![]() Panorama has always been up against the wire, part of its remit to be a very current affairs programme. An edited tape was normally hand carried on a flight back to London if it had to be edited in the field. Panorama entered the fray too with the intention of broadcasting the first full-length documentary from occupied Kuwait.įeeding a short news report was one thing but we had never attempted to feed an entire programme. ![]() When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, it was the first time that electronic newsgathering was right up at the front in a major war involving western troops. With the advent of digital technology the huge cameras became smaller and more light sensitive without suffering a reduction in quality.ĭigital editing systems arrived on the scene but although Panorama acquired its first Avid (editing suite) in 1990, it was sometime before we used it extensively. He introduced me to the joys of the tiny monitor plugged into the camera so that not only the producer but the reporter and any casual passer-by could comment critically on the framing of a shot. He always has the latest gizmo, the add-on, usually home made in his workshop or gleaned from a wacky internet site. Mike could - and still can - bore for Britain on the technicalities of the cameraman's art. My very first Panorama, The shadow of the killing fields, was made in Cambodia in 1988 and introduced me to a cameraman who was to share many adventures and witness much human suffering with me around the world.Įnthusiastic and ever-resourceful, with a talent for actuality filming, Mike Spooner never missed a shot although he bore the weight of a 38lb Beta SP camera in temperatures of 38C and high humidity. I can jam a mini-DV camera and wipe a computer disk faster than I can say "off the record", but even a technophobe like me can't fail to appreciate the revolution that has taken place in the equipment which enables us to report news and current events. I, like most reporters, am firmly of the "the pen is mightier than the digital readout" school and have spent many long and happy years on the programme in blissful ignorance of the exact contents of the many silver boxes that have accompanied me from Moscow to Michigan and from Mombassa to Madras. ![]() ![]() Jane Corbin making her first ever Panorama in 1988 ![]()
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