Field Archery on the TV

[Eaglearcher]

I had an interesting day yesterday. The BBC came to my field archery club an did some filming for a programme called Countryfile, this is a show that reports on news and events in the British countryside.
Field Archery is a little known sport over here and it was great to get the chance to let more people know about it.
Yours truly was interviewed and then had to teach the presenter to shoot and then took them around one of our courses for the rest of the day. The finished article will last about 6 minutes but the filming took all day and they must have taken hours of tape.
Anyone who has ever suffered from target panic or gets nervous at competitions will be able to imagine how hard it was to make a good shot when the camera was on me.
For the opening shot they wanted an arrow to be shot into a tree and the producer pointed to a tiny piece of moss and said "just hit it here", talk about a pressure shot. If i had missed you would have seen the hole in the tree on the next attempt and i had to get it right first time.
As i have said before i have only been shooting longbow since the begining of the new year and i shot compound for many years before that. It would have been easy to show off, pick up the compound and drill the spot, but i stuck to the longbow. The shots were not as accurate but it felt good to be showing that the traditional gear was still being used and enjoyed as much as the hi tech stuff.

Shoot Straight Shoot True. :shooting:

Eaglearcher

[steve morley]

Mike

What's this then, are you trying to muscle in on my fame :)


When is it going to be on TV?

[Eaglearcher]

Steve

The programme goes out on a Sunday morning which means most of us will have to tape it as we will be out shooting.
I dont know which Sunday yet, but it should be in the next month or so.
I will post a notice when i get the date.

Please be assured i wont let the fame go to my head !!!!! :cool:

[James Wrenn]

Hey that is pretty cool! Did you hit the moss? ;)

[mysticguido]

I get a BBC channel over here across the pond and I'll keep a eye out for the show.

[Eaglearcher]

James

In answer to your question.
I got close enough for the cameraman to be happy (about an inch off).

Later in the day they wanted to have some film of the presenters arrows hitting the target. They had already filmed from the peg and wanted to replicate the shots from close range at the butt. They asked me if i could shoot her arrows into the same places on the butt. This would have been easy but the only bow to hand that could shoot her arrows was the bow she was using. I am left handed and this was a right handed bow. The cameraman also asked if the arrows could come in to the target from a low angle so that he could get a better picture of the arrows. So i found myself shooting a bow i had never shot before, right handed and kneeling on the floor. They might only have been 10 yard shots but when i was asked to ensure that the last one went in the spot, the pressure was on!!
As an archer who has suffered from target panic in the past, the day was quite some test. I thought competition nerves were bad. By the end of the day i was a nervous wreck!!

[Viper]

Eagle -

Congrats, six minutes? Any chance of getting it converted to an MPG or similar file format, perhaps Bull can host it so the rest of us can see your mug?

:highfive:

Viper out.

[Phil]

Eaglearcher
Excellent news, well done, I watch country file every Sunday and I'm looking forward to see you "in the flesh", so to speak. :)

[swampy]

Congrads for sure !! I,d have been a wreck on camera LOL

[Torsten]

Eaglearcher,

that was very exiting and your description did let me participate every second.
Great!!!
The only TV field archery we have here is when I take a strung bow inside and 'look' at the screen of the TV...

Keep us updated, maybe we could engage and involve cameramen here as well.

[Phil]

Eaglearcher

When Country File do this sort of thing, they usually do a rearly positive take on a country activity. If I were you I'd get those club membership forms ready pretty darn quick. :shooting:

[Eaglearcher]

In case anyones interested i have just been given the transmission date for the Field Archery feature on the BBC's Countryfile programme
Its to be on BBC1 at 11.30am on Sunday 5th June. So if you want to see my ugly mug on the TV. Have a look.

As far as getting a downloadable file of it for the forum. I will do my best.