Flying high with Time Team

It's a popular (and expensive) part of the show, yet often only takes up seconds on screen. The amazing aerial filming that Time Team carries out from hired helicopters can bring a site alive, as well as setting it in its context, that no amount of ground-based filming can match. So what is involved in getting a crew into the air and who does what behind the scenes?

One of the common misconceptions is that Time Team has its own helicopter. It doesn't. Firstly, helicopters are extremely expensive things to own, crew and maintain; and secondly, perfectly serviceable and TV-experienced choppers and pilots are available for charter all over the country. All Time Team has to do is to book the machine for an hour's flying time and along it comes when it's needed.

Of course it's not quite as simple as that. Big business and celebrities may well charter a quick, trouble-free flight to Ascot, but Time Team requires a little more of its choppers. The demands of getting the archaeologists, a film crew and all its equipment into the air can mean that a helicopter is operating at the margins of its weight-carrying capacity. Low flying and a few acrobatics can also be required as part of the Time Team job – not to mention the cloud and rain that seems to turn up on cue whenever Time Team is digging.

Special helicopter crew
The dedicated helicopter crew on Time Team had done it over 100 times by the end of the 2003 series, so they certainly know what they're doing. First on the scene is Joe Ellison. He's also in charge of communications on site. Joe will have organised a suitable landing place for the helicopter prior to the dig starting, and he liaises with the pilot to co-ordinate the landing. Standing in the middle of a field with his high-visibility jacket on, Joe guides the chopper down.

Then sound man Steve Shearn and cameraman Richard Gibb arrive. Backed up by their capable camera assistants, Jack Holmes and Will Fewkes, they all get to work preparing the helicopter and their equipment. The on-screen helicopter regulars, Mick Aston and Stewart Ainsworth, get dropped off at the landing site later by a production runner when the helicopter is ready to take off.

Before that there is a lot of work to be done on the helicopter. First, the posh interior panels are removed, together with any surplus refinements. The crew need the room, and the helicopter needs to lose as much weight as possible. Then the doors are taken off. 'It's great fun flying without doors and with one foot on the side rail,' says Stewart.

After the interior has been stripped, the audio set-up is rigged with a small mixer in the back of the helicopter and microphones attached to the flying headsets. Richard Gibb gets strapped into a special harness and then everything (including the crew) is tied down to the helicopter. Stewart and Mick brief the pilot on the route and then the engines charge up to speed.

How it's done
A trick of the trade: Time Team does two flights, not just the one as it seems in the programme. This enables the editor to piece together the film so that you see the presenters (Mick and Stewart) and also what they are talking about (the landscape) in one seamless piece of film.

For the first flight, the helicopter is rigged with the camera looking into the back seats with a close-up on the talking heads of Mick and Stewart. Sound man Steve Shearn is just out of shot. Following the pre-arranged flight plan, half an hour is spent flying over the landscape with Mick and Stewart on camera.

Then it's time to land and do the swap. Without shutting the engines off, Richard has to turn in his seat and hang out of the side of the helicopter. Then a TV monitor is set up in the back so that the director of the scene and Stewart (or Mick) can see what the camera is pointing at. Up to full power and it's off again. Using the monitor, Stewart and the director can guide Richard to film what they were just talking about in the last take. Another half an hour in the air, and then it's time to land and put everything back together.

Chameleon eyes
'We've done this so many times that we're used to it,' says Steve Shearn. 'Sometimes, if the pilots haven't done TV before, they look a little distraught when we start pulling it apart. But generally these chaps are very good and know the score. We use some of them, like Biggin Hill, quite a lot, so they're used to it.'

So with flying all over the place, and frequent hovering and banking, doesn't Richard get a bit disorientated looking through his viewfinder? 'Well, there's a little trick there,' says Richard. 'You have one eye on the viewfinder and the other looking out the door. If you look at most cameramen who do this sort of thing you'll find that they have eyes which look away in different directions. We just learn to be like chameleons.

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