Rita and I took part in the National Trails video shoot over a year ago - the camera crew of Walker Creative spent the day with us in four locations - Lineover Wood, Cleeve Hill, Cotswold Lavender at Snowshill & The Plough Inn at Ford.
Ike and Sam Walker were great company and though they had a clear idea of how they wanted to film the video, were very open to our suggestions of other areas to shoot/trying different angles - not that we had any experience of filming (other than my day at Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year).
Our meeting point was at the entrance to Lineover Wood - one of the few places in the Cotswolds we had never visited before! This area is of great interest due to its ancient beech trees, a variety of wildflowers and more than 500 species of fungi!
This still from the video shows us taking a closer look at some wild orchids - although we knew we were on camera, it still felt very natural to experience these beautiful surroundings for the first time..
Our second stop was Cleeve Hill - a good choice, being the highest point of the Cotswolds and Gloucestershire.
While we were getting to know each other, I showed Ike some examples of my artwork and when he saw 'Cleeve Hill View'; he had an idea of taking a video footage from the same viewpoint and incorporating it into the video. Unfortunately this didn't make it to the promo in the end but maybe we'll see it in the director's cut!
We then drove to Cotswold Lavender at Snowshill. Rita and I walked through the varieties of lavender (all 35 of them!) whilst being filmed. I took many photos in the afternoon, one of which, I later discovered, was of a Rosemary beetle (obviously quite keen on scented herbs).
We finished the day by visiting the award winning Plough Inn at Ford.
Although Ike and Sam had kindly treated us to lunch a couple of hours earlier at a stop in Winchcombe, soon enough it was time to eat again - this time on camera. Their brief was to record us having a meal, enjoying local specialities - we thought we may have blown the whole video by our less than gracious eating style - Ed Milliband eating a bacon sandwich comes to mind!
And so to the end of a very enjoyable day! Commissioned by Marketing Peak District and Visit England, the video was created to promote seven of England's long distance walking trails. Each video aims to showcase highlights of each route, whilst conveying some of the experiences of walking the trail. To find out more about The Cotswold Way and other UK routes, visit Great English Trails.
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