Working as a self-shooting P/D on Strictly, I got to pitch ideas and see them all the way through to delivery, working at super-tight turnarounds so our content was ready to push to TV TX.

One such idea was this video. Strictly was heading to Blackpool once again, and we needed to find a way to showcase not only the contestants and dancer, but also the iconic Blackpool Ballroom they’d be dancing in.

Utilising a gimbal and my Sony A7SMk2, I shot the video utilising in-camera moves to create transitions, to give the effect of the camera being thrown around the ballroom

This was shot within a few hours, and uploaded that evening to Strictly’s social channels.

Bespoke social content for launch.

A large part of my role when working on a live TV show is to create the social assets for the series launch. On Strictly, I’m the lead editor of the profile videos that go out on social - often these are the first glimpse the audience see of the new line up in the context of Strictly.

To bring these to life in a visually interesting way, we recorded bespoke questions for our social content, and added aspects of the contestants own social media profiles.

I created a dynamic look by animating these in after effects, and working with a motion graphics designer on our team to create a consistent look and feel that we could roll out across the videos.

The Final.

Every good social campaign ends on a high, right? As a social team we were tasked with creating a piece of content that pushed to the live final on BBC One.

Our brief was that it had to include all the contestants and their dance partners, be recorded in the BBC’s New Broadcasting House (where we didn’t have any offices or filming space), and that the record should take no more than half an hour to capture footage with all of them.

I created the concept of a ‘forecast for the final’, working with a copywriter in my team who drafted a punny Strictly-filled script that could be popped on an autocue for ease. Using previous links I’d made with BBC Weather, I got in touch with them and they graciously agreed to host, and even worked with us to create bespoke assets for the record and allowed us to use their infrastructure. As the final pièce de résistance, we DM’d BBC news reported Huw Edwards who agreed to record an introduction to the piece.