, thecomplexity, the exposure, the
seriousness of the situationsthat you're going into
understanding the risks,mitigating those risks it's all
part of this.
Very, very fun that's what Idescribe it, but very, very
(05:37):
complicated game I want to takeit back, sort of.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
That's a great intro, I think, but I want to take it
way back to the beginning.
And what did you want to be asa kid growing up?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I had no idea what I was going to do when I was
growing up.
I had absolutely no idea.
I was djing from the age oflike 14.
I was djing just as a hobby butactually became a really
successful little business.
Actually, and myself and mybusiness partner we ended up at
a three night a week residencyat a nightclub when we were old
(06:09):
enough, so that you know.
But we, we built, we built alot of our own equipment.
So I had an interest inelectronics and but the problem
was I spent so much time djingthat my studies went out of the
window as all my a levels were adisaster.
My studies went out of thewindow as all my A-levels were a
disaster.
So university went out of thewindow and I ended up working in
(06:30):
a job in a factory makingpressure sensing switches for
electric showers, which was, youknow, it paid some but it
wasn't exactly very entertaining.
I would say, was it your dreamjob?
Exactly very entertaining?
I would say, was it your dreamjob?
No, I wouldn't say it's mydream job.
But you said, yeah, butsomebody's got to do it.
You know, somebody's got tomake pressure sensing switches
for electric showers and thatwas me.
(06:50):
What was your dj name.
Oh no, it was a day.
It was days before djs hadnames.
I was just keith oh, jake keithdj keith.
But then, of course, after that,uh, so university went out the
window and I was working in thisfactory and on a Friday the
local newspaper was publishedand they had the job section and
(07:11):
the BBC were advertising forwhat they called at that time a
technical operator and they saidyou know, they should be
interested in hi-fi, soundlighting photography, sound
lighting photography.
And I just went down all of thelittle you know, the tick list,
and thought oh.
I'm interested in all of those.
Photography was another hobbyof mine, and so I applied, and
(07:36):
at the age of 18, the mad foolsat the BBC gave me the job.
Ha.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
God.
So you were working in thefactory and were you actively
looking for stuff, or did youjust happen to open the?
You know?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
you know, to be honest, I wasn't actively
looking for stuff because atthat time I had no idea what I
wanted to do.
I had this bombshell that I'vefailed all my exams.
That for me, was a kind of animpasse which I didn't know how
to get over that.
So as far as I was concerned,at that moment in time it was a
(08:13):
kind of like, oh, is this me?
But of course it never reallyis, because it's about the
opportunity and it's aboutrealizing when an opportunity
presents itself to you and go, Ican do that and so I I do know
a little bit about the bbc um,the workplace game.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
It's brilliant because they basically throw you
into all kinds of stuff andyou've got to kind of get your
hands dirty with a bunch ofdifferent things, but kind of
just run us through thatexperience and then how that
sort of threw you in aparticular trajectory sure, well
, well, I was based initially atbbc norwich, which is where I
grew up.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
The flattest part of the uk, I mean, I think the
highest point is something like60 meters above sea level and I
think it's called beast and bumpor roman camp or something like
that, you know, and it'sbasically just an ironing board.
So that was me, anyway.
So I started at BBC East doingthe local news, which actually
(09:10):
was great fun.
I really enjoyed that.
But then at the training course, which is brutal an exam every
Friday and if you didn't passwell, did you come back on the
Monday?
Who knows, probably not.
So it was boot camp and the guythat I was sharing a room with,
a guy called Howard Ray, and hewas talking about Newcastle up
(09:30):
in the northeast, and it soundedlike a right wheeze.
And then BBC Newcastle werelooking for technical operators
to come up on a short-termattachment.
So I went up for six months andnever returned.
That got me very, very close tothe mountains, so the Lake
District and also the ScottishHighlands, and I dabbled a
little bit in after my A-levelswhen a couple of good friends
(09:54):
and myself we took off up intoScotland on a road trip and I
was kind of blown away by thismountain landscape, having grown
up in North Norfolk, which is,as I described, very, very flat.
Having grown up in northnorfolk, which is, as I
described, very, very flat, andum, moving to newcastle, I met a
great bunch of people who werevery interested in getting out
into the mountains and, to behonest, as a hobby it became
(10:16):
utterly all-consuming.
And then there was one day Iwas reading a book by an eminent
filmmaker adventure adventurefilmmaker called Leo Dickinson.
I think I was doing theBreakfast News that day and I
was reading this book calledFilming the Impossible by Leo,
and I just thought that's me.
So I just resigned.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Wow, we resigned from the BBC scheme.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yep, I'd done six years by that time.
Nothing to go to.
But all I knew was that beingpart of that Manson community
was what I really wanted to doin some shape or form.
And having read Leo's book he'sgot a lot to answer for, isn't
he book he's got a lot to answerfor, isn't he then?
(11:08):
Then that was me, so I justresigned and that the day I
handed my notice in, I went overto the lake district with james
, my very dear friend from sixform, who was then renting a
room off me.
It moved up to newcastle aswell and, um, we spent the day
running around the lake districtjust blowing off.
Basically, it was a verydifficult decision to make.
You know, it's almost likejumping off a cliff with no
landing.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
And no parachute, nothing, no safety net.
But I thought there's only oneway you're going to make this
work and that's if you try.
And so it was about followingthe dream.
At the end of that day day, wewere in the climbing
champanamble side and there wasa notice board as we left and
there was a scrap of paper on it.
(11:51):
Anybody fancy coming to icelandthis winter?
I need an expedition partnerpaul walker on a phone number
and I thought well, I'm out of ajob because I've just resigned.
I gave him a call and a fewweeks later we were on a plane
together with a bunch of kit andwe did a two-person expedition
onto europe's largest ice cap insoutheast iceland, the vatnjokl
(12:13):
ice cap, in winter, which wasbrutal that was the first time
of anything of that level, I'mguessing from you.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
You kind of threw yourself into it, thought I have
no idea, I'm sure I'll make itwork yeah, exactly, so it's I.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
How can I do this?
I can do this.
I'm not sure I can do thisreally.
Ah, yes, I can, so that's likea greater process, right there
it is a bit really.
Yeah.
So you go through this sort offull gamut of the emotions on
those trips.
And I literally came back tonewcastle, dumped my rucksack in
the flat that I was renting andum, went across to the bbc
(12:51):
social club and was going acrossthe car park, there was this
shadowy figure, came out of thegloom, you know, and it was a
guy called richard richard else,and he was a producer director
and he stopped me and he said oh, what have you been doing?
I heard you'd left.
And I went aha and he said oh,by the way, you look like total
(13:12):
Cause.
I literally, just, I literallyjust walked off the plane.
You know, it was like no chancefor anything.
Wow, you know, lips all crackedup, you know.
And, um, I told him about theexpedition and literally the
next sentence was do you want tocome to the Himalaya this
autumn with Chris Bonington?
(13:33):
Oh, my God.
And it was just like do I getpaid?
Oh, that sounds great.
Then I'm on.
So that was it.
And so that was the start of agreat relationship
professionally with, uh, withwith Richard.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
What were you doing on that?
Was that as a cameraman, or?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
No, I was doing sound , but I was there also.
So the guy shooting it wasanother hero of mine, goal, a
guy called jim curran who was onk2 in 1986 filming, and for me
to be working alongside jimcurran was again it's like oh my
goodness, I don't believe this.
And of course, with bonneton,who is my all-time mountain hero
, and I was so excited but soutterly terrified.
(14:13):
I was doing sound.
So when I was at the BBC wewere trained to do everything
Camera, sound, lighting, editing, the full gamut so that didn't
really worry me too much, butI'd never been really further
than Mallorca, so to findyourself in Northern Pakistan
(14:35):
was a little bit of a cultureshock, I would suggest
serendipitous those sequence ofevents.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Do you do you see it that way that you were
incredibly lucky, or do you justsort of see it as there was you
were able to recognizeopportunities and and took them.
Or how do you see it?
Because it sounds to me fromwhere I'm sitting, like that you
sort of like just fell intoeach one of those steps and they
were got bigger and betterthat's very true.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
There is a serendipitous element to that.
But at the same time, I thinkyou have to be open to
opportunity.
You do have to realize, whenopportunities come your way,
that you can make them work.
They're always going to be abit of a stretch, they're always
going to be outside what you'recomfortable doing, hopefully.
(15:30):
But that's where the greatestlearning takes place.
And so you get this escalatoryidea of one project leads to the
next and the next, hopefully,will be that much more
challenging.
Again, I've always realizedthat opportunities and doors
open if you allow them.
If you are open-minded aboutchatting to people, then you
(16:10):
never know where things end upand who you're going to bump
into and what they do.
And so I'm very I meangregarious is I wouldn't put
myself in that camp, but I don'tmind striking a conversation
with pretty much anybody, and itpays dividends.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Climbing these cliffs , and getting to these places is
one thing just even gettingyour body there but you've got
to get there with the equipmentand then work, you know.
So I think you've been doingthis for so long when you first
started these.
There's a lot of equipment.
It's a bit easier now becauseequipment's smaller, but you're
still getting to these placesand having to work and film
(16:45):
people doing this sort of easything in some ways.
What's what's that like?
In, in, in as a, as a to get itright, the pressure of you know
, getting into these spots andgetting the shot, kind of thing
sure.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Well, so there was what there was one.
There was one shoot we did inperu and it's like the islamity
of peru, it's called the paranvalley, these big granite walls,
and we had a planning meetingbetween myself, the riggers, the
rope riggers, mountain guidesthat I work with a lot, so we
speak the same language and thetwo climbers that we're filming
in, who I think you know, ofcourse, federico pisani and evan
(17:23):
from venezuela.
Yeah, so they were.
They were climbing on camerafor us and we had this.
It was literally two hoursinside the tent at base camp and
at the end of it it felt likeI'd been through like a physics
exam or something.
It was very, very intensetalking about the people,
movement, the rope management,how we were going to rig so that
(17:43):
we could actually get camera,my camera, me into certain
positions, and at the end of itI asked the director how does
that sound to you?
And he went I have no idea whatyou're talking about.
I mean, which is fine, it'scompletely fine.
But so they have to put a lotof trust in us and it was
incredibly, incrediblycomplicated.
(18:03):
So at the start you kind oflike go down this idea of right
plan.
Where do we actually want toget the camera to?
Okay, how do we get the camerathere in terms of where does the
anchor point need to be?
So where do we need to put theropes in position for then we
look at if we then get thatcamera in that position, where's
(18:25):
the next one?
But we have to plan aheadbefore we even get there,
because that may well impact onthe first camera position, of
course.
Yeah, and so on that job, weended up with a multiple rope
system.
So, and I could end up going upand down and left and right
across the cliff.
So by putting in multiple ropesystems, you can jimmy up a rope
, you can abseil back down, youcan tension backwards, you can
abseil forwards on that backrope and by doing that we could
(18:47):
move almost in.
Well, we have done it.
Where I move in threedimensions, you know, in in
midair, and that's very, verycool, very complex.
So then when you're actually onthe day itself, you might start
with a hour hike, two hour hike, with all the kit on your back,
and so you're pretty tiredbefore you get there.
Hopefully, by that time, the therope riggers and the the ace
(19:09):
climbers far better climbersthan I will ever be are there.
They put some anchors in above.
They drop some ropes down.
I'll then harness up, hook ontothe ropes, start shimmying up
the ropes and I'll be.
I'll have my safety hat on atthat point, metaphorically
speaking.
So I, yeah, I'll be looking atangles.
Of course I will be, buthopefully when I stop I'll go.
(19:30):
This is where the cameraactually needs to be right,
we're on it now.
This is an amazing angle.
We've got it now.
We've got it dialed here, yeah,and then I then I stop onto my
sort of more creative hat andthere, and then I'll make sure
that I'm totally safe, solid inposition that I've, I'm
comfortable.
When I'm being comfortable, Imean usually contorted, with a
(19:53):
lot of weight in very stressfulpositions, but I'm comfortable
mentally, yeah, and then thatfrees your brain up to think
about the creative process andabout following the action and
anticipating the action andlearning to listen to what's
going on.
And are the climbers gettingstressed?
Uh, if they're getting stressed, then usually something's going
to go down and that could be.
(20:13):
That could be a good moment inthe film.
You know, if you're learning tolisten to what's going on, you
pick up an awful lot of the waythose performers climbers,
whatever feeling in front of thecamera, and you can react
accordingly, and that's a very,very useful tool.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Absolutely Now.
Before you agreed graciously tojump on this podcast, I asked
you to sort of think of asignificant moment that kind of
stands out in your career.
You've mentioned so many thingsso far, but which one stands
out the most?
Speaker 2 (20:54):
I mean, I think, in a career that's now spanning 80
film projects on all sevencontinents across 35 years.
You know, there are lots andlots of moments.
Of course there are, and one ofthem does stand out, actually,
and it was a day that we wereworking high up on Sula Grand in
Peru on the film Touching theVoid and I was climbing with
(21:15):
Paul Moore's ace mountain guide,totally unflappable, and Rory
Gregory and Dave Cuthbertson wasstunt doubling for Joe Simpson
and Simon Yates.
So we we headed off from basecamp that morning very early and
, uh, joe simpson, of course,whose accent we were recreating
in that film.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
It's a drama, reconstruction, of course well,
I was gonna say it might beworth mentioning, just just
because some people listeningmight not be familiar.
I mean, I know it's a verypopular film but just give us a
brief, a brief kind of what wasthe story of touching the void
and joe simpson yeah sure, well,well, in touching the void, two
ambitious young britishmountaineers go to climb I think
(21:57):
it's the west face of sulagrand in the peruvian andes.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
And they do it, they manage to climb the face.
They then decided that the bestway down was to traverse the
summit ridge and descend via aslightly easier way.
The only thing was that whilsttraversing that summit ridge,
joe Simpson falls and breaks hisleg and he feels that Simon's
(22:24):
going to abandon him.
But Simon attempts theimpossible and to do a solo one
person rescue.
He, in a storm, lowers joesimpson over an overhanging
cliff and was getting pulled offthe mountain himself and ended
up having to cut the rope.
Now he felt that of course he'dsent joe simpson to his death
(22:47):
and in the morning he couldn't'tsee where Joe had gone.
Joe had actually punched his waythrough, in this fall through
the lid of the roof of acrevasse and ended up crawling.
Goodness knows how he got outof that.
Well, we reconstructed it.
But you know a huge, hugesurvival story about crawling
(23:07):
for days across this Peruvianglacier and lives to tell the
tale.
And so we got them to tell thestory in documentary sense and
then reconstructed the the storydramatically, I mean, that's
worth saying if anyone hasn'tseen touching the void.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
It's a fantastic, fantastic uh drama documentary
about, about the story andobviously, keith, you were
filming a lot of the um, thescary stuff, the scary stuff,
but you know it's, it's a, youknow, was it bafta, bafta
award-winning uh documentary andyeah, and awards as well, lots
and lots and lots of otherawards.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
But but also, if anybody follows things like
rotten tomatoes, which is thefilm review site, I think it's
like 94 very few films get abovethat very, very few.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
It's it's worth watching, but yeah, so sorry,
tell us, tell us your story sowe.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
We left base camp.
We shouldered our rucksacks atbase camp early one morning and
joe simpson, who was I wassharing a tent with, he shouted
across you be careful on thatbig, bad mountain up there.
And yeah, he wasn't wrong.
Kevin shouts across.
Well, why is that?
And of course Joe says, wouldit be the ultimate irony if
those boys get killed doing thevery thing that I survived and
(24:19):
we set off up the face?
In the end it's a big traverseacross the glacier which is
pretty sketchy, big crevasses tojump across, and I was then
climbing with Paulul paulleading up above me.
We're up in the flutings, thesekind of very, very fragile half
pipes of crumbling rotten snowand the ice was kind of okay in
it.
And then it ran out and you,when you whack your ice axe in
(24:45):
with the pick, you feel thevibration in the shaft and you
listen to the sound.
It's kind of curious and youknow that it'll hold.
But this didn't feel right andit didn't sound right.
So I lifted the pick out andthought, well, maybe there's
some better quality ice deeper.
And so I punched the axe inagain and it still felt really
bad, but my right axe felt okay,so I just gently pulled up on
(25:11):
my right axe and my tippy toesand my crampon points these big
spikes that stick out the frontof your boots and I lifted up my
left axe and realized that Iwas on a hanging sheet of ice
about an inch thick, and thenthere was an air gap and then
bottom was powder, snow.
And that was the moment where Ilooked up at Paul above me
holding my rope, and he justlooked down at me and shook his
(25:32):
head and mouthed the words don'tfall.
So I suspect that actually whatwe were anchored to would
probably never have held.
And if it doesn't hold, youyou're going to take a winger,
you are going to fall, and ifyou haven't got a good anchor
point of your rope higher up,you're going to pull that
partner off as well, and that'sessentially you falling however
(25:55):
far you've climbed and thenpotentially with ice blocks
falling onto you, you got it.
It would be really unpleasant.
It's not.
It would be really unpleasant.
It would be a bad day at theoffice.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
So you were in this situation.
You knew the consequences ifthings were to go up, if you
were to fall, and you had yourice axes in the wall at this
point when you were filming.
I guess the was for paul tohold your weight, because I need
both hands.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
I need both hands to film, yeah.
And so I have to make sure that, paul, you know, can you hold
me?
Is the system going to be ableto hold my full body weight,
yeah, or are we going tocollapse?
And paul just says you just bebloody careful, son, which says
to me that we're probably notattached very much, and so I
very carefully took the rucksackoff my back.
Remember, I'm hanging here?
(26:46):
you know, at quite high altitude, on a very big face in the
peruvian andes, and I took thecamera out, which is an art on a
miniver which I detest, by theway, sorry, art on, I don't like
it, it's so fiddly in thoseenvironments.
And I shouted down to cubby andRory, just climb In his own
clamors yeah, the stunt doubles.
And so they climbed and then Iheard the ticker, ticker, ticker
(27:08):
of the film has run out.
It only took a five minute load, which was the big problem for
me.
And so I ended up with thecamera on my knees, hanging
sitting in my harness with theside open, trying to thread a
new magazine, roll a filmthrough the mechanism, and then
the slope above avalanched and Igot snow and I was pouring over
(27:31):
the top of me, filling thecamera full of snow.
So I had a little one inchpaintbrush in my pocket for the
purpose.
So you have to think of thesethings, you see.
And I managed to clear it allout, but I got gloves off, so my
hands are freezing cold.
I managed to wind the tail ofthe film onto the take-up bobbin
, slammed the magazine home,shut the side door and I just
(27:53):
shouted down to the cubby androry.
Again I said right, I got fiveminutes to film, just climb,
I'll shoot.
When that's done, we're out ofhere.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
So that day we filmed seven minutes of film jeez so
were you in that, in those kindsof situations and I'm sure you
had many over your career areyou just kind of going okay,
that's a that kind of dangerelement or the fear element, or
yes, you don't feel too muchfear, but that aspect of like,
okay, we could be in trouble.
Do you just sort of packagethat up and sort of put it to
(28:24):
the side for a minute so you canfocus on the filming, or is it
once you get down the lens?
Speaker 2 (28:29):
it's not hard to ignore that that's a really
interesting point, because thatthere's there's several elements
to that, one of which is thatthis, this one of the points is
the distraction factor.
So when you're looking downthat viewfinder and you're
filming, you can becomeseparated from reality.
That, I think, is a very, verydangerous game.
(28:50):
What I would suggest is thatwhen you pick up on that vibe so
that sixth sense that many ofus have lost or has been eroded,
when the hairs on the back ofthe neck start to prickle, you
need to start listening to themand understand that if you're
feeling like that, then probablysomebody else is, and then get
(29:12):
the vibe from the other membersof the team as well, see what
the scoop might be and ifthere's a conversation that
needs to be had about okay, arewe about to cross the line here?
Then think very seriously aboutcontinuing or not.
Do we pull back?
Or if we can manage to controlthis, both mentally, physically
(29:36):
and technically, then let's pushon, but let's be hyper aware of
the situation that we're nowpushing into and that one small
error will escalate extremelyquickly with very, very severe
consequences.
And so a lot of people think youknow, oh, is it about being all
(29:57):
gung ho?
And it's not.
It's completely the opposite ofthat.
It's about understanding theenvironment that you're in,
becoming very aware of thepeople around you, but also the
situation that you're in,situational awareness.
A lot of people talk about that.
Things do go wrong.
Of course they do, and what youhope is that you've put enough
(30:21):
in place that you can deal withthat.
But that's not to say that thatis what's going to happen.
You know things can run out ofcontrol.
I've been very fortunate atTouchwood that nothing has gone
completely.
You know, pear-shaped.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Yeah.
So in that Peru situation,obviously, obviously, you know
you, you got the shots, goteverything done.
Said to paul right, we're goodto go, packed up your gear,
sling your bike back on and thenjust carefully descended the
same way you came up yeah,exactly, there was nothing else
we could do.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
So what I did is I actually got paul to lower me,
because it saved a lot ofshenanigans, um, and then he
could be in complete control andobviously, if, if he needed me
to, you know, use my access andget back on the ice proper, then
he could just shout, you know,and hopefully it was, it would
work I guess from thatparticular experience you kind
(31:16):
of mentioned a little bit beforethere, but just on that
particular experience, onreflection, I mean, what do you
take from it, what have youlearned from it that you kind of
took through you going forwardin your career, or any sort of
lessons from it?
I think, from that day in peruwhere we're up in the, what do
they take from that?
It's about the team and it'sabout trust, and without that
(31:37):
and having confidence in eachother, and without that this
sort of stuff really doesn'twork.
Adrenaline is good, fear isgood.
Fear is your natural stop oryour natural hang on a second.
Let's just pause and see what'sgoing on here.
Let's see if there's anythingelse we can do.
Else we can do.
(32:02):
So all those emotions to like,think about analyzing them after
days like that and how you canuse them in a positive way
rather than in something whichactually form makes you close
down.
The minute you close down inthose high stress situations and
maybe with risk, then you ceaseto function effectively, I feel
.
But being very aware of therisk enables you to still
function and hopefully retreat,get out of it effectively, stay
(32:26):
in one bit, call it what youwill.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
So when you look back , you've done a ton of stuff.
When you look back ateverything, at your career, your
achievements, things you'vedone what kind of emotions does
that evoke?
Do you have a lot of pride inwhat you've done?
Would you've done anything elsewith your life?
You know um, you know how doyou feel?
Are you satisfied with yourcareers?
Are more you would have wantedto do?
Speaker 2 (32:54):
I think, when you look back on the sorts of things
that I've been involved in,it's been a very long, difficult
, fun, complicated and at timesrisky journey.
I don't think I'd do anythingparticularly differently because
(33:16):
I've just made the most of anyand every opportunity that's
kind of presented itself to me,but I do think I've been very
fortunate.
You know, having said earlierthat, is it serendipitous or do
you make your own luck?
So I think, as we discussedearlier, there is a little bit
(33:37):
of that sort of you've got to beopen to the luck and being able
to actually just go.
Actually that sounds great.
Let's do that.
Just go, yes, and then worryabout it a little bit.
I would guess it was a lot oftrouble.
I would say I guess it's a lotof trouble, but it's good
(33:58):
trouble, you know it's good, abit of trouble.
Yeah, and the other thing that Ireally feel strongly about is
the number of people that I'vemet.
You know, every project, everyproject is just with the most
amazing people, and that's oneof the things that I feel most
(34:19):
passionate about, because I'mnot a world-class climber, I'm
just willing to put myself outthere.
What I say is that I can sufferwith the best of them.
I'm happy to suffer, becauseusually it involves a lot of
suffering on these shoots,because they're usually not
comfortable, not a lot of luxury.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Not a lot of sleep, not a lot of food.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
No, but all of the above.
Very poor toilet facilities.
I would suggest a lot of thetime.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Although there's another story, but our toilet in
Venezuela I thought was quiteluxurious.
We even had a toilet seat.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I think that sat across the toilet.
Woe betide if it slipped,though.
I remember it was one of thebest views I've ever had in a
toilet.
It was pretty good actually.
Anyway, we digress.
What was the question?
Again?
Speaker 1 (35:07):
I forgot it was complicated again are you, would
you have done anythingdifferent?
And I think the answer is no,no, no.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
I was like actually, and I don't think you can, and I
think it's very easy to dwellon in a negative way on the past
, rather than going okay, yeah,that could have been better, all
right, let's not do that nexttime.
Let's do something differentand learn from that and move
forwards and just keep doingthat rather than going oh, that
(35:34):
was bad, well, I won't do thatagain.
I'll never do that again.
Do you know, I'll go and sitdown and give up.
You know that's.
That's just not me.
I'd rather go okay, let's learnfrom that.
How can we move on?
Let's move on, right, let's goabsolutely.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
I mean again, I kind of think about if it was the
same question put to me, is itwould do anything different?
Because I found my way to whatI love doing at a you know 24,
you know.
So it was a little bit later inmy career, but if I was asking
myself, would I do anythingdifferently?
I think it would be that I justdidn't know that people do this
(36:12):
for a living.
You know, like I was like youcan get paid to do this.
If I had known that when I was16, you know that you can do
these things that you love, putthe thing.
I love science, I lovephotography stick them together
and I love adventure stuff aswell, because I'm a climber, and
not to the level of you guys.
(36:33):
But yeah, I love doing thatkind of stuff and I was like you
can do, you can get paid for it.
I just wish I'd known earlierthat you can get paid for it.
I just wish I'd known earlier.
That was my only thing.
But then you can't do what ifs,you know no you can't.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
But the other thing is for me, yeah, sure, it's nice
to get paid.
Of course it is, and that'sbeen my profession, that's been
my job.
But it is a job, it is hardwork.
There is a lot at stake interms of people's wellbeing, but
also, I think, in terms ofmaking a film, there's a lot of
(37:05):
money involved.
Yeah, you know I'm not a brainsurgeon.
I don't go saving people'slives.
You know I'm not at that level.
But at the same time, there isa professional pride and
professional pressures.
Yeah, and you know, at the sametime, do you get paid to fail?
No, you don't.
You get paid to deliver and youget paid to constantly deliver.
And that is, whilst it's greatto have these adventures,
(37:29):
there's always that backgroundthere, like on Everest.
That's a big deal.
You don't get paid to fail onEverest.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Yeah, these are massive projects and they cost a
lot of money and you come backand you don't deliver the goods.
You probably won't be sent outagain.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Well, that's the tall and short of it, isn't it?
And that's the beauty, or thedanger, the price you pay for
being freelance.
These opportunities areincredible.
You find yourself doing thingsthat you could never, ever dream
of.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
I just want to touch on the day-to-day aspect of
things, of being, as you said,this is a freelance job.
You know there is no.
I mean maybe some people.
There's some rare opportunitieswhere you get a jobbing
cameraman kind of thing, but thesort of thing that you do is
very much a job-to-job thing.
There is not a lot of securityapart from your own reputation
and the strength of the industry.
Kind of just give us a sense ofthat.
(38:23):
Obviously, you've painted agreat picture of the great
aspect of doing this job, butthere are mundane aspects to it
as well.
You've got to chase clients forinvoices.
You've got to find the next job, you've got to do this and this
and this.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Just give us a sense of what that side of it's like.
Well, I mean, you areeffectively running a business
and, of course, there's all thepaperwork you know.
There's the accounts to keep upto date, there's oh, the
customs.
Documentation drives me to tearscarnays oh yeah, yeah, export
carnays, because you know whenwe're working abroad, we often
we there are some projects wehave a lot often.
(39:01):
We there are some projects.
We have a lot of equipment.
There are some projects.
We have a lot less.
But there have been jobs wherewe go out and it's it's not
unusual to have 40 pieces ofluggage and each item within
each box has to be itemized andit's just a nightmare.
So all of that mundane stuff, Imean I really I love talking to
(39:21):
clients and production teams.
It's great fun how we workcollaboratively to actually pull
this thing off, all of thisbackground stuff.
I also feel it's a means to anend.
You know you have to to jumpthrough these hoops.
They're part and parcel of whatgoes with the five-week
expedition to wherever orwhatever it means.
(39:43):
So that's it.
It's part of the job, it's partof what it takes.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
You can't be precious and sit by and get people to do
stuff for you.
It's going to be get everyonestuck in, get your hands dirty,
kind of thing.
Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
And then the fun stuff kicks in when you're up on
location.
That's terrific.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Yeah, two final quick things.
I mean the one I wanted to askyou about is just because a lot
of people listening on thefreelance side of things, when,
I'm sure now you know a veteransuch as yourself, you don't have
as much fear.
But when you're first startingout you know and you realize
that this is a you know I'mgoing to have to fight for every
job, kind of thing.
(40:23):
Were you scared?
Did you have trepidation?
You know?
How did you sort of deal withthat?
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Well, I do remember going to the hole in the wall,
put my bank card into it and itsaid seven pounds.
That was all I had left in theworld.
Wow, wow, and it was a littlebit of a sharpener.
But when one door shuts,another one opens.
As long as you have your radarup and you're willing to say,
(40:52):
yeah, I'll give that a whirl.
That sounds like it could begood and things worked out
Fortunately for me.
I guess that one job did rollinto the next, pretty much.
Sure, there were times when itwas a little bit quiet and thin
on the ground, but I would sayrarely.
And I think at the time when Ifirst went freelance, yeah,
(41:17):
there were those moments whenthe adventure stuff wasn't
around, but I was willing to doanything within film and
television to actually, you know, keep a bit of cash coming in.
So I think, nothing of doing anold contract here and there
back at the bbc and I'd beworking on kids drama shows or
(41:39):
doing the local news, I reallydidn't mind it was.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
It was all about keeping your options open, doing
whatever it took, but realizingwhen those golden opportunities
arose that you should just takeit well, and I guess the final
thing I just want to say is foranyone that wants to follow in
your footsteps, having listenedto all this, so don't, at the
(42:06):
end of it, don't do that foranyone still.
So, oh yeah, I'd love to dothat or something similar, I
mean.
What I mean?
Is it a job you would sell tobe?
What advice would you give toanyone that sort of goes?
Hmm, I think I'd have a bit ofthat.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
For anybody that wants to do adventure film
making or getting into this sortof line of work, my suggestion
is to get good at doing amultiplicity of roles, get
really good, but get good atstorytelling and understanding
what goes in to that story sothat when you're actually out
(42:47):
there filming or working ordoing your own projects they get
elevated, then they get noticedand then you can start to
embark upon, say, the filmfestival market which is
exploding at the moment.
We run an adventure filmmakersworkshop in banff in canada
every autumn.
That's an amazing 10-dayopportunity for anybody who
(43:08):
wants to get into this field.
So it's putting those littlenuggets in place, so little
bite-sized areas of knowledgeand experience, so so that you
are at a point where you canjoin them all together and
suddenly find yourself on thesesort of crazy film expeditions.
(43:30):
The landscape is a little bitdifferent now.
I think a lot of it has to comefrom the filmmaker themselves.
Now there are there are someprojects which do get kind of
picked up and commissioned, butI think a lot of those adventure
projects now come from theadventurers themselves and
having a crew of storytellersaround who can actually cover
(43:52):
that adventure.
But you know, I think foranybody, and I see this every
year in Banff.
There's some great people whocome through our workshop in
Banff, hopefully blow theirbrains out, in a metaphoric
sense, and then they come backand become award-winning
(44:12):
filmmakers at a very, veryprestigious festival.
So it is possible.
It is possible, you can followyour, your dream.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
You just have to be open to any and every
opportunity that comes your waybeautiful, uh, anything else
that you wanted to uh to mentionor add at the end of this?
Speaker 2 (44:37):
well, I suppose if anybody wants to hear a few more
crazy stories and a little bitmore of an insight as to my
career, then the adventure gamewhich is my book uh, that's been
out for a wee while, but it'sapparently.
It's a good read.
There are 60 000 words andthey're not all the same, and
there's some great photos inthere as well 200 photographs
from all over the world, so it'sa really.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
I think it's a good insight and it it is an
award-winning book, so there'ssomething to be said for that
yeah, no, it's fantastic and, um, for anyone interested, you can
just google that or I'll stickit on the website as well.
Uh, I'll put a link to it.
So, yeah, yeah, great stuff,fantastic.
All right, keith, thanks verymuch your time, appreciate it.
Bye, all right, bye, and thatis it for this week's episode.
(45:28):
I just want to say a massivethank you again to keith for
taking the time to speak with meand share all his amazing
stories.
It's always great speaking withhim.
Um, for photos, links and moreabout this episode, please head
to knowordinarymondaycom andlook for the episode page.
You can also find informationon our socials via link tree.
(45:50):
Our handle isknowordinarymonday.
If you have questions or wantto share your own career story
with us, we'd love to hear fromyou.
Please get in touch via oursocials and you can also email
hello hello at no ordinarymondaycom, or you can use the
submit your story page on ourwebsite.
(46:12):
And if you enjoyed this episode,please do two really quick
things for us give us a fivestar rating and review and tell
a friend.
It really helps us grow theshow and attract more amazing
guests and inspire new listeners.
In next week's episode we diveheadfirst into a taboo subject.
My guest, dr Hannah Gould,studies death and dying and the
(46:36):
realities kind of around thedeath care industry.
It's actually a really fun andinsightful, and sometimes dark
conversation that you guysreally won't want to miss.
So please subscribe and be thefirst to receive these latest
episodes absolutely free.
This show is produced, hostedand edited by me, chris Barron.
Thank you so much for listeningand have a great Monday
(46:59):
everyone.
Hello and welcome to another episode of no Ordinary
Monday.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
I am your host, chris Barron,and each week I sit down with a
guest whose job is far fromordinary.
We explore how they got there,what it's really like behind the
scenes, and then we'll deepdive into the single most
(00:26):
unforgettable experience oftheir career.
Today I've got a fantasticguest and someone I've actually
had the privilege of workingwith several times over the
years.
He is Emmy award winningcinematographer and filmmaker,
keith Partridge.
Keith is basically the guy thatpeople call to film something in
a place that seems absolutelycrazy to put a camera.
(00:47):
He has spent decades capturingjaw-dropping moments in places
like the summit of Everest andunderground rivers in Papua New
Guinea, and then also with medangling off the world's highest
waterfall in Venezuelawaterfall in Venezuela.
In Keith's big story, herelives a terrifying moment
(01:08):
while shooting the incredible,award-winning documentary
Touching the Void, when he andthe crew found themselves
hanging perilously off an icewall in the Peruvian Andes.
It's the sort of place whereone wrong move could have been
fatal for he or the crew, but itreally shows the skill and sort
of teamwork and commitment thatkeith and other guys in the
crew.
Uh, need to capture thesemoments on film.
(01:29):
With all that said, I'mabsolutely thrilled to bring you
my conversation with keith.
I hope you enjoy.
You're listening to no ordinarymonday.
Let's get into the show.
Cool, all right, keith?
(01:51):
Welcome.
Welcome to the podcast.
How are things today?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Good to see you.
Actually, the last time, ofcourse, was on the west coast of
Alaska that we spent timetogether.
I believe, if my memory servesme right, that was a fun shoot,
wasn't it?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
And we said right, that was a fun shoot, wasn't it?
It was indeed.
That was a couple of years ago,I think.
Now we were having a jaunt onan archaeology shoot on the west
coast of Alaska.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
That's right.
Far too many body parts beingwashed out of the crumbling
permafrost as it melts fromthese low muddy cliffs on the
Alaskan coast.
Yeah, it was good fun.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It's very fun.
Um, so just give us, uh, Iguess, before we get into things
, just kind of tell us what youdo for a living okay.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
So most of the time if say, if I was in a bar and so
.
So what do you do for a living?
I say I.
I film really scary stuff.
Most of the time that seems tobe like, oh, what does that mean
?
I say, well, I go on these wildadventures and expeditions all
over the world with a camera inmy hand and try and capture the
action as it unfolds.
But of course that's led intoall manner of other stuff.
(02:54):
So be it feature film work orfeature documentary work, and a
lot of it is sort of specialistfactual documentary style stuff.
But basically, basically, Iwould describe myself in a very
simple way as an adventurefilmmaker and obviously you and
I know each other pretty well.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
We've done a few projects together in the past,
um, over the last seven, eightyears or so.
I was working as a director,producer or producer in some of
those roles and you were thecinematographer on a lot of
those.
So you say you're an thecinematographer on a lot of
those.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
So you say you're a venture filmmaker, but on a lot
of these projects your primaryrole might be cinematography,
director, photography that'sright, because my speciality
really is getting cameras intoplaces where not many other
people can get them into byusually rope access techniques
or mountaineering techniques,caving techniques, all of those
sorts of stuff which you know asan adventurer is one thing, but
(03:48):
then you stick a camera in itin the mix it takes it to an
all-new level really ofcomplexity and sort of head
stress.
But actually head stress, I mean, is in a good way, you know,
because I love problem solvingand um, but yeah, being an
adventure uh, filmmaker,adventure, cinematographer is
about as much fun as you canhave in a toy shop and a sweetie
shop combined, and that goesinside.
(04:10):
Where we first met was, ofcourse, dangling off the angel
falls of venezuela, so, and ifyou got it wrong there, it's a
full 22 seconds to think aboutit before you splat into the
river below.
So you know a full 3 000 foot,1 000 meter drop, and so you
know it's great to work withpeople who have that element of
understanding about theenvironment and where you're
(04:31):
going, and that's where the teamis super important.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Venezuela.
A thousand meters, as you say,3000 feet off the ground, which
was an extraordinary experience.
But you said you know it'sabout as much fun as someone can
have, but there's probably alot of people out there that
that might be their worstnightmare.
You must've dealt with thatbefore.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Well, yeah, it's not everybody's cup of tea, is it?
But of course I haven't reallydealt with acute levels of what
you might describe as fear.
So you have to be supermotivated to go into these
environments.
Of course you do.
But the other thing is you haveto be super prepared and you
can't just rock up and go andhang yourself off a 3000 foot
high waterfall.
That is just craziness.
(05:15):
That is absolutely where it'sall going to go wrong.
So, starting small, addingelements into the mix, which
increases the complexity, thecomplexity, the exposure, the
seriousness of the situationsthat you're going into
understanding the risks,mitigating those risks it's all
part of this.
Very, very fun that's what Idescribe it, but very, very
(05:37):
complicated game I want to takeit back, sort of.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
That's a great intro, I think, but I want to take it
way back to the beginning.
And what did you want to be asa kid growing up?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I had no idea what I was going to do when I was
growing up.
I had absolutely no idea.
I was djing from the age oflike 14.
I was djing just as a hobby butactually became a really
successful little business.
Actually, and myself and mybusiness partner we ended up at
a three night a week residencyat a nightclub when we were old
(06:09):
enough, so that you know.
But we, we built, we built alot of our own equipment.
So I had an interest inelectronics and but the problem
was I spent so much time djingthat my studies went out of the
window as all my a levels were adisaster.
My studies went out of thewindow as all my A-levels were a
disaster.
So university went out of thewindow and I ended up working in
(06:30):
a job in a factory makingpressure sensing switches for
electric showers, which was, youknow, it paid some but it
wasn't exactly very entertaining.
I would say, was it your dreamjob?
Exactly very entertaining?
I would say, was it your dreamjob?
No, I wouldn't say it's mydream job.
But you said, yeah, butsomebody's got to do it.
You know, somebody's got tomake pressure sensing switches
for electric showers and thatwas me.
(06:50):
What was your dj name.
Oh no, it was a day.
It was days before djs hadnames.
I was just keith oh, jake keithdj keith.
But then, of course, after that,uh, so university went out the
window and I was working in thisfactory and on a Friday the
local newspaper was publishedand they had the job section and
(07:11):
the BBC were advertising forwhat they called at that time a
technical operator and they saidyou know, they should be
interested in hi-fi, soundlighting photography, sound
lighting photography.
And I just went down all of thelittle you know, the tick list,
and thought oh.
I'm interested in all of those.
Photography was another hobbyof mine, and so I applied, and
(07:36):
at the age of 18, the mad foolsat the BBC gave me the job.
Ha.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
God.
So you were working in thefactory and were you actively
looking for stuff, or did youjust happen to open the?
You know?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
you know, to be honest, I wasn't actively
looking for stuff because atthat time I had no idea what I
wanted to do.
I had this bombshell that I'vefailed all my exams.
That for me, was a kind of animpasse which I didn't know how
to get over that.
So as far as I was concerned,at that moment in time it was a
(08:13):
kind of like, oh, is this me?
But of course it never reallyis, because it's about the
opportunity and it's aboutrealizing when an opportunity
presents itself to you and go, Ican do that and so I I do know
a little bit about the bbc um,the workplace game.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
It's brilliant because they basically throw you
into all kinds of stuff andyou've got to kind of get your
hands dirty with a bunch ofdifferent things, but kind of
just run us through thatexperience and then how that
sort of threw you in aparticular trajectory sure, well
, well, I was based initially atbbc norwich, which is where I
grew up.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
The flattest part of the uk, I mean, I think the
highest point is something like60 meters above sea level and I
think it's called beast and bumpor roman camp or something like
that, you know, and it'sbasically just an ironing board.
So that was me, anyway.
So I started at BBC East doingthe local news, which actually
(09:10):
was great fun.
I really enjoyed that.
But then at the training course, which is brutal an exam every
Friday and if you didn't passwell, did you come back on the
Monday?
Who knows, probably not.
So it was boot camp and the guythat I was sharing a room with,
a guy called Howard Ray, and hewas talking about Newcastle up
(09:30):
in the northeast, and it soundedlike a right wheeze.
And then BBC Newcastle werelooking for technical operators
to come up on a short-termattachment.
So I went up for six months andnever returned.
That got me very, very close tothe mountains, so the Lake
District and also the ScottishHighlands, and I dabbled a
little bit in after my A-levelswhen a couple of good friends
(09:54):
and myself we took off up intoScotland on a road trip and I
was kind of blown away by thismountain landscape, having grown
up in North Norfolk, which is,as I described, very, very flat.
Having grown up in northnorfolk, which is, as I
described, very, very flat, andum, moving to newcastle, I met a
great bunch of people who werevery interested in getting out
into the mountains and, to behonest, as a hobby it became
(10:16):
utterly all-consuming.
And then there was one day Iwas reading a book by an eminent
filmmaker adventure adventurefilmmaker called Leo Dickinson.
I think I was doing theBreakfast News that day and I
was reading this book calledFilming the Impossible by Leo,
and I just thought that's me.
So I just resigned.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Wow, we resigned from the BBC scheme.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yep, I'd done six years by that time.
Nothing to go to.
But all I knew was that beingpart of that Manson community
was what I really wanted to doin some shape or form.
And having read Leo's book he'sgot a lot to answer for, isn't
he book he's got a lot to answerfor, isn't he then?
(11:08):
Then that was me, so I justresigned and that the day I
handed my notice in, I went overto the lake district with james
, my very dear friend from sixform, who was then renting a
room off me.
It moved up to newcastle aswell and, um, we spent the day
running around the lake districtjust blowing off.
Basically, it was a verydifficult decision to make.
You know, it's almost likejumping off a cliff with no
landing.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
And no parachute, nothing, no safety net.
But I thought there's only oneway you're going to make this
work and that's if you try.
And so it was about followingthe dream.
At the end of that day day, wewere in the climbing
champanamble side and there wasa notice board as we left and
there was a scrap of paper on it.
(11:51):
Anybody fancy coming to icelandthis winter?
I need an expedition partnerpaul walker on a phone number
and I thought well, I'm out of ajob because I've just resigned.
I gave him a call and a fewweeks later we were on a plane
together with a bunch of kit andwe did a two-person expedition
onto europe's largest ice cap insoutheast iceland, the vatnjokl
(12:13):
ice cap, in winter, which wasbrutal that was the first time
of anything of that level, I'mguessing from you.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
You kind of threw yourself into it, thought I have
no idea, I'm sure I'll make itwork yeah, exactly, so it's I.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
How can I do this?
I can do this.
I'm not sure I can do thisreally.
Ah, yes, I can, so that's likea greater process, right there
it is a bit really.
Yeah.
So you go through this sort offull gamut of the emotions on
those trips.
And I literally came back tonewcastle, dumped my rucksack in
the flat that I was renting andum, went across to the bbc
(12:51):
social club and was going acrossthe car park, there was this
shadowy figure, came out of thegloom, you know, and it was a
guy called richard richard else,and he was a producer director
and he stopped me and he said oh, what have you been doing?
I heard you'd left.
And I went aha and he said oh,by the way, you look like total
(13:12):
Cause.
I literally, just, I literallyjust walked off the plane.
You know, it was like no chancefor anything.
Wow, you know, lips all crackedup, you know.
And, um, I told him about theexpedition and literally the
next sentence was do you want tocome to the Himalaya this
autumn with Chris Bonington?
(13:33):
Oh, my God.
And it was just like do I getpaid?
Oh, that sounds great.
Then I'm on.
So that was it.
And so that was the start of agreat relationship
professionally with, uh, withwith Richard.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
What were you doing on that?
Was that as a cameraman, or?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
No, I was doing sound , but I was there also.
So the guy shooting it wasanother hero of mine, goal, a
guy called jim curran who was onk2 in 1986 filming, and for me
to be working alongside jimcurran was again it's like oh my
goodness, I don't believe this.
And of course, with bonneton,who is my all-time mountain hero
, and I was so excited but soutterly terrified.
(14:13):
I was doing sound.
So when I was at the BBC wewere trained to do everything
Camera, sound, lighting, editing, the full gamut so that didn't
really worry me too much, butI'd never been really further
than Mallorca, so to findyourself in Northern Pakistan
(14:35):
was a little bit of a cultureshock, I would suggest
serendipitous those sequence ofevents.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Do you do you see it that way that you were
incredibly lucky, or do you justsort of see it as there was you
were able to recognizeopportunities and and took them.
Or how do you see it?
Because it sounds to me fromwhere I'm sitting, like that you
sort of like just fell intoeach one of those steps and they
were got bigger and betterthat's very true.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
There is a serendipitous element to that.
But at the same time, I thinkyou have to be open to
opportunity.
You do have to realize, whenopportunities come your way,
that you can make them work.
They're always going to be abit of a stretch, they're always
going to be outside what you'recomfortable doing, hopefully.
(15:30):
But that's where the greatestlearning takes place.
And so you get this escalatoryidea of one project leads to the
next and the next, hopefully,will be that much more
challenging.
Again, I've always realizedthat opportunities and doors
open if you allow them.
If you are open-minded aboutchatting to people, then you
(16:10):
never know where things end upand who you're going to bump
into and what they do.
And so I'm very I meangregarious is I wouldn't put
myself in that camp, but I don'tmind striking a conversation
with pretty much anybody, and itpays dividends.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Climbing these cliffs , and getting to these places is
one thing just even gettingyour body there but you've got
to get there with the equipmentand then work, you know.
So I think you've been doingthis for so long when you first
started these.
There's a lot of equipment.
It's a bit easier now becauseequipment's smaller, but you're
still getting to these placesand having to work and film
(16:45):
people doing this sort of easything in some ways.
What's what's that like?
In, in, in as a, as a to get itright, the pressure of you know
, getting into these spots andgetting the shot, kind of thing
sure.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Well, so there was what there was one.
There was one shoot we did inperu and it's like the islamity
of peru, it's called the paranvalley, these big granite walls,
and we had a planning meetingbetween myself, the riggers, the
rope riggers, mountain guidesthat I work with a lot, so we
speak the same language and thetwo climbers that we're filming
in, who I think you know, ofcourse, federico pisani and evan
(17:23):
from venezuela.
Yeah, so they were.
They were climbing on camerafor us and we had this.
It was literally two hoursinside the tent at base camp and
at the end of it it felt likeI'd been through like a physics
exam or something.
It was very, very intensetalking about the people,
movement, the rope management,how we were going to rig so that
(17:43):
we could actually get camera,my camera, me into certain
positions, and at the end of itI asked the director how does
that sound to you?
And he went I have no idea whatyou're talking about.
I mean, which is fine, it'scompletely fine.
But so they have to put a lotof trust in us and it was
incredibly, incrediblycomplicated.
(18:03):
So at the start you kind oflike go down this idea of right
plan.
Where do we actually want toget the camera to?
Okay, how do we get the camerathere in terms of where does the
anchor point need to be?
So where do we need to put theropes in position for then we
look at if we then get thatcamera in that position, where's
(18:25):
the next one?
But we have to plan aheadbefore we even get there,
because that may well impact onthe first camera position, of
course.
Yeah, and so on that job, weended up with a multiple rope
system.
So, and I could end up going upand down and left and right
across the cliff.
So by putting in multiple ropesystems, you can jimmy up a rope
, you can abseil back down, youcan tension backwards, you can
abseil forwards on that backrope and by doing that we could
(18:47):
move almost in.
Well, we have done it.
Where I move in threedimensions, you know, in in
midair, and that's very, verycool, very complex.
So then when you're actually onthe day itself, you might start
with a hour hike, two hour hike, with all the kit on your back,
and so you're pretty tiredbefore you get there.
Hopefully, by that time, the therope riggers and the the ace
(19:09):
climbers far better climbersthan I will ever be are there.
They put some anchors in above.
They drop some ropes down.
I'll then harness up, hook ontothe ropes, start shimmying up
the ropes and I'll be.
I'll have my safety hat on atthat point, metaphorically
speaking.
So I, yeah, I'll be looking atangles.
Of course I will be, buthopefully when I stop I'll go.
(19:30):
This is where the cameraactually needs to be right,
we're on it now.
This is an amazing angle.
We've got it now.
We've got it dialed here, yeah,and then I then I stop onto my
sort of more creative hat andthere, and then I'll make sure
that I'm totally safe, solid inposition that I've, I'm
comfortable.
When I'm being comfortable, Imean usually contorted, with a
(19:53):
lot of weight in very stressfulpositions, but I'm comfortable
mentally, yeah, and then thatfrees your brain up to think
about the creative process andabout following the action and
anticipating the action andlearning to listen to what's
going on.
And are the climbers gettingstressed?
Uh, if they're getting stressed, then usually something's going
to go down and that could be.
(20:13):
That could be a good moment inthe film.
You know, if you're learning tolisten to what's going on, you
pick up an awful lot of the waythose performers climbers,
whatever feeling in front of thecamera, and you can react
accordingly, and that's a very,very useful tool.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Absolutely Now.
Before you agreed graciously tojump on this podcast, I asked
you to sort of think of asignificant moment that kind of
stands out in your career.
You've mentioned so many thingsso far, but which one stands
out the most?
Speaker 2 (20:54):
I mean, I think, in a career that's now spanning 80
film projects on all sevencontinents across 35 years.
You know, there are lots andlots of moments.
Of course there are, and one ofthem does stand out, actually,
and it was a day that we wereworking high up on Sula Grand in
Peru on the film Touching theVoid and I was climbing with
(21:15):
Paul Moore's ace mountain guide,totally unflappable, and Rory
Gregory and Dave Cuthbertson wasstunt doubling for Joe Simpson
and Simon Yates.
So we we headed off from basecamp that morning very early and
, uh, joe simpson, of course,whose accent we were recreating
in that film.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
It's a drama, reconstruction, of course well,
I was gonna say it might beworth mentioning, just just
because some people listeningmight not be familiar.
I mean, I know it's a verypopular film but just give us a
brief, a brief kind of what wasthe story of touching the void
and joe simpson yeah sure, well,well, in touching the void, two
ambitious young britishmountaineers go to climb I think
(21:57):
it's the west face of sulagrand in the peruvian andes.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
And they do it, they manage to climb the face.
They then decided that the bestway down was to traverse the
summit ridge and descend via aslightly easier way.
The only thing was that whilsttraversing that summit ridge,
joe Simpson falls and breaks hisleg and he feels that Simon's
(22:24):
going to abandon him.
But Simon attempts theimpossible and to do a solo one
person rescue.
He, in a storm, lowers joesimpson over an overhanging
cliff and was getting pulled offthe mountain himself and ended
up having to cut the rope.
Now he felt that of course he'dsent joe simpson to his death
(22:47):
and in the morning he couldn't'tsee where Joe had gone.
Joe had actually punched his waythrough, in this fall through
the lid of the roof of acrevasse and ended up crawling.
Goodness knows how he got outof that.
Well, we reconstructed it.
But you know a huge, hugesurvival story about crawling
(23:07):
for days across this Peruvianglacier and lives to tell the
tale.
And so we got them to tell thestory in documentary sense and
then reconstructed the the storydramatically, I mean, that's
worth saying if anyone hasn'tseen touching the void.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
It's a fantastic, fantastic uh drama documentary
about, about the story andobviously, keith, you were
filming a lot of the um, thescary stuff, the scary stuff,
but you know it's, it's a, youknow, was it bafta, bafta
award-winning uh documentary andyeah, and awards as well, lots
and lots and lots of otherawards.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
But but also, if anybody follows things like
rotten tomatoes, which is thefilm review site, I think it's
like 94 very few films get abovethat very, very few.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
It's it's worth watching, but yeah, so sorry,
tell us, tell us your story sowe.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
We left base camp.
We shouldered our rucksacks atbase camp early one morning and
joe simpson, who was I wassharing a tent with, he shouted
across you be careful on thatbig, bad mountain up there.
And yeah, he wasn't wrong.
Kevin shouts across.
Well, why is that?
And of course Joe says, wouldit be the ultimate irony if
those boys get killed doing thevery thing that I survived and
(24:19):
we set off up the face?
In the end it's a big traverseacross the glacier which is
pretty sketchy, big crevasses tojump across, and I was then
climbing with Paulul paulleading up above me.
We're up in the flutings, thesekind of very, very fragile half
pipes of crumbling rotten snowand the ice was kind of okay in
it.
And then it ran out and you,when you whack your ice axe in
(24:45):
with the pick, you feel thevibration in the shaft and you
listen to the sound.
It's kind of curious and youknow that it'll hold.
But this didn't feel right andit didn't sound right.
So I lifted the pick out andthought, well, maybe there's
some better quality ice deeper.
And so I punched the axe inagain and it still felt really
bad, but my right axe felt okay,so I just gently pulled up on
(25:11):
my right axe and my tippy toesand my crampon points these big
spikes that stick out the frontof your boots and I lifted up my
left axe and realized that Iwas on a hanging sheet of ice
about an inch thick, and thenthere was an air gap and then
bottom was powder, snow.
And that was the moment where Ilooked up at Paul above me
holding my rope, and he justlooked down at me and shook his
(25:32):
head and mouthed the words don'tfall.
So I suspect that actually whatwe were anchored to would
probably never have held.
And if it doesn't hold, youyou're going to take a winger,
you are going to fall, and ifyou haven't got a good anchor
point of your rope higher up,you're going to pull that
partner off as well, and that'sessentially you falling however
(25:55):
far you've climbed and thenpotentially with ice blocks
falling onto you, you got it.
It would be really unpleasant.
It's not.
It would be really unpleasant.
It would be a bad day at theoffice.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
So you were in this situation.
You knew the consequences ifthings were to go up, if you
were to fall, and you had yourice axes in the wall at this
point when you were filming.
I guess the was for paul tohold your weight, because I need
both hands.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
I need both hands to film, yeah.
And so I have to make sure that, paul, you know, can you hold
me?
Is the system going to be ableto hold my full body weight,
yeah, or are we going tocollapse?
And paul just says you just bebloody careful, son, which says
to me that we're probably notattached very much, and so I
very carefully took the rucksackoff my back.
Remember, I'm hanging here?
(26:46):
you know, at quite high altitude, on a very big face in the
peruvian andes, and I took thecamera out, which is an art on a
miniver which I detest, by theway, sorry, art on, I don't like
it, it's so fiddly in thoseenvironments.
And I shouted down to cubby andRory, just climb In his own
clamors yeah, the stunt doubles.
And so they climbed and then Iheard the ticker, ticker, ticker
(27:08):
of the film has run out.
It only took a five minute load, which was the big problem for
me.
And so I ended up with thecamera on my knees, hanging
sitting in my harness with theside open, trying to thread a
new magazine, roll a filmthrough the mechanism, and then
the slope above avalanched and Igot snow and I was pouring over
(27:31):
the top of me, filling thecamera full of snow.
So I had a little one inchpaintbrush in my pocket for the
purpose.
So you have to think of thesethings, you see.
And I managed to clear it allout, but I got gloves off, so my
hands are freezing cold.
I managed to wind the tail ofthe film onto the take-up bobbin
, slammed the magazine home,shut the side door and I just
(27:53):
shouted down to the cubby androry.
Again I said right, I got fiveminutes to film, just climb,
I'll shoot.
When that's done, we're out ofhere.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
So that day we filmed seven minutes of film jeez so
were you in that, in those kindsof situations and I'm sure you
had many over your career areyou just kind of going okay,
that's a that kind of dangerelement or the fear element, or
yes, you don't feel too muchfear, but that aspect of like,
okay, we could be in trouble.
Do you just sort of packagethat up and sort of put it to
(28:24):
the side for a minute so you canfocus on the filming, or is it
once you get down the lens?
Speaker 2 (28:29):
it's not hard to ignore that that's a really
interesting point, because thatthere's there's several elements
to that, one of which is thatthis, this one of the points is
the distraction factor.
So when you're looking downthat viewfinder and you're
filming, you can becomeseparated from reality.
That, I think, is a very, verydangerous game.
(28:50):
What I would suggest is thatwhen you pick up on that vibe so
that sixth sense that many ofus have lost or has been eroded,
when the hairs on the back ofthe neck start to prickle, you
need to start listening to themand understand that if you're
feeling like that, then probablysomebody else is, and then get
(29:12):
the vibe from the other membersof the team as well, see what
the scoop might be and ifthere's a conversation that
needs to be had about okay, arewe about to cross the line here?
Then think very seriously aboutcontinuing or not.
Do we pull back?
Or if we can manage to controlthis, both mentally, physically
(29:36):
and technically, then let's pushon, but let's be hyper aware of
the situation that we're nowpushing into and that one small
error will escalate extremelyquickly with very, very severe
consequences.
And so a lot of people think youknow, oh, is it about being all
(29:57):
gung ho?
And it's not.
It's completely the opposite ofthat.
It's about understanding theenvironment that you're in,
becoming very aware of thepeople around you, but also the
situation that you're in,situational awareness.
A lot of people talk about that.
Things do go wrong.
Of course they do, and what youhope is that you've put enough
(30:21):
in place that you can deal withthat.
But that's not to say that thatis what's going to happen.
You know things can run out ofcontrol.
I've been very fortunate atTouchwood that nothing has gone
completely.
You know, pear-shaped.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Yeah.
So in that Peru situation,obviously, obviously, you know
you, you got the shots, goteverything done.
Said to paul right, we're goodto go, packed up your gear,
sling your bike back on and thenjust carefully descended the
same way you came up yeah,exactly, there was nothing else
we could do.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
So what I did is I actually got paul to lower me,
because it saved a lot ofshenanigans, um, and then he
could be in complete control andobviously, if, if he needed me
to, you know, use my access andget back on the ice proper, then
he could just shout, you know,and hopefully it was, it would
work I guess from thatparticular experience you kind
(31:16):
of mentioned a little bit beforethere, but just on that
particular experience, onreflection, I mean, what do you
take from it, what have youlearned from it that you kind of
took through you going forwardin your career, or any sort of
lessons from it?
I think, from that day in peruwhere we're up in the, what do
they take from that?
It's about the team and it'sabout trust, and without that
(31:37):
and having confidence in eachother, and without that this
sort of stuff really doesn'twork.
Adrenaline is good, fear isgood.
Fear is your natural stop oryour natural hang on a second.
Let's just pause and see what'sgoing on here.
Let's see if there's anythingelse we can do.
Else we can do.
(32:02):
So all those emotions to like,think about analyzing them after
days like that and how you canuse them in a positive way
rather than in something whichactually form makes you close
down.
The minute you close down inthose high stress situations and
maybe with risk, then you ceaseto function effectively, I feel
.
But being very aware of therisk enables you to still
function and hopefully retreat,get out of it effectively, stay
(32:26):
in one bit, call it what youwill.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
So when you look back , you've done a ton of stuff.
When you look back ateverything, at your career, your
achievements, things you'vedone what kind of emotions does
that evoke?
Do you have a lot of pride inwhat you've done?
Would you've done anything elsewith your life?
You know um, you know how doyou feel?
Are you satisfied with yourcareers?
Are more you would have wantedto do?
Speaker 2 (32:54):
I think, when you look back on the sorts of things
that I've been involved in,it's been a very long, difficult
, fun, complicated and at timesrisky journey.
I don't think I'd do anythingparticularly differently because
(33:16):
I've just made the most of anyand every opportunity that's
kind of presented itself to me,but I do think I've been very
fortunate.
You know, having said earlierthat, is it serendipitous or do
you make your own luck?
So I think, as we discussedearlier, there is a little bit
(33:37):
of that sort of you've got to beopen to the luck and being able
to actually just go.
Actually that sounds great.
Let's do that.
Just go, yes, and then worryabout it a little bit.
I would guess it was a lot oftrouble.
I would say I guess it's a lotof trouble, but it's good
(33:58):
trouble, you know it's good, abit of trouble.
Yeah, and the other thing that Ireally feel strongly about is
the number of people that I'vemet.
You know, every project, everyproject is just with the most
amazing people, and that's oneof the things that I feel most
(34:19):
passionate about, because I'mnot a world-class climber, I'm
just willing to put myself outthere.
What I say is that I can sufferwith the best of them.
I'm happy to suffer, becauseusually it involves a lot of
suffering on these shoots,because they're usually not
comfortable, not a lot of luxury.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Not a lot of sleep, not a lot of food.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
No, but all of the above.
Very poor toilet facilities.
I would suggest a lot of thetime.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Although there's another story, but our toilet in
Venezuela I thought was quiteluxurious.
We even had a toilet seat.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I think that sat across the toilet.
Woe betide if it slipped,though.
I remember it was one of thebest views I've ever had in a
toilet.
It was pretty good actually.
Anyway, we digress.
What was the question?
Again?
Speaker 1 (35:07):
I forgot it was complicated again are you, would
you have done anythingdifferent?
And I think the answer is no,no, no.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
I was like actually, and I don't think you can, and I
think it's very easy to dwellon in a negative way on the past
, rather than going okay, yeah,that could have been better, all
right, let's not do that nexttime.
Let's do something differentand learn from that and move
forwards and just keep doingthat rather than going oh, that
(35:34):
was bad, well, I won't do thatagain.
I'll never do that again.
Do you know, I'll go and sitdown and give up.
You know that's.
That's just not me.
I'd rather go okay, let's learnfrom that.
How can we move on?
Let's move on, right, let's goabsolutely.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
I mean again, I kind of think about if it was the
same question put to me, is itwould do anything different?
Because I found my way to whatI love doing at a you know 24,
you know.
So it was a little bit later inmy career, but if I was asking
myself, would I do anythingdifferently?
I think it would be that I justdidn't know that people do this
(36:12):
for a living.
You know, like I was like youcan get paid to do this.
If I had known that when I was16, you know that you can do
these things that you love, putthe thing.
I love science, I lovephotography stick them together
and I love adventure stuff aswell, because I'm a climber, and
not to the level of you guys.
(36:33):
But yeah, I love doing thatkind of stuff and I was like you
can do, you can get paid for it.
I just wish I'd known earlierthat you can get paid for it.
I just wish I'd known earlier.
That was my only thing.
But then you can't do what ifs,you know no you can't.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
But the other thing is for me, yeah, sure, it's nice
to get paid.
Of course it is, and that'sbeen my profession, that's been
my job.
But it is a job, it is hardwork.
There is a lot at stake interms of people's wellbeing, but
also, I think, in terms ofmaking a film, there's a lot of
(37:05):
money involved.
Yeah, you know I'm not a brainsurgeon.
I don't go saving people'slives.
You know I'm not at that level.
But at the same time, there isa professional pride and
professional pressures.
Yeah, and you know, at the sametime, do you get paid to fail?
No, you don't.
You get paid to deliver and youget paid to constantly deliver.
And that is, whilst it's greatto have these adventures,
(37:29):
there's always that backgroundthere, like on Everest.
That's a big deal.
You don't get paid to fail onEverest.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Yeah, these are massive projects and they cost a
lot of money and you come backand you don't deliver the goods.
You probably won't be sent outagain.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Well, that's the tall and short of it, isn't it?
And that's the beauty, or thedanger, the price you pay for
being freelance.
These opportunities areincredible.
You find yourself doing thingsthat you could never, ever dream
of.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
I just want to touch on the day-to-day aspect of
things, of being, as you said,this is a freelance job.
You know there is no.
I mean maybe some people.
There's some rare opportunitieswhere you get a jobbing
cameraman kind of thing, but thesort of thing that you do is
very much a job-to-job thing.
There is not a lot of securityapart from your own reputation
and the strength of the industry.
Kind of just give us a sense ofthat.
(38:23):
Obviously, you've painted agreat picture of the great
aspect of doing this job, butthere are mundane aspects to it
as well.
You've got to chase clients forinvoices.
You've got to find the next job, you've got to do this and this
and this.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Just give us a sense of what that side of it's like.
Well, I mean, you areeffectively running a business
and, of course, there's all thepaperwork you know.
There's the accounts to keep upto date, there's oh, the
customs.
Documentation drives me to tearscarnays oh yeah, yeah, export
carnays, because you know whenwe're working abroad, we often
we there are some projects wehave a lot often.
(39:01):
We there are some projects.
We have a lot of equipment.
There are some projects.
We have a lot less.
But there have been jobs wherewe go out and it's it's not
unusual to have 40 pieces ofluggage and each item within
each box has to be itemized andit's just a nightmare.
So all of that mundane stuff, Imean I really I love talking to
(39:21):
clients and production teams.
It's great fun how we workcollaboratively to actually pull
this thing off, all of thisbackground stuff.
I also feel it's a means to anend.
You know you have to to jumpthrough these hoops.
They're part and parcel of whatgoes with the five-week
expedition to wherever orwhatever it means.
(39:43):
So that's it.
It's part of the job, it's partof what it takes.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
You can't be precious and sit by and get people to do
stuff for you.
It's going to be get everyonestuck in, get your hands dirty,
kind of thing.
Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
And then the fun stuff kicks in when you're up on
location.
That's terrific.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Yeah, two final quick things.
I mean the one I wanted to askyou about is just because a lot
of people listening on thefreelance side of things, when,
I'm sure now you know a veteransuch as yourself, you don't have
as much fear.
But when you're first startingout you know and you realize
that this is a you know I'mgoing to have to fight for every
job, kind of thing.
(40:23):
Were you scared?
Did you have trepidation?
You know?
How did you sort of deal withthat?
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Well, I do remember going to the hole in the wall,
put my bank card into it and itsaid seven pounds.
That was all I had left in theworld.
Wow, wow, and it was a littlebit of a sharpener.
But when one door shuts,another one opens.
As long as you have your radarup and you're willing to say,
(40:52):
yeah, I'll give that a whirl.
That sounds like it could begood and things worked out
Fortunately for me.
I guess that one job did rollinto the next, pretty much.
Sure, there were times when itwas a little bit quiet and thin
on the ground, but I would sayrarely.
And I think at the time when Ifirst went freelance, yeah,
(41:17):
there were those moments whenthe adventure stuff wasn't
around, but I was willing to doanything within film and
television to actually, you know, keep a bit of cash coming in.
So I think, nothing of doing anold contract here and there
back at the bbc and I'd beworking on kids drama shows or
(41:39):
doing the local news, I reallydidn't mind it was.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
It was all about keeping your options open, doing
whatever it took, but realizingwhen those golden opportunities
arose that you should just takeit well, and I guess the final
thing I just want to say is foranyone that wants to follow in
your footsteps, having listenedto all this, so don't, at the
(42:06):
end of it, don't do that foranyone still.
So, oh yeah, I'd love to dothat or something similar, I
mean.
What I mean?
Is it a job you would sell tobe?
What advice would you give toanyone that sort of goes?
Hmm, I think I'd have a bit ofthat.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
For anybody that wants to do adventure film
making or getting into this sortof line of work, my suggestion
is to get good at doing amultiplicity of roles, get
really good, but get good atstorytelling and understanding
what goes in to that story sothat when you're actually out
(42:47):
there filming or working ordoing your own projects they get
elevated, then they get noticedand then you can start to
embark upon, say, the filmfestival market which is
exploding at the moment.
We run an adventure filmmakersworkshop in banff in canada
every autumn.
That's an amazing 10-dayopportunity for anybody who
(43:08):
wants to get into this field.
So it's putting those littlenuggets in place, so little
bite-sized areas of knowledgeand experience, so so that you
are at a point where you canjoin them all together and
suddenly find yourself on thesesort of crazy film expeditions.
(43:30):
The landscape is a little bitdifferent now.
I think a lot of it has to comefrom the filmmaker themselves.
Now there are there are someprojects which do get kind of
picked up and commissioned, butI think a lot of those adventure
projects now come from theadventurers themselves and
having a crew of storytellersaround who can actually cover
(43:52):
that adventure.
But you know, I think foranybody, and I see this every
year in Banff.
There's some great people whocome through our workshop in
Banff, hopefully blow theirbrains out, in a metaphoric
sense, and then they come backand become award-winning
(44:12):
filmmakers at a very, veryprestigious festival.
So it is possible.
It is possible, you can followyour, your dream.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
You just have to be open to any and every
opportunity that comes your waybeautiful, uh, anything else
that you wanted to uh to mentionor add at the end of this?
Speaker 2 (44:37):
well, I suppose if anybody wants to hear a few more
crazy stories and a little bitmore of an insight as to my
career, then the adventure gamewhich is my book uh, that's been
out for a wee while, but it'sapparently.
It's a good read.
There are 60 000 words andthey're not all the same, and
there's some great photos inthere as well 200 photographs
from all over the world, so it'sa really.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
I think it's a good insight and it it is an
award-winning book, so there'ssomething to be said for that
yeah, no, it's fantastic and, um, for anyone interested, you can
just google that or I'll stickit on the website as well.
Uh, I'll put a link to it.
So, yeah, yeah, great stuff,fantastic.
All right, keith, thanks verymuch your time, appreciate it.
Bye, all right, bye, and thatis it for this week's episode.
(45:28):
I just want to say a massivethank you again to keith for
taking the time to speak with meand share all his amazing
stories.
It's always great speaking withhim.
Um, for photos, links and moreabout this episode, please head
to knowordinarymondaycom andlook for the episode page.
You can also find informationon our socials via link tree.
(45:50):
Our handle isknowordinarymonday.
If you have questions or wantto share your own career story
with us, we'd love to hear fromyou.
Please get in touch via oursocials and you can also email
hello hello at no ordinarymondaycom, or you can use the
submit your story page on ourwebsite.
(46:12):
And if you enjoyed this episode,please do two really quick
things for us give us a fivestar rating and review and tell
a friend.
It really helps us grow theshow and attract more amazing
guests and inspire new listeners.
In next week's episode we diveheadfirst into a taboo subject.
My guest, dr Hannah Gould,studies death and dying and the
(46:36):
realities kind of around thedeath care industry.
It's actually a really fun andinsightful, and sometimes dark
conversation that you guysreally won't want to miss.
So please subscribe and be thefirst to receive these latest
episodes absolutely free.
This show is produced, hostedand edited by me, chris Barron.
Thank you so much for listeningand have a great Monday
(46:59):
everyone.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.