Behind the scenes with series editor Michael Douglas

Series editor Michael Douglas ('Doug' as he's known to everyone connected with the programme – or should that be 'Dug'?) has a long history with Time Team. He is still a regular director of individual programmes; he directed those at Applecross, near Skye, and Alfoldean, in Sussex, in the 2006 series, for example.

But in his role as series editor his job is all about coordinating the Time Team season as a whole. Each programme uses different directors, so Doug's job is to make sure that the series comes together with that clear common identity that we all recognise as belonging to Time Team. Here he lets us in on his impression of the Glendon programme.

Finding lots of bodies must have created a few headaches for the production. Do you have to change your approach to the programme when you're dealing with human remains?

Obviously dealing with bodies does change your approach to a site. We have to apply for a Home Office licence and follow specific rules about keeping the bodies from the view of the general public, and of course we have to treat them with all due care and respect. In terms of causing headaches for the production we suspected they were there and Emily Boultingg, the director, took that into consideration when scheduling her shoot.

You can't rush the lifting of human remains. They must be painstakingly cleaned up and recorded and that can take a lot of time. So the dig effectively had to be split between the archaeologists working on the bodies – which lasted for the full three days of the shoot – and the other diggers looking for evidence of the medieval church and village. That meant at times our resources were stretched but you've just got to get on with it – we had to stop and reach a conclusion by the end of day three.

What was the most interesting part of the programme for you?

It was singularly failing to find a church we knew to have stood there. There were ecclesiastical artefacts everywhere, we were in the middle of the graveyard and for three days we just couldn't lock down the location of the church – until, of course, Phil and Jaqui McKinley possibly stumbled across it at the end of the dig. Trying to find the village pushed our patience to the limit as well.

When so much evidence is coming out of the ground there must be any number of stories that you could build around a site. How do you work with the director in refining the story?

The director has an idea of how they would like the story to evolve before the shoot and a script is written around that model. But we all know that as soon as the first trench is opened the script goes out of the window. A script's main purpose is to help us to structure the shooting schedule and to make sure we understand what the archaeology may tell us about the place we're digging.

Once the dig starts it gets a bit more interesting. Mick and Tim take a real hands-on approach to running the archaeology and maximising the information we get out of the ground. The director will be taking all this on board and trying to alter the shooting schedule to accommodate new information coming from the trenches or the inevitable changes in story that the archaeology presents.

The director has to take in all this information from experts, archaeologists, three camera crews, surveyors and what not, and basically continually re-write the script in their head. It's a real skill to be able to take all that information on board and still do your 'day job' of directing a camera crew. [Shoot directors are also in charge of running one of the three camera crews on location. Two producers run the other crews and report back to the director.]

My job as series editor on location is really to be an extra pair of eyes on site and to try to make sure that among this constant onslaught of information the director is getting the best story.

Did anything unusual happen at Glendon?

Yes, a breathtaking find [of a cremation burial and fine glass grave goods] that would have been the highlight of any Roman dig – except we were in hot pursuit of a medieval church and village. But that's Time Team for you…

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