In August of 2016 we were asked if one of us would consider being filmed by A Place In The Sun as their Tenerife property expert.
They obviously wanted the youngest and most handsome member of the Tenerife Property Group but unfortunately he wasn’t available, so I went instead.
The second Friday in January, the programme was aired and I got to see myself talking about the Tenerife property market… an odd experience to say the least.
Well, I say that I saw myself on the TV, the story isn’t as simple as that…is it ever?For those of you who don’t know, I have a YouTube channel and very often upload videos that I have taken of properties that I have for sale in an attempt to market them for our sellers, so I’m used to seeing myself on a screen but this TV appearance was just a bit more than that, perfect editing, perfect lighting and perfect sound, just like real TV…, well it was…!!!
You can see the video above on YouTube
TV and films have always interested me, not necessarily so much for the film or program itself but for the behind the scenes stuff that goes on. I often wonder while I’m watching a film, what happens to the stars while they’re not on the set actually filming, I know they tend to get up mega early and lunch is supplied, they tend to have a motor-home with all the perks and of course all of the fame and fortune that goes with it afterwards… So what about me and A Place In The Sun? How did that work out?
During the week before the filming was planned I was asked loads of questions about the property market in Tenerife, how the market has changed over the years and what my opinion was of the future for the Tenerife property market. I duly filled in their questionnaires and sent them back to the producer and researcher for the program and waited to see if I was to be selected.
They decided on taking me on for the filming, clearly not due to my youth and good looks but there must have been something that interested them, maybe they felt that I could be the next A Place In The Sun presenter and wanted to try me out… I wondered if they might have had me lined up for the new James Bond or Jason Bourne but as it turned out, they were simply happy with the answers that I’d given.
So, the date was set and I was told to be at the Amarilla Golf club house at 9.30 ready for filming.
I arrived a bit early at 9.15 and started looking for my motor-home as I suspected that I would have to have a make-up session before I started.
I couldn’t find a motor-home of any description, not even an old Ford Transit van anywhere so decided that I’d have to go into reception and look for the director that I’d been in contact with during the week.
I found everyone outside and around the pool, the cameraman and soundman preparing their equipment and making sure everything was going to be ready for take one.
I was offered a coffee and sat down with the presenter and the rest of the staff fully expecting to be asked to have some sort of make-up session – nothing…not even a bit of powder to remove the glare that would clearly bounce from my hairless head with the obvious danger of blinding the viewers.
After a short time, the presenter and I were asked to move to a small round table near the swimming pool which had a couple of chairs pulled up to it and a couple of glasses of orange juice poured but I was told that for reasons of continuity I wasn’t allowed to drink the orange juice.
I started recording, everything seemed to be going okay although I felt I was really checking what I was saying before I said anything for fear of making a mistake or maybe not saying exactly the same that I had reported on my questionnaire answers.
After about 10 or 15 minutes of recording the director asked me to stop saying certain words, for example, I wasn’t allowed to say things like “as I said…” This was just in case they were going to put that bit of my recording at the start of the program which would mean that as I hadn’t actually said anything up to that point, the words “as I said…” would be meaningless. This just added to my concerns of making a mistake as I had to think even more clearly about what I was saying.
After about 1 hour of filming the interview, we came to a halt, the cameraman did a few bits of filming the golf, some shots of the pool and I did a bit of a walk-on as if I was walking into the reception area of the club house and that was it…all of the excitement was over for the filming…I couldn’t wait to see how it came out on TV.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a text message from a friend in the UK saying that his step-father had just been watching me on TV…I asked him if it was A Place In The Sun to which he rudely replied “What else? Crimewatch?”…fair comment son.
The time had come, I told everyone that I knew that it had been on and if they had catch-up TV they’d be able to see my moment of glory…my fifteen minutes of fame.
Whoever said that everyone gets 15 minutes of fame didn’t know TV shows…15 minutes, more like 38 seconds and that included the walk into shot for the start of the program…!!!
Well, that was it, an hours filming for 38 seconds of TV fame…it made me wonder how much time it must take to make a 1-and-a-half-hour film for the cinema…amazing amounts of money and time must be put in to that and that’s not even thinking about the planning behind the scenes.
Anyway, although it appears that I’m moaning, I’m really not. It was a great experience, a good anecdote to tell my friends and family and of course a fantastic marketing opportunity for our vendors which is really what it’s all about.
