Don't Look at the Camera
The inside story of making television at Britain's smallest ITV station
Published on 7. August 2017
Book
Paperback/Softback
254 pages
978-1-9998137-0-3 (ISBN)
Description
Don't Look at the Camera tells the extraordinary inside story of what it's like to spend a lifetime making television. Ian Fisher is an international award winning producer/director who started his television career as a news reporter and presenter. This first volume of his memoirs is an often hilarious, sometimes emotional journey through a series of adventures, regular occurrences in his working day.
As a reporter he impersonated a cabinet minister to secure an interview with the Home Secretary, tracked down Richard Branson's balloon at the end of his record-breaking trans-Atlantic flight, faced down a farmer who threatened to shoot him with a shotgun, and led the first television crew into Lockerbie after Pan Am Flight 103 crashed onto the town.
His programme-making exploits have been no less interesting, leading to encounters with some of the world's top experts in their specialisms. He tells of the man who masterminded the US hydrogen bomb project, whose first encouraging words on meeting him at the end of a five thousand mile journey were, "You know I don't want to do this", and of the scientist whose pipe set fire to his sports jacket half way through the interview.
Fisher says he's been lucky that the predominant sound in the crew vehicles and edit suites he's worked from has been laughter, and it finds its way into this book. But it's not exclusively a light-hearted take on life.
His involvement in covering the funeral of an 11 year old girl, murdered by a serial killer who the police took years to track down, is a heart rending story. And the description of events at Lockerbie on the night of the crash and over the subsequent days gives a unique insight into the pressures and dangers faced by journalists and crews reporting on world-level events.
Fisher has picked up a wide range of awards over the course of his career, including two medals from the prestigious New York Film & Television Festival, and his knowledge and experience are woven into the very fabric of this book. Don't Look at the Camera will have you laughing and weeping. But you'll also marvel at how much one person can fit in to a single life.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
277 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-9998137-0-3 (9781999813703)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Ian Fisher has spent a lifetime making television. After switching from radio news and production he became a television news reporter and presenter, learning his trade over a decade in which he covered stories which ranged from the mundane to events on the night of the Lockerbie Disaster.
After becoming a Producer and Director he specialised in factual, documentary and science programmes, winning a raft of awards and nominations from organisations such as The New York Film & Television Festival, The Royal Television Society, BAFTA, and the British Medical Association Film Awards amongst others.
He quickly learned that the process of making television in a sometimes unpredictable world is fraught with banana skins, and his keen observational powers found humour in most situations. The predominant sound around him was laughter, and it's ingrained into the very substance of this book.
Yet there are times when even the most highly developed sense of humour fails; when events are too tragic to fully comprehend. Two of the most difficult were the Lockerbie Disaster, which saw him lead the first television crew into the flames and smoke of the town within minutes of the crash, and the funeral of an 11 year-old girl, murdered by one of Britain's most notorious child killers.