Winchester University student looking for advice and help on the subject of mining/exploration. Im a third year student embarking on my Final Year Project and are planning to film a 25min drama surrounding events of a miner/explorer.

If you can help and have a high level of mining knowledge and possible locations, please don't hesitate to ask.....

email me on dazoolah🇦🇹btinternet.com

many thanks,

Daryl Harrison
(Nobility Pictures)

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a few obvious questions..

what are you studying?

what sort of context and plot? "Miner/explorer" is pretty vague.

what sort of locations are you looking for?

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As Derrickman says. More info helpful :)

Even explorer could do with clarifying... exploring as in exploring for a commerical mining venture... or exploring as in exploring disused mines. Quite a different kettle of fish ;)

Any finance available? E.g. if an operating tourist mine was a suitable venue then they would wish for some payment for time.

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OK!

so the story is of a College/University Bio-chemist Teacher, who's job become's under threat when the institution decides to cut funding and jobs for the bio- chemistry department.

Being a outdoorsy kind of person he is a guy who enjoys the outdoors and whilst on one of his days out does he stumble upon a small shaft. Interested by it to where it leads he begins scouting libraries, visiting shops trying to learn about the ways of caving and exploration. This is when he makes the friend of a local adventurer, younger than he he befriends this man and organises to meet him to explore his discovery.

Upon returning to the site he and his new friend enter the shaft stepping into a large casum......

From then on Im a little sketchy on the idea but from what im thinking he discovers not only has he found what he and his department have been looking for but, then person his is friends with is someone, who'd he rather not met with in the first place. e.g rival teacher something like that...

locations as you saw are a cave system easily accessable, mainly a mostly dry casum or shaft system, and some interesting features. More details prior to a meeting later on in the summer....

Finance... as i am a student i would be necessarily aiming to find somewhere to film in the winter months and could pay a small fee for helping out. Also I have knowledge of Media Software, for example the production of promotional videos, websites, and/or other media services.... so if needed i would be able to help produce one of thwe following...

Strewth..... :surrender:

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Maybe the teacher is really a spy, gay and has only one leg just to add a little more to the storyline?

Will there be Goblins at any point? There's always Goblins......


In my (admittedly limited and amatuerish experience) trying to film anything underground is an almighty faff even without trying to tell a story. I suggest looking for somewhere with reasonably good access, a quiet corner of a showcave perhaps?

You are going to need lights. Lots and lots of lights. Did I mention the silly amount of Lights you're going to need?

Helpers to carry the kit down and up, all the people you are going to get to help need to be fine underground for (presumably) hours at a time, As are your actors.

I'm not trying to shoot holes, but that's just the beginning. I'm hoping you've thought all this through. If you were hoping to turn up with a Flash-based HD camera (Utter crap in low-light due to poxy sensor sizes and low sensitivity) and a Maglite, you're not going to get any footage.

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Yes, its the large chasm bit that will cause the difficulty, if you can restrict yourself to smaller passages you can get better results with more basic equipment I reckon.

Many years ago they filmed some of Juliet Bravo down Grimebridge Colliery, Lancashire then there has been the Coalhouse series filmed partialy underground in South Wales.

Yes, its the large chasm bit that will cause the difficulty, if you can restrict yourself to smaller passages you can get better results with more basic equipment I reckon.

I made a "pretty good" film by the light of your candelabra!

We may be able to offer assistance at Alderley Edge as we have many shafts that could be opened and plenty of opportunity to get lighting in. Drop me an email if you fancy a trip to investigate more - edwardcoghlan {at} gmail.com

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since you don't actually say WHAT your subject is, I'm assuming that it's "media studies" or something of the sort.

I see MS graduates from time to time ( they sometimes turn up as CAD or GIS techs after they have discovered how little chance they have of making any headway in such an over-subscribed profession ). Sometimes bright, shiny young things from PR get wished on us for a while and we have to keep them from falling under the machinery for long enough for them to become an SEP.

This is when they discover how much they need to learn ... engineering graduates tend to learn this during their placements, but MS students don't appear to do them.

I would suggest that you need a much clearer idea of what you are trying to do - a plot outline, overall running time, storyboard and running order, for one thing.

Then you need a technical spec for what equipment you think you will want, how you expect to power it, and a reconciliation between this and what you actually have available. Then you need to revisit your storyboard and shooting script and probably cut it by about 90%.

Then you need a detailed shooting script. Everything which take several times longer to film that you expect. Most of your time on location will go in simply getting in and out, and most of the rest will go in setting up and packing away again. You will need time allowed for cleaning your equipment afterwards. You will need far more pairs of hands than you think.


At that point you are ready to start looking at locations.


You seem to have a general outline containing enough material for 3 episodes of East Enders or an Indiana Jones film, with a similar level of credibility and continuity, and a completely insufficient idea of what you actually intend to do once there. Most of the PR whizz kids who arrive on site are like this, and they are getting paid for it, so don't worry too much.

Your aim is to produce a usable product within a given level of resources, to a pre-determined programme. Once you have worked out how you are going to do this, you will be most of the way there.

Good luck.

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A while ago young Cameron and I decided to try and do a "proper" bit of filming underground. We bought a secondhand DV tape camera off ebay and bunged it in an old Pelicase.

To solve the lighting problem we wired 6 50w halogen bulbs onto 3 old 12v lead acid batteries from a fire alarm system and built the lot rather crudely into an old instrument box, then set off for the hills.....

We found our lighting system rather heavy, it also got extremely hot! We got some useable footage but gave up after we dropped the lot into some waist deep water, the camera was OK as it was sealed in the box, the light still worked but produced vast clouds of billowing steam and a loud hissing.

The result of our efforts is here;

I'll take a Bog-standard Flash based HD camera into a mine on saturday, and pair it with a silly-bright light (1,750 Lumens), to give you an idea of exactly what you will need from a lighting standpoint. To get the even illumination you are likely used to, you will need a fair number of bright lights.

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Wouldn't worry too much about the light. Some of the underground scenes in Edge of Darkness were filmed almost entirely in the dark and plenty of people on here would cut your throat rather than hear you say a word against it!

PS. Although Alderley Edge is barely local to Winchester you could do much much worse than take up Ed's offer.