“Well this is not ideal”, I think to myself, as I bend over and throw up at Zürich train station. In 20 years of international filming, I’ve so far never been too ill to make it to a location and do my job. And for the last 5 hours, since I woke just after midnight with “something very wrong going on inside”, I’ve been in frantic negotiations with my digestive system to calm the hell down, because today promises to be spectacular.
Our destination is the High Altitude Research Station at Jungfraujoch in the Swiss Alps, where we’ll meet scientists experimenting with new ways of monitoring the receding glaciers.
The weather is forecast to be glorious, the shots are going to be fantastic, and it will be a beautiful way to open a programme all about measuring and countering climate change.
And as I’d laid in bed, shivering, sweating, aching and, yes, moaning, I’d convinced myself that the 5am start was now not a problem (I was awake anyway), and the 3+ hour train journey to get up to 11,000 feet would give me ample time to get over whatever this was. Surely I’d be able to make it through the shoot and look all fabulous and James Bond and stuff?
But before the train has even pulled away, my colleagues have helped me back onto the platform, just in time for me to add some decoration to what I must say is some fairly bland architecture.
Universities are brilliant
When we travel abroad, we absolutely make it count. We arrange to shoot as many different stories as we can in a short time, and there are often no better innovation goldmines - no higher concentrations of new ideas - than universities. Whether it’s MIT in the US, KAIST University in South Korea, or, in this case, ETH in Zürich, there are so many really interesting research projects going on in one place that it really is a case of “I wonder what’s behind this door? Oh it’s a massive robot. And this one? Can’t see, it’s full of dry ice”.
In the first two days of this trip we’ve filmed four different stories including tree-swabbing drones measuring biodiversity, electric super-cars and bouncing space robots.
The other great thing about places like this is they want to show us their stuff. In the corporate world everything is very locked down - new products are embargoed, the messaging is controlled, access is restricted, and IP is protected. All for good reason of course, but it makes it much harder for us to tell an exciting story, and the access negotiations with various comms departments can sometimes feel as delicate as putting together an international peace treaty.
But in the early stages of research, with more exposure often leading to more investment, the energised, blue-sky thinking students are more than willing to get their message out there.
Memorable things I’ve seen at universities include:
my first close-encounter with a walking robot (jumping, slipping and recovering on a horse treadmill (which itself is an actual thing))
an absolutely bonkers sleep-glove (the best way to have your boldest ideas is to record them just as you’re nodding off, when your inhibitions have all gone away)
and a stair-climbing wheelchair which to this day remains my most memorable, terrifying and hilarious shoot. See if you can spot how much Ben the cameraman is laughing by the way the camera is shaking:
And just to say that, as unlikely as it seemed back then, the wheelchair guys have gone on to create a very important and successful business. All thanks to those early tests using willing guinea pigs (lemmings?), like yours truly.
Start up, Spin off
A lady comes over to ask me if I’m okay - I’m sure she thinks I’m something to do with the gentlemen sitting at the train station café table, shouting merrily over their 6am beers. I’m not sure how their night has gone, but I’m certain that it’s better than mine. I thank the kind lady and say that I’m actually with the two worried looking people with all the camera equipment over there. They’re deciding whether to send me back to the hotel in a taxi, in the hope that I’ll be okay for tomorrow’s shoot with an underwater robot.
Air, land, mountains, water - we’ve certainly got all the elements covered here in Switzerland.
Just like the wheelchair chaps, the underwater robot is an example of another great thing about universities - once students graduate, it’s not uncommon for them to continue their research as spin-offs and startups. It’s why so many large companies are interested in university partnerships, and for private investors, it’s certainly a ripe orchard to cherry-pick from.
There is a skill, I think, in connecting the investors with the ideas - the startups need to be able to tell their stories well, and the VCs need to understand why the idea is important, and will be successful.
Just because you’ve developed a brilliant technology, it doesn’t follow that you can automatically explain it in an accessible way. And on the other side, just because you have the money, it doesn’t follow that you can find the next big thing.
Don’t just tell, show
The taxi delivers me back to my hotel, and I make my way unsteadily back into bed, where I stay for the rest of the day and night. I’ve asked Martin, my cameraman, to do the journey up Jungfraujoch without me, film as much as he can, and we’ll work out how to tell the story in the edit later. It’s far from ideal, but it’s such a great location that my not being there isn’t the end of the world.
I believe I tell my best stories when I can experience them on behalf of the audience, to explain how it feels to be there, to get hands on with things, show how they work, and what they do.
There’s plenty of great TV made using just voiceover, but when you have someone who knows their craft, and they’re on location, talking with passion and knowledge, you achieve a completely different level of connection with the audience.
Think David Attenborough with the gorillas, for example.
That’s what I’ve always strived for - whenever I’m on screen, it’s for a good reason, to add something to the story that couldn’t be gotten just by showing more of the cool tech.
But today won’t be one of those days, and I’m glad Martin has sent me to bed. The aches disappear by midday, the shakes by mid-afternoon. Just in time for a message telling me that, having filmed for many hours, Martin is now throwing up on the train coming back down the mountain.
Blimey, I think, if we’ve both got it, it must be norovirus. But no, later it turns out that for him it’s altitude sickness. For me, it was most likely the fish.
Sub-optimal shoot
The next day, Martin and I slowly make our way to the shores of Lake Zürich, to film the underwater robot. Neither of us have dared eat anything, we’re standing in the hot sun, and for some stupid reason, I’ve decided to film part of the piece while dangling my feet in the water. Which, it turns out, is fed from glaciers.
So when you see the Click story from the Alps, or the one from the pontoon by the lake (coming late summer), please show some inner love for Martin, who managed to get everything in focus despite the roughest of days.
I’ve filmed in much more hazardous places than Switzerland, and as I said, this is the first time I can remember actually missing a shoot for digestive reasons. And I’ve eaten some weird stuff in some weird places, I can tell you.
And I wouldn’t give up these filming trips for the world. Every day throws up something new and exciting.
Including, occasionally, last night’s dinner.