Keith's Cavers in The Search for the Missing Potholer - Part One

In 2017 at Hidden Earth I won the video salon competition with the opening video.

Hidden Earth 2017 Opening Video

Winning the salon meant that I was asked to produce this year's opening video and this is where my troubles began. The opening videos, or AVs as they are usually called, have been of a consistently and very high standard over all of the years that I have attended Hidden Earth, so I'd got to make something of an equally high quality. No pressure there then. I also set a self-imposed goal - I wanted to try something different, something really different from anything that had gone before. Last year I achieved this by producing a video set to two songs for which I had re-written the lyrics, but what to do this year? I had no idea. After weeks of racking my brain out of the depths of my warped imagination came the idea of creating a homage to Charlie's Angels, the TV series which was broadcast between 1973 and 1981. I liked the idea because the opening credits with the instantly recognisable theme tune and strong voice-over would be immediately recognisable to anyone over a certain age, and let's face it most of the Hidden Earth audience are over that certain age.

The opening credits to the TV show ran for just over a minute and as Hidden Earth opening videos should ideally be between 6 and 8 minutes long it would give me another 5 to 7 minutes to play with. I decided to go ahead with this idea even if I never went on to create a complete video as just creating the credit sequence would be a fun challenge and would require me to learn new video editing skills.

The three Angels were introduced individually by them appearing first as a silhouette on a vividly coloured background which was repeated in various colours and sizes. The largest silhouette then became transparent and grew in size to reveal shots of the character. Finally the iconic silhouette of the three Angels holding guns with a flame background was used for the show's title - CHARLIE'S ANGELS. I pitched my crazy idea to the Dudley members who have been my most loyal supporters and they agreed to indulge me. Also Brendan, whose graphic skills are amazing, agreed to produce the silhouettes.

Charlie's Angels

The next problem to overcome was casting. I needed three angels as well as Bosley of course. Casting two of the Angels was easy as two of my most faithful supporters were Kay and Jess, but would they be up of it? Thankfully they were!  Bosley was easy too. There was only one person for the job - Ian our chairman and fortunately he was also up for it. That only left one Angel to find. It also left me with yet another large dilemma. There was no role for my biggest (get it?) star, Mark, but the problem was quickly solved using a wig and Farah Fawcett-Majors became Margo Chunky-Burkey. Game on.

The opening sequence would only work if I could get the silhouettes produced to a very high standard. Also what could we use to replace the guns. Mark came up with the suggestion of a camera for himself (obviously) and a ladder climb for Kay who would take up the central position. He also came up with the idea of the drill for Jess to hold. Mark took the photos of the Angels one Thursday evening a the Dudley windmill using a massive tripod mounted 30kg camera and about half a dozen radio controlled flashes. He was obviously taking his role as photographer in chief very seriously and was taking the same sort of care and effort that he puts into his professional award winning cave piccies. Nevertheless try as he might he could not eliminate all of the shadows. The pictures were emailed off to Brendan and back came the brilliant silhouettes that appear in the final video as both positives, with the silhouette as a transparent layer, and negatives with the background as the transparent layer. I then looked again at the Charlie's Angels sequence and sod it, I had forgotten to get a photo of Ian. Mark was off jet-setting around the world taking wonderful pictures of caves so I took the picture using my phone and using just the ambient lighting. It turned out to be a great picture with absolutely no shadows - result! Take that Mark Burkey.

Keith's Cavers

Producing the graphic sequences and timing them to the music took several hours but I felt it was worth getting it right. Attention to detail was becoming a bit of an obsession so I also wanted to use the same font for the titles that was used in the original series. I researched via the internet and found it was LesterBold which I downloaded from a font site. I also added my voice-over at this stage. I tried a number of microphones but just couldn't get it to sound right. Eventually I recorded it on my iPhone. At the same time I added the flame effects which I bought online from Pixel Studios. While I was doing all of this we visited Cwmorthin Slate Mine in North Wales and filmed the sequence of Margo not using two cows tails. I will publish the outtakes one day which are hilarious in their own right. Obviously the rock face was not vertical so I had to angle the camera to give the impression of it being vertical and being a complete numpty it took several attempts to get it right. On the first attempt Mark flies off frame left horizontally.

The opening sequence was slowly coming together but I still needed the video clips to add in. I used a number of placeholders and archive clips but the hugging and essential cake sequence weren't filmed until much later.

I sent the partially finished film to Ian, Mark, Jess, Kay and Brendan (my critical friends) for their reactions and it was universally given the green light. I was now confident of completing the opening sequence on time, but that was all I'd got. I now needed a video to go with it, or to make the decision to not use it for the Hidden Earth video and resume head-scratching for another idea, and time was running out.

Hidden Earth 2018 Opening Video

Once again this year I am privileged to have been asked to produce the opening video for Hidden Earth, the UKs National Caving Conference, which will take place at Churchill Academy and Sixth Form, Churchill Green, Churchill, North Somerset, BS25 5QN between 21st and 23rd September.

Here's a short promotional video to get everyone in the mood.

The Wild Wookey Experience

Back in June a team from Dudley Caving Club was invited to try out the adventure caving experience in Wookey Hole, Somerset, England. It was brilliant and we thoroughly enjoyed every minute. It is easily the best show cave adventure in the country. My sincere thanks go to Becca and Chris who expertly guided us around. Have a look at the video and see if you agree.

Sun, Sea, Shale & Even A Bit Of Caving On The Isle Of Portland

By pure luck and chance, we managed to pick one of the finest weekends of the year to arrange our club meet in Portland. 

Jess and I managed to get away early on the Friday and even had time to for a spot of sight-seeing around the Bill before the others arrived and the weekend begun proper with an evening in the pub.

With no sore heads we began the day in glorious sunshine and headed for breakfast by the sea and so lost our first casualty of the weekend. Chris had a bit of an upset tummy and decided that a morning underground wasn’t going to suit him and so then there were nine! 

Not only is nine quite a lot to be heading underground but our guide for the weekend, Les Williams, didn’t know what he was letting himself in for as we had no less than 3 photographers in the group! Ha ha lol

After parking up outside the prison, we hopped the wall and headed along the cliff face. At Allotment Dig, Les announced only the slim should head that way and the rest should follow him to Guano rift. We re-grouped at link rift and Bartek and I headed though the Letterbox to go and have an explore. Satisfied there were no prisoners breaking in to our bit of cave we regrouped at concrete corner and photography began!

Paulina was the only one to do the horrid looking rift through to Skittle Alley and whilst a few of us played with the cameras Les went off to find an easier route to her. At some point Ian, Paulina, Bartek and Dino decided enough was enough and then there were five.

Kay and Tash finished playing with her new camera and Les headed in to the sun leaving just Jess and myself.

For some inexplicable reason I had a complete brain miss-fire and decided as I hadn’t had a cake in more than an hour I would most likely have lost enough weight to have a go at exiting allotment dig. 

At the crux contortion around the corner I began to remember that I am actually still pretty chunky and peered around the cosy dog-leg up at the small rift passage beyond, wondering if it would get any smaller. 

I heard Les at the entrance and called him to find out if I was at the tightest bit. After a bit of coaxing he eventually ventured in to the passage without a helmet or light, and nearly fell down a big hole in the dark!

Fortunately for me he confirmed it didn’t get any tighter and after pushing my manly marshmallow physique through we re-joined to offer Les a little light for his exit.

Although not many could spend a whopping 3 ½ hours in the Grove Cliff Caves, for the members of The Dudley this was a welcome short day, so to celebrate we headed up to Portland Bill for ice-cream and swimming in the sea.

A fine meal at The Cove, followed by a couple more hours in the bar and a good night’s sleep and we were soon meeting up for breakfast and to plan Sundays adventures. Chris was still nowhere to be found, Kay and Tash decided on a romantic break away to Wookey, Ian very sensibly decided his marriage would benefit from spending at least one day on the island with his lovely wife and so then there were 6 for our adventures in to Blacknor Hole.

We quickly rigged and descended to the cave entrance to get out of the horrid warm sunny weather in to the much more pleasant musty guano smelling crawling passage. I headed off to stretch out in C&A rift whilst the others descended and entered the cave and the regrouped to take a look at Queen’s Entrance before continuing the round trip. We even found some formations this time, which would give Les time to have a little nap whilst the cameras came out again!

Les appeared behind me just as I was sticking my head in to Wriggle Push and lead us back along Ariel Tunnel to complete the round trip. 

All that was left was to play with some photos of the entrance before exiting in to the glorious afternoon sun and take in one last sea view and ice-cream before heading our separate ways.

Blacknor Hole Main Entrance

Pretties In Blacknor Hole

Grand Canyon

Guano Rift

Flagpole Rift

Ammonite Fossil

A Perfect Way to Finish The Weekend

Trip report Mark

Present: Paulina, Bartek, Dino, Chris, Kay, Tash, Jess, Ian, Sue, Les & Wendy

Goatchurch cavern

Members 

Tash Brudenall 

Ian Millward

Kay wood

We meet at half 9 at pricey good farm shop for breakfast, and head to Burrington Combe to visit goatchurch. We set off up the hill a little tired cause of the heat and getting the entrance where we walk just inside and have a rest in the cool air.

After a short while we head to the Giants stairs we head down and head straight past Bloody tight to Midgit Steps and then head right towards boulder chamber and to the coffin lid.

I attach a rope to be used as a hand line for the coffin lid and down we go into water chamber which is where hellish tight is. But we bypass hellish tight and head towards the drain pipe. Unfortunately none of the other two I was with wanted to do the drain pipe so I couldn’t get a photo of it. And as people were getting tired and had enough we started to head out with Ian leading the way. Unfortunately he missed the turn for the Midgit steps but we back tracked and picked them up and headed out though the tradesman entrance. 

After getting changed we headed to the Burrington Inn for refreshments before heading home.

All in all a good weekend. Will have to return at some point to push the connection fairy to Hillier’s and get my photo in the drain pipe 

Signing off 

Kayleigh wood 

Fairy to Hilliers

Attending Dudley Members

Kayleigh wood

Liz  Leavesley

Tash Brudenall

We all met at the Priddy Good Farm shop for breakfast at half 9 after a quick breakfast and discussion we headed off to the car park for the fairy quarry caves we got changed all light hearted fun as we all sweated in the heat excited to get underground in the cool air.

So off we go and after getting the code right for the gate, we find what i thought was fairy cave on the right hand side of the quarry as you go through the gate, so i open the gate and poke my head in and start to descend and half way down I’m thinking if i cant fit through the connection we are gonna have to climb out this way, which in the book the climb didn’t seem as bad as it was, so i decided i would go and fetch the rope out the car and rig a hand line just in case.

So all three of us are in the cave and I’m reading the description and looking at the survey and decide we should be heading left so off we go down this crawl that starts getting really tight. So with me being the biggest I’m leading. And I’m starting to struggle to get through so i asTah who is behind me to see if she can get through and see whats the other side, she looks at it but wont go through. 

So we decide to turn back and head right which I’m sure is the wrongs way but off we go and it opens up and takes us through to bigger passage was and into a chamber so we stop and I have another look at the survey and description, and to my horror I realise we are in Tar Hall.................. I’ve took us into the wrong cave!! No wonder the description doesn’t match the cave system we are in. And for a few seconds I am tempted not to tell the others and pretend I knew exactly where we were.

So I told Liz and Tash and we have a laugh about it after all we went far from where I thought we were we are in Hillier’s rather than Fairy. But they join and we were going to end up in Hillier’s anyway so we carry on. 

Now I no where we are I can lead us through with relative ease so of we go we pass the connection for Fairy and climb the mud slope and slot through the 90 degree bend and head towards the red room. We wanted to be out for 4 and it’s about half 1 when we have passed the second boulder choke just before the Cambridge Grotto, which is a bit tight for me so we decide to come back another day and I take a photo of Tash in a crawl here, and we start heading back.

I pop me head up and look at the connection to Fairy and we carry on back I take a photo of Liz in Tar Hall and we head out. When we get back to the climb out I’m glad I put in a hand line to aid us climbing out as I think we may have struggled with out it.

Afterwards Liz has to shot off but me and Tash are spending the night and so we head of to the Wessex to set up camp and have a BBQ with a few drinks and some well deserved sleep.

A Weekend in Wookey

Back in February Mark and I were invited by Chris Binding to spend a weekend in Wookey Hole to take photos and video. With Mark and Chris jet-setting around the world it wasn't until last weekend that we could find a mutually convenient date.
Chris said that we could take our own team from Dudley so we were accompanied by Mel, Kay, Liz and Rach.
We met Chris at the Priddy Good Farm Shop Cafe before driving the short distance to Wookey Hole where, in the Bat Cave, the plans for the weekend were revealed. Saturday was to be a trip into Wookey 20 which consists of around 2000 feet of mainly phreatic passage, nicely decorated in places, leading in the direction of Wookey 24.
Liz, Rach and Mel were only day-tripping and were disappointed that they were not going to get to do the adventure caving route. Work and partners meant that Liz and Mel were forced to return home but Rach couldn't resist the temptation and decided to stay over.
We met up with Kermit in the evening for a curry in Cheddar.
We stayed at the Shepton Hut and after another brekkie in Priddy where we were met by Kermit we returned to Wookey. We were joined by Wild Wookey instructor Becca and Monica which made a team of 8 for the Wild Wookey adventure which was ace!