Television's Ten Commandments

(or: When Pigs Ruled The World)

With the fascinating papal conclave soon underway, this week I’m laying out the Gospel according to television by going back to where it all started: my very first documentary job.

Why? Because it was such an ill-thought-out, chaotic sh*t show that it equipped me with the programme-making fundamentals I would need for the rest of my career (even if I didn’t realise it at the time).

First, let’s set the scene. It’s 1996, and I leave university with a Master’s degree in Visual Anthropology – and a conviction that this filmmaking qualification will allow me to slip smoothly into the broadcast industry. Cue the 1^st Commandment:

Thou shalt not confuse a media degree with a golden ticket (TV hires thee not for thy dissertation, but because the runner quit yesterday)

Fortunately, my path almost immediately crossed that of a London production company whose runner had quit (well, to be precise their junior researcher had gone travelling). They were on the hunt for a replacement to assist with some exciting, international science projects. OK, so I wasn’t a scientist – but they were keen, their offices were really cool, and they seemed to take long lunches. It was meant to be.

And therein lies the 2^nd Commandment:

Thou shalt not be seduced by the shimmer of television (instead think late nights, vague briefs, and a budget held together with hope and duct tape).

But I didn’t care about that. I was brimming with youthful enthusiasm and professional naivety, and I jumped on board.

I was immediately asked to work on their main commission, a documentary for Channel 4 called ‘When Pigs Ruled the World’. It was about a time, 50 million years before the dinosaurs, when a group of strange mammal-like beasts dominated huge swathes of the planet. And guess what? They were just like pigs! Millions upon millions of pigs roaming across the Earth. Who knew?

The thing is, it soon became clear they weren’t really like pigs at all. I mean, they were about the size of pigs, and at a push their noses looked very slightly like snouts. But it was a very big push – in fact, it was utter nonsense – and this brings me to my 3^rd Commandment:

Thou shalt take the promises of development teams with a pinch of salt (for though they are talented and charming, they may bend the truth to win the pitch, leaving you to clean up the mess – or worse, reinvent science to match the sell)

Despite the flimsiness of the documentary’s premise, my glass-half-full enthusiasm overrode any concerns – especially when I was suddenly promoted from Junior Researcher to Researcher. It was a big deal, although I probably should have spoken up about the fact that I seemed to be the only person researching, casting experts and thinking about shoots. There was no Producer, and the Director was busy filming car adverts. Which neatly brings me to Commandment number 4:

Thou shalt not mistake a title upgrade for a functioning team (for even if thy cup overfloweth with enthusiasm, thou may still be alone, planning and producing while the Director shooteth commercials)

Despite operating solo, I soon managed to track down and bring on board a world-renowned expert in mass extinctions (a big theme of the documentary). When the day came to interview him at his home in London, I was excited: this marked my first big contribution to the cause of broadcast television.

The lights and cameras were set, the cameraman started rolling (literally, it was shot on 16mm) – and I was about to ask my first question … but before I could, our world-renowned expert looked me in the eye and announced, “I believe you know my daughter very well”. Hence the 5^th Commandment, which admittedly, is aimed at my younger self rather than anyone else:

Thou shalt not woo thine contributor’s daughter (for what seemed like a harmless fling may return to haunt thee on shoot day)

Yes, in a completely awful turn of bad luck, I’d spent weeks hunting down and securing an interview with the father of a girl I met, very briefly, at Uni. I spent the rest of the interview on the back foot, red-faced and fumbling my words. Interview over, I exited in a hurry, and in doing so broke Commandment number 6:

Thou shalt not forget to obtain a signed release form (for thou will incur the wrath of thine bosses and be forced to go back and get it)

Back in the office, there was now a Production Manager in place, and the Director had finished with his car stuff and was starting to take an interest in the Pig/not Pigs story. But there was even more exciting news: to illustrate extinction events it was decided we would travel to Madagascar to film a near-extinct tortoise.

It was a bit confusing – I wasn’t quite sure how we were going to segue from pseudo pigs to tortoises to justify what was a very expensive trip, but hey, I wasn’t complaining about the adventure, and off we went. In fact, I was so buoyant, I soon fell foul of the 7^th Commandment:

Thou shalt not bullshit about your camera skills (for thou shalt be revealed as a charlatan and looketh ridiculous)

Asked by the cameraman if I’d ever camera-assisted before and loaded rolls of film, for some reason I said I had. Well, I had once, but only very briefly and not under pressure. Certainly not in the hot and arid conditions of Madagascar – conditions in which grains of sand and my sweaty hands immediately screwed up the entire process.

Fortunately for me, my failings were quickly overshadowed: the Director and cameraman started despising one another. I’m not sure why – maybe it was the heat, or the fact that building an editorial bridge from the ‘pigs’ to the tortoise was proving tricky. Either way, the 8^th Commandment was soon in tatters:

Thou shalt not let heat, hunger and creative tension turn thy crew into enemies (for what begins as a dream shoot abroad may end in a silent Cold War played out through shot choices and lens selections)

Despite the tricky dynamics, the team departed Madagascar having got what we needed.

All that remained was to create visuals of the ‘pigs’ themselves. Having already blown most of the budget on our overseas shoot, it was decided we’d opt for some affordable animatronics – which meant filming rubbery puppet versions of the creatures roaming around a fake rocky landscape. It looked really silly, the Director panicked, and he asked the dub to lay some pig noises under the images to try and improve things. It didn’t.

And so, the 9^th Commandment:

Thou shalt not rely on post-production to rescue what reality could not deliver (for no amount of clever cutting or subtle snorts can polish a pig – animatronic or otherwise)

‘When Pigs Ruled the World’ was eventually finished and broadcast (there’s a link to it below – although I can’t say it’s recommended viewing).

And what about this article’s dramatic denouement – what is the 10^th Television Commandment? Well, I’m afraid there are no more diktats to hand down, because the title of this piece was somewhat misleading, and I could only think of 9. Although that does give me an idea:

Thou shalt not mistake television for a peer-reviewed pursuit (for facts are often filtered, fast-tracked, or fiddled to fit the format)