I was shooting a commercial for a well know soft drink manufacturer. It was shot at Bolton Wanderers Football Club over 2 days and it was freezing! The first day was just to set up and rehearse some moves of the football action that would happen the following day using some actors plus a famous football personality. 8 hours into the first day their crew was still setting up and positioning the massive Techno-crane they had also brought in for the job. It dwarfed my Polecam which I had set up to over 8 metres before the Techno was out of its box.

I was using the new prototype supporting outriggers on it for more stability that day as I had a very fast jibbing shot to perform. We spent about 2 hours positioning and getting the angles just right for the next day. We were trying to get a shot from the football's point of view as it flies across the box and then lands on the boot of the 'famous footballer' for his kick to goal. So I needed to swing the 8m Polecam as fast as possible over the heads of players and then land it within 5 inches of a moving boot AND then stop it within a couple of feet so as not to hit the player. I must admit, it was a huge challenge and required a great deal of physical effort and some precision jibbing.

After about 10 takes on the shoot day we managed to get 2 good ones in the can and the client went away happy. The shot would be ramped up so would only last about 1 second on air but it took 2 days to achieve. Polecam was really the only way to get this shot unless I think something like a cable cam was used but that would have certainly blown the budget not to mention the shadows it would have introduced . A good days work for my Polecam in the end.

John Gillan of JG Broadcast

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