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Unit 1: Nick Bruckman – My Life, My Story

Part 1: A New York life

My name is Nicholas, but all my friends call me Nick. I was born in London, and now I live in New York City.

What do you do?

I run People’s Television, it’s a video production company based in New York City and Washington D.C. We make

animations, documentaries, commercials and even feature films.

Do you like living in New York?

I love living in New York City. A lot of people think it’s too crowded or it’s too busy or it’s too stressful but for me, I

think it’s just the energy of the place, it’s something I really love. First, it’s great because my friends, my family are

all here, because I grew up here, but also there’s so much happening culturally, there’s always music going on,

always films happening.

All my friends live here because I went to high school and junior high school here in New York City. What I love most

about New York City is all of the different cultures, communities and ethnicities that are here.

People who live in New York, known as New Yorkers, have a reputation for being impatient and rather bad-tempered.

But this is just a stereotype. Most, like Nick, are hard-working and ambitious.

What do you like about your New York neighbours?

People here are always really passionate about what they’re doing, whether it’s their business or their art or, erm,

their job and I love the energy that the city has.

New York is an enormous and exciting city with a population of over eight million people. Many parts of New York

are modern, crowded and noisy. But there are also older, quieter areas that are home to lots of artists, and creative

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young people like Nick.

Which part of the city do you live in?

I live in SoHo, in Lower Manhattan, in New York City. And I love my neighbourhood because it is so full of history. A

lot of the buildings are over a hundred years old and they were factories and the building that I live in is an old

factory that was turned into apartments.

Nick’s apartment is great. It’s on the second floor and it’s pretty big, and quiet. It’s the perfect place for him to relax.

Nick enjoys practising yoga in his free-time. And the apartment is very convenient too. It’s only a 10-minute cycle

ride from his office.

Part 2: A family story

New York is a city famous for its cosmopolitan population. It’s a city of optimistic immigrants; people who came

from around the world in search of new lives. And Nick’s family is no exception.

So, where does your family come from?

So, I have a really interesting family background. My mother’s side of the family is from India, from Calcutta, which

is in the east part of India, and my father’s side of the family is from Europe, from what is now Belarus.

Nick’s father’s family came to New York to escape the Second World War, like many other European immigrants.

But his mother’s family story is very unusual.

So, my grandfather came from India in the 1930s which was very unusual – there weren’t a lot of Indian people here

in New York City at that time, now there are a lot – and he was a blind professor…

Nick’s grandmother was a New Yorker. She lived in an area of the city called the Bronx.

So how did she meet a blind professor from India in this city of millions of people?

My grandmother was from the Bronx, and the story is that, because he was blind, he was having trouble crossing the

street and she helped him out and they crossed the street together, fell in love and then they went from New York City

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to India and got married in the 1940s.

Nick’s grandparents returned to New York from India, and both of his parents were born in the city.

And my mother and my father met here in New York City. So I’m part Indian and part Eastern European.

Who do you look like?

Everybody says that I look just like my mom and that my brother looks just like my dad. I have the same skin colour,

hair colour, eye colour as my mom, and my brother has the same skin colour, hair colour and eye colour as my dad.

So, some people think we look alike, I think we couldn’t look more different.

Are you still close to your family today?

I’m really close with my brother, I like to stay in touch with him even though he lives in Germany so we Skype or

FaceTime or video chat almost every day, whenever we have time. I’m also lucky that my mom lives right here in New

York City, so I’m able to visit her, sometimes after work we’ll have dinner and hang out.

My family loves to travel. Every year we’ll take a trip, if we have time. Sometimes we’ll go to the Caribbean and go

scuba diving, which is awesome, and sometimes we’ll go to Europe; my brother lives in Germany and he’s an opera

conductor. So, we’ll go there, visit him and see his operas. And then when we have time we go to India, which is

where my mother’s family is. They are amazing cooks and we’ll eat great Indian food and hang out in Calcutta, which

is where her family is from.

Part 3: If you can make it here…

Today, Nick is a full-time film-maker. He owns and runs his own successful video production company.

Did your parents influence your choice of career?

So, my dad was always a business and numbers guy, but my mother is an artist. She was an opera singer when she

was younger and she loves movies, she loves music, and I think a lot of the artistic spirit that I have comes from her.

So, I think in some ways what I’m doing is really a perfect mix between my dad and my mom. They were both a big

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influence on me and I hope they’re proud.

Running your own video production company sounds like a challenging and exhausting business.

What’s your job like?

I love making movies, I’ve made movies since I was a little kid and I’m always looking around and thinking about

things that I see and the stories that are out there, and I’m always thinking about how to tell great stories using film.

So, I will go to location, interview people, work with actors, bring a film crew together; that can be camera people,

sound people, editors, animators, and I bring the whole team together to try to make the best film possible.

As you can imagine, I’m really busy; I’m always doing ten projects at the same time. I’m often travelling. So,

sometimes, for a video that’s only a minute long, we might shoot ten hours of footage. I just came back from India,

Norway and Seattle, doing a global commercial, where we filmed for almost ten days and the whole thing will be

edited into one minute.

Although it can be exhausting, Nick’s job is never boring. He’s got a great team around him and he is always excited

about the next project and the opportunity to tell a brand-new story. And the remarkable history of his immigrant

family is never very far from Nick’s mind when he is working.

A lot of the films that I’ve made are about the stories of immigrants. They’re about people who have come from one

country or one culture and moved into another in the hopes of trying to have a better life.

And what I’m really interested in is how can movies change the way people think, the way they feel, the way they act.

How can films make people more caring about each other, make them see points of view that they weren’t familiar

with before, and hopefully make the world a little bit better. So our company is called People’s TV because we make

movies about people that you don’t always see on TV.

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Unit 2: The Art of Subtitling

Part 1: Localization

The language that we speak isn’t just a way to communicate between each other. Our language is central to our

cultural identity.

It’s vitally important that every country can create their own film and television, in their own language, and that this

can be shared with others around the world. Not speaking the language of a film shouldn’t stop an audience from

enjoying it.

In the earliest days of cinema this wasn’t a problem. The very first films were international because they were silent. It

was very easy to translate the ‘intertitles’ – the on-screen cards that explained what was going on.

But in 1927 sound arrived in the cinemas. And this was a new challenge for film-makers who wanted people around

the world to see their films. Soon, the first subtitles started appearing on screen. While audiences were reading a

translation of the dialogue on-screen they could still hear the actors speaking the original language of the film.

As technology improved it became easier to ‘dub’ a film. The dialogue was translated and the new dialogue was

recorded by actors in a studio. So, the audience was watching the original actors on screen, but they were listening to

different actors who were speaking their own language.

Dubbing soon became common for foreign language films and television shown in countries like France, Italy and

Spain. And it is still very common today. But dubbing is more expensive than subtitling. And it never became popular

in Scandinavian countries, the UK and the USA. So, most audiences didn’t really have a choice between dubbed or

subtitled foreign language films.

Today, you can watch films and TV from around the world with just the press of a button. With the incredible rise of

video streaming services, audiences can now select from dubbed or subtitled versions, in multiple different languages.

And this demand for international content has created lots of exciting new opportunities for language lovers.

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Part 2: A challenging job

This is BTI Studios in London. BTI Studios work for broadcasters, video streaming services and film studios adapting

film and television content for new audiences. They translate, subtitle and dub content for audiences all over the

world. In their 22 offices across Europe, the USA and Asia, BTI Studios produces over 8 million minutes of adapted

content every year.

My name is Hilde Jørgensen. I'm from Norway, er, and I've been working and living in London for a little over three

years now. Erm, I work for BTI Studios in Chiswick. I work as a subtitler, er, and an editor. Er, I do, er, translation

from English and the Scandinavian languages and German into Norwegian. And I do Norwegian and German into

English.

So basically, er, what I do is I literally create the subtitles that you see on screen, er, for television and for, for

cinemas and for, er, VOD clients. That's video on demand, the big streaming services.

All the subtitlers at BTI Studios are multilingual.

I come from a background of, erm, literature. I studied literature and linguistics and I studied, er, English literature, a

little bit of German and Italian literature.

Hilde works on all sorts of film and television programmes. While she watches the screen, she listens to the dialogue,

translates it, and types the on-screen subtitles.

Literally what you see is what we do, the physical work of it when the block appears on screen, how long it's there for,

what it looks like, what it contains and where it leaves, where it disappears.

It’s very challenging work, and she has to work quickly.

We normally measure the, er, the time it takes based on, like, one programme, one, one show, one episode should take

about a day. Er, so we should do approximately half an hour a day. That's, that's the first translation, which means

that we do everything from scratch.

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Today, she is listening to a conversation in English, translating it in her head, and creating the subtitles in Norwegian

on screen.

You, create these, these boxes of translations, erm, that correspond with the dialogue that you, you hear. So it's like

getting the dialogue in one ear and then the, er, words come out of your mouth, except you, you're writing them down.

Erm, so you have to be able to think in two languages simultaneously.

The biggest problems are time and space. There isn’t very much room on-screen for text. And people haven’t got very

long to read the subtitles. So sometimes it’s difficult to accurately translate the dialogue into short sentences. You

have to condense the language a lot. You have to shorten sentences, shorten long speeches in order to make them fit

into these small boxes that are on screen for only a few seconds.

Part 3: A passion for languages

With recent developments in technology, voice recognition and artificial intelligence, it’s easy to think that translation

could be done by a computer. And maybe one day it will be. Computer translation is improving all the time.

But there’s much more to Hilde’s job than literally translating every word of dialogue, and she doesn’t think that it’s

work that a machine can do.

I, personally, would say that I am completely opposed to, er, what we call auto-translation, which is basically letting a

machine, er, do the work and then just maybe looking through it and making small corrections.

The offices at BTI Studios are full of talented and creative language experts, rather than just computers, for a very

good reason.

You can't train a machine to understand poetry and sense of humour and, er, understand, erm, to read between the

lines.

And sometimes, especially with idiomatic language, there’s just no literal translation. And then Hilde needs to use her

knowledge and experience to try to find the best possible translation. For idioms such as ‘I’m dying for a coffee,’ a

literal translation could sound very strange in some languages.

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If I can't really find a good, accurate, er, literal translation, er, I try to remind the viewer of the context, try to use

associative words, erm, for, for idioms and phrases like that.

Subtitling isn’t an easy job. But Hilde loves it.

Although this job can be really challenging and demanding and tight deadlines, sometimes stressful, I really, really,

really, honestly love my job. I would definitely recommend this job to people who are passionate about languages,

passionate about film, erm, and want to do a slightly different kind of translation work. You always feel like you have

done something important at the end of the day. And it's never boring. It's never dull. It is so, so rewarding.

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Unit 3: Saving Lives at Sea

Part 1: Free time by the sea

It’s the weekend in Cornwall in the south-west of England. The sun is shining, and people are enjoying their free time

at the seaside. Cornwall is famous for its stunning scenery, pretty villages and beautiful beaches. And it’s a popular

destination for people getting away from stressful jobs and busy lives in towns and cities. And there’s plenty to do

with your free time here. For some people, the weekend is about the simple pleasures and taking the time to relax. At

the beach, people take their dogs for walks, catch up with friends or spend time with their families.

And for others it’s all about getting active. During the working week, many people spend their time sitting at a desk,

and the weekend is their chance to get moving and keep fit. You can be a successful accountant during the week and a

passionate surfer at the weekend. All you need is a wetsuit, a board and perhaps a few surfing lessons first!

The beaches are full of enthusiastic sportsmen and women; all you need is a ball, a bat and a group of friends. You can

go for a swim, or perhaps explore the coastline by kayak. The more adventurous can even try to catch some fish for

dinner!

But while the sea and coastline are beautiful they can also be treacherous, with strong currents, and unpredictable

weather conditions. Every year thousands of people get into difficulty on the coast, and it’s not just the holiday-

makers who are at risk. For people like the commercial fishermen who work along the coastline, the sea is a place of

work, and it’s a dangerous workplace. Fishermen work long hours and are paid very little for doing the most

dangerous job in the UK. They are 50 times more likely to die at work than people with other jobs.

Part 2: The RNLI

In the UK, when something goes wrong at sea or on the beach, whether you are working or just enjoying a day out,

there’s an amazing group of dedicated people who give up their free time to help. The members of the Royal National

Lifeboat Institution, the RNLI. The charity that saves lives at sea.

The RNLI was formed in 1824 to help anyone who got into trouble in the seas around the coastline of the United

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Kingdom. The RNLI has both lifeboat volunteers who respond to emergency calls 24 hours a day and lifeguards who

patrol more than 160 beaches. The charity uses money donated by the public to pay for its work. For every £1 given to

the RNLI, 81p is spent on providing a rescue service while the rest is spent on programmes focused on preventing

accidents happening and raising more money for the charity. Since it started, the RNLI’s boats and lifeguards have

saved more than 139,000 lives.

Today, there are over 4,500 lifeboat crew and over 900 seasonal lifeguards working for the organization. Most of these

people are volunteers who give up their free time, and put their own lives in danger, to prevent accidents and rescue

people in need.

For RNLI lifeguards, 95 per cent of the job is to prevent accidents before they happen at the beach. They watch the sea

carefully to check that no-one is getting into trouble. They have to be ready to rush to help swimmers or surfers if they

get into difficulty. Lifeguards have to concentrate hard, and they only stay on duty for short periods of time before

they have to take a break.

Lifeboat crew members attend emergencies at sea and can be called at any time, day or night. The crew members’

pager will go off, and they will rush down to the lifeboat station and launch the lifeboat. They have to spend many

hours of their own time to become highly skilled and efficient lifesavers.

Part 3: The volunteers

So, what kind of people volunteer for the RNLI? Robin Howell is a senior lifeguard on Perranporth beach in Cornwall.

It’s 10am on a Sunday in June, and Robin is starting work. He’s setting up all his equipment and getting ready for a

day keeping people safe on the beach. People are only allowed to swim between the red and yellow flags as this is the

area that Robin is watching. Robin has a radio to stay in contact with the Lifeguard base.

My name’s Robin Howell, I am a geography teacher at a secondary school in Cornwall. I have a second job which is

senior lifeguard on Perranporth Beach. I work all year round as a teacher. As a teacher I don’t work at the weekends

but from March all the way through to September, I work as a lifeguard on Perranporth Beach at the weekends. The

lifeguard hours are between 10 and 6 p.m. in the evening.

Having two jobs doesn’t leave much time for relaxing, and even when he’s not working Robin likes to stay busy.

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I think the main problems with having two jobs is just literally trying to fit it in, you know, in the space of a week but

I’d rather be busy than sitting at home watching TV. In my free time I try and do as much as possible. There’s not a

lot of free time but I’m doing a Master’s in film and I try and do as much sport as possible, I swim in the mornings at

6.30. But I also try and do some running and I go to a yoga class once a week as well.

And, like all the busy people who work for the RNLI, Robin does two jobs, because he loves them both.

I have two jobs because I love both of them. I love the lifeguarding because it’s outside, it’s very physical, and I love

the teaching because I just like the interaction with the pupils and the fact that I can try and make a difference to their

education.

25 year-old Ben Eglington is part of the RNLI lifeboat crew in the town of Newquay in Cornwall. His crew is made up

of many volunteers from the local community.

There’s fishermen, builders, landscape gardeners, hotel/pub owners, fishmongers. All sorts basically, people that own

shops, fish and chip shops, all sorts.

Ben’s been part of the Newquay crew for eight years. He’s a busy man who works full time as an engineer in the

Royal Navy during the week.

So, I currently work in the Royal Navy. During the week I work away in Portsmouth, which is 210 miles away. Every

weekend I make the epic journey back to Newquay to help out with the RNLI.

But Ben doesn’t mind giving up his free time to help.

I volunteer my time with the lifeboat ’cause it’s good to give something back to the community. It’s also a great

achievement when you’re out there and you actually save somebody’s life.

And it’s thanks to Robin, Ben, and all the amazing RNLI volunteers that the beautiful beaches, coastline and seas

around the UK are safer for everyone to enjoy.

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Unit 4: How to Tell a Good Story

Part 1: Why do we tell stories?

Amy and Chip are professional storytellers. They run ‘Snail Tales’ and perform stories without using a book at all

sorts of locations and to all kinds of people.

Why do we tell stories?

Telling stories is one of the first inventions that human beings had which marked us as different from all of the other

cavemen. It was really our way of planning what we were going to do in the future based on what we had done in the

past, and it was the development of that imagination, um, education and, and inventing, if you like, that helped us to

survive where other cavemen didn’t.

What do we learn from stories?

Stories are a testing ground for real life because they invite you to put yourself in the place of a main character who is

facing problems and living their life and having to react to things. And so stories invite the questions: what would I do

in that situation? What would be the right thing to do?

There are questions of morality and problem solving. Um, and all of those help you to think about the other people

around you, how many different points of view there are and how many different ways of tackling a problem there can

be so that you can decide not only what you would do but also begin to understand why the character might make the

choices that they do and so why other people might make the choices that they do.

Do all stories follow a pattern?

All stories have the same shape, because all stories have a problem in the middle.

Often, a story will start with a character who wishes for something or wants something, and then the first thing that

will happen in the story is that there will be a barrier to the character getting that wish. There will be a problem and

all stories go towards a resolution: the way that the character solves that problem or overcomes it. Or, if they don’t,

the resolution of the story is about how the character has been shaped by that experience of not being able to

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overcome a problem.

The problem is what gives the story its shape – what makes it into a story instead of just a description. It’s like a tent

pole in a tent: without the pole, a tent is just flat canvas. And, without a problem, a story is not really a story; it’s just

some descriptions.

Part 2: More than a bedtime story

Isn’t storytelling just for children?

I guess storytelling is commonly seen as something that is done for children, because it is, or it certainly used to be, at

the heart of home life. We had the bedtime story where parents would share storytelling with their children.

It wasn’t really just about teaching children, uh, it started as this way of helping human beings to survive. If you think

about it now, we also have storytelling in politics, we have storytelling in, um, marketing, we have storytelling in, um,

religion. There are so many places where storytelling is the heart of the community and that is not just about children;

it is very much an all-age art form.

Why are stories so useful?

Scientists have shown in many experiments how, if you create a narrative for something, it can help you to remember

things. And we did an experiment ourselves, actually, just a few years ago, where we separated some children into two

groups. And some children were given some facts to learn and the other group were told a story which contained the

facts.

When we tested the children afterwards, those who’d heard the story had remembered more facts than those who were

told to learn them.

Those children had not been told to remember anything. They had just been given a story and yet they had

remembered more.

What’s the role of the storyteller?

With oral storytelling, the real creative work is done by the audience; it’s, it’s done with, with their own creativity in

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their heads. So a better way to think of it is that we are like the conductors of an orchestra… and every single

imagination in the audience is like an instrument in the orchestra ‘cause they’re all creating their different sounds or

different pictures. Every single head will have a different image in it from the, the story that you’re telling. And your

job as a storyteller, really, is just to keep everybody on the same page and at the same point in the story.

Is modern technology a threat to traditional storytelling?

I think the first big challenge that technology gave to storytelling was probably the printing press, because before that

stories were passed on by word of mouth much more. Books were very expensive, had to be copied out very slowly and

were difficult to get hold of, but after the printing press people could read the stories and so they started telling them

less and many stories became locked in at that point to the form that they’d had at the time. Stories, I think, stopped

developing.

From the printing press, all the way to other, um, inventions, like theatre and cinema, which were giving a real

rigidity to the stories that people were hearing, so they didn’t have a chance to exercise their imagination. There

wasn’t any of the interactivity that was there in traditional storytelling

What social media has done, though, is it has almost allowed us to go back to the bygone era, where the storyteller

wouldn’t just be telling the story but would be having the audience there to help them shape it and create it.

With the challenge of things like Twitter, where you have to write a very short message, and doing that is almost like a

poem, in fact, all these different mediums are opening storytelling up again, because it’s once again about passing on

directly and through word of mouth and stories changing very quickly. And I think that’s happening again now.

Part 3: My favourite story

My favourite story is one called ‘Ming Lo and the Moving Mountain’, and in the story a man wants to move a

mountain away from his house. It’s very funny. He goes around the side of the mountain to find a wise man to ask him

how to move the mountain and he’s sent back with lots of different methods that just aren’t going to move the

mountain at all.

And in the end, the wise man tells him that he must dance the dance of the moving mountain. And he must do that by

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closing his eyes, facing the mountain and then putting his right foot behind his left foot, and his left foot behind his

right foot, and his right foot behind his left foot and doing it 1,000 times. And when he opens his eyes the mountain

will have moved, and of course he does it and the mountain is far away on the distant horizon.

I love telling that story, especially in schools because the littlest children don’t get it. So the older ones start to giggle.

The ones at the back are laughing, and the little children at the front are going, “Wow, he moved a mountain.” And of

course that’s the whole point of the story and of course his problem has been solved: he’s away from the mountain.

But he’s done it all using imagination and that’s exactly what storytelling does.

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Unit 5: Growing Up

Part 1: Keith

Tell us about your childhood.

When I grew up the world seemed to be a much smaller place. There were far fewer choices for us to make. My

mother was quite a strict person. My father died when I was quite young, when I was six, and she had to work a lot, so

it was very hard for her and I think that had an effect on her.

There was no video games, hardly any electronic equipment in the house at all. Entertainment was pretty much what

you made yourself. Television was only on for a few hours a day and children’s television only ran for an hour or so

in the afternoon. But a lot of the time I’d be out playing with friends if the weather was good. Of course, there was no

way of communicating with us. So if, for example, say, a meal time was set for half past five, you had to be home for

that time.

Are we are as strict today?

I don’t think we are as strict these days as they used to be. I have two of my own children, a boy aged 24 and a girl

aged 22. When they were growing up, I think ... life was different for them. We had a firm few rules, certainly that my

wife enforced. They weren’t allowed out as much as we were. I used to be out a lot during the day but my children had

to be home a lot more. Expectations with, say, homework ... certainly my wife was far stricter than my mother ever

was in making sure homework was done. But they have so much homework now when they’re young.

My children weren’t allowed televisions in their rooms until they were old enough to buy their own. We had one

television downstairs and er, for a while, my wife made us all – including me – write out lists of what we wanted to

watch during the week. So you wrote down your list and that’s what you watched. If it wasn’t on the list, you didn’t

have it on.

Do children have it easy today?

I don’t think children have it easy these days. I think the pressures on them are different to my generation and my

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mother’s generation. I think this generation have a lot more choice than our generation did when I was growing up.

Children are faced with many choices and many pressures that I didn’t face when I was growing up.

I think there is a problem that comes with choices, because it’s easy to make the wrong choices. When you only have

one choice to make it’s very hard to get it wrong.

Part 2: Maria

Tell us about your childhood.

When I was growing up at, at school, I think the biggest thing I noticed was that I didn’t know anyone else who was

half ... mixed race. Because I’m half Thai and my dad’s from Thailand. There wasn’t a Thai community in Cheltenham

and ... so I quite liked being a bit different, it helped me sort of find my way, become an individual.

My mum’s very strong and independent, and she came from a very busy city. And my dad is quite, he’s ... he’s very

zen, he’s very calm, and he has some traditional ideas about bringing up girls and things and er ... he grew up in a

rural area of Thailand.

Were your parents strict?

Well, when I was growing up I wasn’t allowed to go to the cinema if any boys were going. I wanted to get a part-time

job, like a paper-round or something, but I wasn’t allowed. I think ... I think that the way my brothers were brought up

was different. And I don’t know if it was because they’re boys or whether I’m ... because I’m the eldest so they let

them go out a bit more, sooner and not ... They, they didn’t worry about them as much I think and you know, Ben had

a paper round ... a couple of years ago. And so, yeah, I think they were much more lenient with them which really

used to frustrate me as well but I’ve kind of come round to understanding why it was that way.

Do you think it’s different for mixed race children today?

I think nowadays children are growing up a lot more aware of other cultures. There are more children now who have

perhaps a similar upbringing, maybe? Just because I think now that there are more mixed race children. When I was

growing up, there were separate communities. So people are much, becoming much more inter-cultural and sort of

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understanding a bit more of other, other communities and other cultures and things.

Part 3: Merinda and Amy

My name’s Merinda, Merinda Wilson and I’m British. I come from the UK. I’m in my early 50s. I’ve got two children,

they’re called Amy and May.

My name’s Amy, I’m 21 years old, and I’m at university at music college, studying opera.

Are you a strict parent?

I think I’m a strict parent, I think rules are very important. I,I thought that my children were quite adventurous and a

little bit on the wild side and therefore, rules are very important.

We had, especially our meal time rules were quite, erm, were quite interesting because they got so badly behaved at

meal times that I really decided that we had to have rules… and I wrote, I wrote them on a piece of paper and put

them on the wall by the table, so that when we sat down to have our meals, they could see the rules written on the wall

and that was quite important. We had to sit at the table, we had to eat nicely, and had to have good table manners.

I think the other rule, really important rule, is bed time. Because what I’ve noticed is that as soon as they don’t have

enough sleep, they behave badly. So bed time is very important and making sure that they do get to bed on time and

obviously get up on time. Those were just two places where I imposed strict rules and they seemed to then create, erm,

a certain amount of structure in the day.

What does being strict mean to you?

I’m not necessarily in control but I know everything that they do. So I know when they go out, I know where they’re

going, I know what time they’re coming back. I know what their homework is, I know when they’ve got particular

things to do and I know, for example, whose turn it is to clear the table. So it’s just sort of making sure that they know

that I know what they should be doing and I think that really makes a lot of difference, and that’s how I interpret being

strict.

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So, does Amy agree?

I think my mum was quite a strict parent. She was certainly strict about food, no, sort of, crisps and junk food. And I

totally appreciate that now. She had a lot of rules about manners at the dinner table. Eating, using your knife and fork

properly and we had to say “Please may I get down now?” when we’d finished dinner.

I remember her getting us to help with a lot of household chores and gardening and not being one of those mums who

just does everything for us. I remember rules about bed time were to go when she said to go! We had to do reading

before bed, either we would read to Mum or sometimes she would read to us, depending on how sleepy we were. So

she was strict but I think in all the right ways and she made us respect her.

When I was younger I used to disagree with her sometimes. Mainly to do with social events and, sort of, hanging out

with friends or what I was gonna do after school… because Mum would try and encourage me to not overdo things so

that I wouldn’t get tired. And also, to do school work and do practice for my hobbies, for example singing practice or

piano practice… and there were times when I didn’t agree with what she’d said and I rebelled.

She let us make our own decisions but would always say what she thought about them. So, for example, she’d say,

“Well you can go to the disco if you want to but I think you might be tired the next day.” Or, “You might not enjoy it

as much as you think. But if you want to, you can do what you want.”

So at times I did go against what she said and sometimes those things were okay and sometimes they didn’t go as well

as I wanted. And now I realize that Mum is normally ... 99.9 per cent she’s right.

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Unit 6: The Lost Gardens of Heligan

Part 1: How do you lose a garden?

Every gardener knows that transforming a patch of land into a place filled with colourful flowers and delicious

vegetables is an endless and time-consuming task. And any garden that hasn’t been looked after for even a few months

will quickly start to become overgrown.

But what happens when nobody has been looking after a garden for decades and nature has completely taken over?

Today, the Lost Gardens of Heligan is one of the most famous garden attractions in the UK. Situated on the south

coast of Cornwall, the gardens have around 300,000 visitors every year. Over five million people from around the

world have already visited this beautiful place so it’s hard to imagine that just 25 years ago, these gardens were

forgotten and completely unrecognizable.

There have been gardens here since the first Heligan Manor was built in the 13th Century. There’s nothing left of that

original building today, but over the next 500 years the house was rebuilt by generations of the Tremayne family who

owned the estate.

From the end of the 18th century, Heligan’s gardens started to become famous for their growing collection of exotic

plants. Remarkably, species from China, Japan, India, New Zealand and Australia all grew well in the mild climate of

the South West of England.

But Heligan relied on many workers from the local community to look after the enormous 1,000 acre estate with its

beautiful gardens and working farm. And when the First World War started, thirteen of the men suddenly left to fight.

Tragically, only four returned. After the war, the Tremayne family left and the famous gardens started to be forgotten.

When the house became apartments, in the 1970s, the beautiful gardens were completely abandoned and they were

lost to nature.

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Part 2: Finding the gardens

The story of how the gardens were rediscovered and slowly restored is a remarkable one. And it’s a story about the

dedication of a few individuals and the hard work of a whole community who came together to bring something

beautiful back to life.

The dream of restoring the lost gardens of Heligan was first born in early 1990. Tim Smit, a former record producer,

and John Willis, a descendent of the Tremayne family, visited the abandoned gardens looking for a place to start a

small farm. Candy Smit, who was married to Tim and has worked here since the very start, tells us more:

I came to Heligan in February 1990 which is now more than quarter of a century ago. Our children were young. We’d

only recently moved to Cornwall and he came here with the then owner, John Willis, who had inherited the grounds

from his, er, great uncle.

My first impressions of this place were literally the day after Tim came here and it is unbelievable that we’re actually

standing in the same place now. The whole of the garden area was completely overgrown. I think the biggest

challenge was actually, erm, persuading other people that the restoration could be undertaken.

Tim knew that he could not transform the Lost Gardens single-handedly. Luckily, he knew a local builder, John

Nelson, who was ready for a challenge.

He was also someone who wasn’t afraid of hard work and adventure and he signed up with Tim as a, an informal

partnership to just making this happen.

Initially, the cost of clearing such a huge area of overgrown land was the biggest problem. It was very expensive to

employ people to work on the land.

So, John decided that he would clear an acre of ground and see how long it took him and then work on, on multiplying

that. So, he came in single handed and started clearance.

News quickly spread about what was happening at Heligan, and volunteers from the local community started offering

to help. And some local people offered more than just their time and energy.

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There were hire companies with the most amazingly useful tools who said, “Well look, you know, you can borrow

chainsaws for a week or you can have a digger for a week.” So there were a lot of people who were informally

involved very early on and it became a real passion for them.

In April 1992 Heligan opened to the public for the first time.

Right now we’re celebrating 25 years since we opened to the public but the fascination with Heligan is that we opened

to the public when the restoration was only in its very early days. So visitors, early visitors, came and saw this place,

in some cases as we found it. So they have shared the adventure.

Part 3: The Lost Gardens today

The restoration of Heligan has continued to this day. And the staff haven’t finished their work yet. There have been

many set-backs along the way, and there’s always a new challenge.

Today, the garden has around 20 full-time employees and many more seasonal and volunteer staff. And some of these

people, like Candy, have worked at the gardens since the very start and have watched its transformation.

In 1993, a boardwalk was built through the area known as ‘the jungle’ so visitors could see all the amazing exotic

plants that have been growing here since the late 18th century. And since 2014, brave visitors have been able to cross

the jungle on the 30-metre-long rope bridge.

At the Wildlife Hide, visitors can see beautiful local birds and learn more about the management of the natural

environment. Conservation, biodiversity and wildlife management have always been important considerations at

Heligan.

By the year 2000, the vegetable garden was producing crops again, and the farm was thriving. Many of the fruit and

vegetables grown here are ‘heritage breeds’ – old varieties that aren’t used much in farming anymore. Today, most of

the food served in the Heligan restaurant has been grown in the garden or on the farm.

The planting is still done by hand using traditional tools. Gardeners have been doing these jobs the same way since the

earliest days of the estate. And recently, Heligan started offering apprenticeships to young people who want to work in

the gardens and on the farm.

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We are still trying to reintroduce the old ways. And for me, personally, I think the great attraction is to see a working

garden, to see staff in the garden everyday going about their business and our visitors witnessing and being able to

talk to people who do physical work and skilled work today.

We also have heritage breeds of cattle and pigs and cows and chickens and getting up close to those animals is a

really awesome experience. It’s amazing to watch people meet their first cow or their first baby lamb or watch a lamb

being born.

The restoration of the Lost Gardens of Heligan is a heartening story of a community coming together to bring

something beautiful back to life. And these gardens will never be forgotten again.

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Unit 7: Redroofs School for the Performing Arts

Part 1: Shaping our future

Were your school days the best years of your life? What do you remember about the schools you have attended? Was

your school an exam factory or did your school encourage sport and outdoor activities as much as academic studies?

Did your teachers let you express your creativity through music, art and drama? Or did they make you sit behind a

desk all day and give you hours of homework? Did you have to wear a strict uniform or were you allowed to wear

your own clothes?

From the first day that we walk into a classroom our school starts to shape the person that we become. An

inspirational teacher can encourage us to do better and help us to reach our goals. And, if we are lucky, the friends that

we make at school will be there for us through the difficult teenage years and be by our side for the rest of our lives.

The kind of school we attend can have a huge impact on our future life and career. And for a few talented pupils who

know exactly what they want to do in future there’s an unusual school that is helping them to achieve their dreams in

very practical ways.

This is Redroofs School for the Performing Arts in Maidenhead, a town 30 miles west of London. The tiny school,

whose main building is a converted home, has its own 160-seat theatre, and it is preparing its pupils for life as stars of

the stage and screen. The school was founded in 1981 by June Rose, and it is still run by her family today. Creativity

was central to June Rose’s beliefs so skills such as acting and singing are taught alongside academic subjects. While

Redroofs may be small, it has some very famous old students including former Head Girl, and now Academy Award

winning actress, Kate Winslet, who attended this school from the age of 11 to 17.

Part 2: A unique experience

Today, around 85 pupils attend Redroofs School for the Performing Arts. The school takes full-time pupils from the

ages of 11 to 18. There are around 10 full and part-time teachers so the classes are small and there is a very low

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student-to-teacher ratio.

As well as studying for the core academic subjects like English, Maths and Science and preparing for exams, the

pupils spend about half their school day studying vocational subjects like dance, acting and singing. The school has

four classrooms and four performing studios.

The timetable is crowded, and the pupils are always busy. It’s very hard work, but these young people are talented and

very mature for their age, and their teachers are supportive and dedicated. What is more, most of the teachers here

have a performing arts background themselves. So they really understand the challenge of trying to study for an exam

while rehearsing for a big show. And they often teach both academic and vocational subjects.

Er, my name is, er, Anthony Mackey and I teach, er, acting and English at Redroofs. I haven't always been a teacher.

I’ve been teaching now for about four years but, before that, on leaving university, I, I went into the wonderful world

of acting.

Today Anthony can combine his love of acting and teaching, and he is able to share his enthusiasm with his pupils.

And he believes that Redroofs offers its pupils more than just academic study and vocational training.

We want to try and produce better rounded people when they’re going out into the world.

And Anthony knows that all his students will get the best possible start in life here at Redroofs.

Part 3: The Redroofs family

My name is Harley Joe Lehmitz. I'm 14 years old. I'm in Year 9, and I go to Redroofs School for the Performing Arts.

My name is Ellie Pearson. I’m 15 years old. I’m in year 10 and I go to Redroofs.

My name is Joshua Armoire. I'm 18. I'm in my first year of sixth form.

Pupils come to Redroofs at different stages of their education. And for most of them, arriving at the school is like

finding a new home full of people who understand and support them.

My last school was just a standard secondary school and then I moved here in year eight. When I first started

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Redroofs, I remember walking in and knowing that this is where I want to go and this is what I want to do.

On my first day at Redroofs I just remember everyone being so happy and friendly and welcoming to me.

Combining the academic and vocational sides of their education can be difficult. But these pupils are up to the

challenge. And their teachers play an important role in motivating them to focus on their academic work while they

are dreaming of becoming a film star or singer.

I do both academic and vocational studies. My best academic study is maths. My least favourite is science. My best

vocational study is street dance, and my least favourite is ballet.

My favourite academic lesson is probably history, because we do a lot of our learning through presentations and

acting it out, which really helps me learn.

My best subjects, I would say, are vocational and my least favourite are academic because I am not as strong on them

as I am in vocational.

And of course, they still have to do exams, too. But the teachers help them to prepare well.

When it comes to exams, I do get quite nervous, but, after being at Redroofs for two years, my confidence has grown

and I don’t get as nervous anymore.

With the strong focus on vocational training all the pupils have very clear plans for their futures.

When I leave Redroofs, I want to go to dance college and work professionally in dance and, after my career has

ended, I’d hope to go into dance teaching.

After I leave the school, I hope to study performing arts for another five years and then hopefully become a performer

in the West End.

After leaving sixth form, I would love to go on to further education for, erm, musical theatre, and hopefully go to West

End and then afterwards, maybe teach.

The pupils at Redroofs are being given the opportunity of a lifetime. They get to attend a school that not only gives

them a great education but trains them for their chosen career and guides and supports them on every step of their

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journey. These Redroofs students are going to have very happy memories of their school days.

My favourite thing about being a Redroofs student is definitely being able to perform in the end-of-year shows

because I like the way that we all work together and the whole school can perform together.

The best thing is definitely the environment, and how everyone is like a massive family and everyone's just so

supportive of everyone else.

And maybe one day, thanks to Redroofs, some of these pupils will be collecting their own Academy Award, too

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Unit 8: Space

Part 1: The history of space exploration

Throughout history, mankind has always been fascinated by space. With the development of new technology, humans

have travelled further into space than anyone predicted was possible just a hundred years ago.

In the 1950s and 60s, enormous progress was made in space exploration. It reached its peak when Neil Armstrong

became the first human to walk on the moon on July 20th 1969. But this progress wasn’t made just because of

developments in technology, as physicist, Anu Ohja, explains:

Human space exploration started in 1961, that was half a century ago with Yuri Gagarin being the first human being

to orbit the earth. Now when we look back in time, the original reason for going into space was this political battle,

this struggle between the Soviet Union – Russia nowadays we think of it – and the United States, communism against

capitalism and that's why humans went to the moon.

Through the 1970s and ’80s, the United States and Russia continued to dominate space exploration, but in the past 20

years, things have started to change.

It’s true to say that in the early years of space exploration, it was individual countries competing against each other,

we had the United States against the Soviet Union, but in the last 20 years we’re seeing more and more international

cooperation. And the greatest example of this cooperation is the International Space Station which has been in orbit

since the late 1990s.The international space station is a collaboration between the Russians, the Americans, the

Europeans, the Japanese, the Brazilians and many other countries.

And, while countries like the United States are reducing their investment in space, other countries are just starting to

get involved. When it comes down to space exploration, space science, space technology, a lot of people have this idea

that it’s just NASA or it’s just the European Space Agency or it’s just the Russians. What we’ve found in the last 10 to

15 years is some of the countries that are emerging financially are also starting to play a bigger and bigger role in

space.

Today, many countries from China to France can launch rockets. The Indian government has a very active space

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programme. In 2017 the Indian Space Research Organisation set a world record when they launched 104 satellites

with a single rocket.

Part 2: Space technology today

In the future it could become increasingly difficult for many countries to justify spending on space programmes when

people ask the question “Why do we spend all our money on space science and space technology; what difference

does it make to our everyday lives?”

To understand why space programmes are so necessary, we need to ask ourselves what would happen if we didn’t

have any of this space technology.

The best way of trying to understand just how much we get from space science and space satellites is to imagine what

would happen right now, in the 21 century, if we switched off all the satellites orbiting the earth, what effect would it

have on our lives? No GPS systems, no sat-navs in cars, global telecommunications, getting signals, getting news,

getting sports coverage, global communications, all of it would completely stop within one or two days, and the way

we live our lives is so dependent on this, that life would get pretty uncomfortable, even in the space of just a week. We

need satellites to maintain the way we live our lives in this century.

Space technology also plays a vital role in monitoring the weather and environmental change.

Every year thousands of lives are saved by the information coming from weather satellites, and if we want to

understand what humans are doing to the environment, there are lots of concerns about climate change. Is climate

change real? Yes. How much of it is being caused by humans? That’s what we’re still not sure about, but in the last

10 years, we’ve got a network of satellites that are what we call earth observers, they’re looking down at the planet,

they’re helping us understand the planet better.

Increasingly, travelling into space has less to do with human exploration and much more to do with big business.

Unmanned spacecraft are being used to launch commercial satellites, and for space enthusiasts like Anu, this is a

concern:

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In my opinion, there is a difference between space science and space applications from satellites, and human space

exploration. Humans have been into space since 1961, but only 500 people have gone in the last half century, and of

those 500 people, only 24 went to another world. Those were the Apollo astronauts that went to the moon between

1968 and 1972, and 12 of them walked on the moon.

When we think of how long ago that was, there is a lot of concern about why do we do human space flight? Why do we

explore? Now in my mind, being an explorer, wanting to know what’s over the horizon, is part of what it is to be

human. When I was a child growing up, it was human space exploration that made me want to be a physicist, then a

scientist and that is what led me to the job I have now, but for the last 40 years, we’ve just been going around the

earth.

Part 3: Space tourism

So, what’s next for the people who still dream that one day they will be able to see the earth from space? For the

people who hope that one day they might be able to set foot on the moon or even visit another planet?

For many years some people have believed that the age of mass space tourism is on the horizon. But, over 15 years

since the world’s first orbital space tourist, businessman Dennis Tito, paid around $20 million to spend six days on the

International Space Station, the development of this industry has been slower than predicted. And Anu is a realist

about the future:

When it comes down to space tourism, the idea of thousands of people taking holidays in space will be as much a

fantasy in 50 years’ time as it is today. The challenges of human space exploration and staying in space are still

extreme.

Today, the competition to be the first operational space tourism company is fierce. And organisations run by

billionaire businessmen are leading the way. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’

Blue Origin are all developing spacecraft and promising trips for private citizens in the next few years.

While Virgin have already built a spaceport in the desert of New Mexico in the USA they have also experienced many

problems and setbacks with their spacecraft. There will be very few people who will ever be able to afford to

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experience space tourism and be able to say that they are an astronaut.

For most people, the experience will never be worth the enormous cost and the very real risks.

There is a very good reason why, since 1961, only 500 people out of the billions of people alive have ever been into

space, and it’s to do with the enormous amounts of energy we need and the enormous limits of science and

engineering that we have to try and face. Now rocket science and rocket engineering, it’s safe but even though 500

people have been into space, 18 have died in the process. Human space flight is not 100 per cent safe, it’s a risky

business and so whenever human beings want to explore and they want to go further, there is always a risk factor.

I think for the foreseeable future, human space flight is going to be about going around the earth, is going to be about

doing experiments that we can’t do on earth and it’s going to have some fantastic discoveries that are made, but for

me, that is not what space exploration is.

Whilst space tourism is an idea that I think would be fantastic and I would love to experience, I don't think we’re

going to see a time in the next century when we have thousands and thousands of tourists taking holidays in space, I

think that’s more science fiction than science fact.

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Unit 9: What is Hygge?

Part 1: Hygge

Hygge. If you’ve never heard this word before, you’ve never lived in Scandinavia, or you haven’t read any lifestyle

magazines for a while. It’s not an English word, but if you’ve been into any bookshop in the UK in the past few years,

then the chances are you will have seen a display of books on sale that offer to show you how to feel better by

‘bringing a little hygge into your life.’

In the UK and beyond, the word Hygge has started appearing in cookbooks, in magazine articles and all over the

Internet. It has appeared in the shortlist for the Oxford Dictionaries word of the year. And as a hashtag in millions of

posts across social media. But where did it come from, and what does it mean?

Hygge is a Danish concept, which roughly translates as cosiness.

Hygge is a Scandinavian way of life. And it’s all about happiness and well-being.

Erm, there’s no real, direct translation into English but it, kind of, roughly means spending time with the people that

you love, erm, doing, doing things that you enjoy. Er, slowing down the pace of life, and just, kind of, being content.

This is Kayleigh Tanner. Kayleigh lives in Brighton, a vibrant and exciting seaside town on the south coast of

England. By day Kayleigh, works in marketing, but in her evenings and weekends she runs a successful blog called

hellohygge.com, dedicated to all things hygge.

Why does Kayleigh think that everyone is interested in hygge now?

I think the unstable political environment we’re living in at the moment means that people are, kind of, seeking this

comfort more than ever before. Every time I speak to a Scandinavian about this, they’re very surprised that, erm,

hygge is, kind of, taking off around the world. There are people as far as, you know, Japan and South Korea and

Australia, absolutely everywhere, erm, suddenly taking an interest in something that’s been part of the Scandinavian

way of life forever, really.

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Part 2: Hello hygge

I absolutely adore Scandinavia. I’ve been so many times and every time I go, I just fall in love with it all over again.

So I started my blog ‘hellohygge’ in January 2015, after reading about the concept of hygge in a book called

Scandinavian Christmas.

At that time, if you’d looked on the internet for information about hygge, you wouldn’t have been able to find much in

English.

So, I decided to set up an English language blog, all about the concept.

And as interest in hygge has grown around the world so has Kayleigh’s blog.

Erm, there’s a, a big variety of things on my blog. It’s, erm, I’d call it a lifestyle blog.

The site features articles on things like food, travel, health and decorating your home, as well as interviews with

authors and experts.

And it’s meant to be just a, kind of, cosy space on the internet. I think the internet does need some more comfort.

A lot of the articles on hellohygge are full of beautiful things you can buy. But if you just couldn’t afford these things,

could you still live a hygge lifestyle?

The best thing you can do, if you don’t want to buy anything, but you still want to hygge is to just spend time with your

favourite people. So whether it’s friends or family, just invite them over, have a nice fun, relaxed evening with them.

Or go for a walk, go to the park, go to the beach. Just spend time with the right people. And I think that’s the best

possible way to hygge for free.

And she has some advice for the phone addicts too.

Just ignore the screens and focus on the people that are there in front of you. I think so many of us, these days, are just

so tied to technology and hygge gives us a reason to, kind of, turn everything off and just focus on the people that we

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want in our lives. And I think that that’s a really important way to bring hygge into your life.

Hellohygge has been very successful. If Kayleigh hadn’t started her blog she would have missed out on some very

exciting opportunities.

I was asked to appear live on Norwegian breakfast TV which was very strange. I’d never been on TV before. So that

was, er, that was unusual. But something I’d never do without the blog. So it’s great to have all these opportunities to,

er, to do some different things.

Part 3: Hygge in action

Today, people think of hygge as a Danish idea. But the origin of the word is actually Norwegian. It was borrowed by

the Danish in the 18th Century. Its original meaning was to do with ‘seeking protection and shelter from the harsh,

cold weather of the Scandinavian winter.’

I think, because Scandinavia is such a cold, dark, part of the world, for so much of the year, erm, I think that it plays a

massive role in hygge, because in the, in those long, dark, winters, people need something to keep them going. So it’s

a way for them to, kind of, combat this with cosiness and warmth and, kind of, bringing some light into the, the cold

winters, erm, which I think is a really nice concept.

And as light and warmth play such an important role in hygge, it isn’t a surprise to see that people in Scandinavia have

found new and innovative ways to overcome their cold, dark winters.

The tiny town of Rjukan sits at the bottom of a very steep valley. During the winter the sun never rises over the

mountains. For the residents of this town, it wasn’t enough to just light a fire and wait for summer. Instead they built

mirrors on the mountain side. Today these mirrors reflect the sun down into the town square. And it’s clear to see the

difference it makes. If they hadn’t built the mirrors then the whole town would have remained in darkness for 7

months every year. Instead, for a few hours every day all winter, the little community comes together to share the little

sunshine they have. It’s given them a time and place to enjoy being together, it’s brought light and warmth into their

lives, and it has made the whole town happier. Perhaps this is a perfect example of hygge in action.

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To the Scandinavians, hygge is so much more than a buzzword being used to sell things. It’s not just about buying

books, baking delicious pastries or decorating your home with fancy candles and fairy-lights. It’s about putting away

your work, putting down your phone, and spending time in the warm company of the people you love. And maybe if

we could all do that, then we would all be a bit happier.

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Unit 10: Amazing World Records

Part 1: Magic man

My name is Martin Rees, I'm a magician and I've been doing magic most of my life, but I've been performing

professionally for about 15 years. I've always loved magic because of what it makes you feel when you watch it, and I

first got into magic when I was four years old when I got a magic set for Christmas.

When I was growing up, I really loved Paul Daniels when he was on the TV and that's what first got me into magic.

And also I like David Blaine. Er, he did lots of really good card tricks and really good visual tricks on TV. That's

when I first really got into magic and started performing to people. I did my first magic show when I was 12 and it

was for a wedding and that, the reactions I got were amazing and it made me realise that is what I want to do as a job.

The best thing about being a magician is seeing people's reactions because especially if someone's having a bad day,

then you can brighten up their day.

Martin specializes in close-up magic.

I do specialize in close-up magic which is up close with people. You'll have one or two or a small group of people

stood around you watching, and the great thing with it is that they can see, er, and they can feel what you're doing and

you can borrow their things. Close up magic is magic with anything. It could be cards, money, er, people's personal

objects like mobile phones, er, or rings, er, or different things they have in their pockets.

People must react to Martin’s tricks in very different ways.

Er, some people do like to try and figure out how the tricks are done, and it's interesting listening to what they, er, the

ideas they have of how it's done because m- most of the time they're completely wrong, and what they think has

happened is completely the opposite to what has happened.

Er, you get different people though. Some people just love watching magic and, er, that's it, they don't want to know

the secret. You get your people who, er, love magic but have to know how it's done and are constantly saying, “How

did you do that? How did you do that?”

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And then you've got your people who just don't like magic, it scares them, they don't want to know and, er, yes, they're

the people who I like to impress the most because they're a lot- they're a challenge because they don't like magic, and

I'd like to make them change so they do like magic.

Martin had built up a good career performing close-up magic at weddings, birthdays and business events. He’d

performed in children’s hospitals, and on national television. But this kind of success couldn’t have been enough for

Martin because in 2016 he worked out a way of becoming a world-record-holding magician.

Part 2: How on earth do you practise for that?

How do you become a world-record-holding magician? It can’t be easy. Martin decided he didn’t want to break

another magician’s record; he wanted to set a brand-new world record. Something that he could do, that no-one had

ever tried before.

The idea for the world record started when I started working for a children's charity, er, who go to Great Ormond

Street and other hospitals. So initially I was going to do a sponsored skydive and do a couple of magic tricks on the

skydive to show the kids in the hospitals but as the idea grew, someone said, “Why not look and see if there's a world

record that you can do?”

So, I looked into it and not many magic tricks have been done as a world record on a skydive, er, so I thought well,

why not do the most magic tricks on a skydive?

It can’t have been easy to practise for this record-breaking attempt. How on earth did Martin prepare for something

like that?

So, I started going to an indoor skydive centre which has a wind tunnel that blows wind in a big loop and the wind

blows at about 120 miles an hour.

It must have been very challenging to do magic in that situation.

So, I had to think of different ways of making, er, the tricks work inside the wind tunnel while also holding onto them

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as hard as possible in case they blew away.

It may have been difficult but Martin clearly impressed the people who were watching him practise.

Er, the manager of the wind tunnel said, “Why not do a world record in the tunnel?” So I did that, which was the most

magic tricks in a wind tunnel in three minutes.

So, Martin had set his first world record. But his biggest challenge was still to come.

Part 3: World record holder

Throughout his training, Martin had always planned to attempt his world record skydive in August. So how did he end

up doing it in November? Well, it turns out that some important people had heard about his wind tunnel record.

Once I did that record, Guinness World Records called me and said, “We know you're doing your skydive record in

the summer when it's hot, but would you do it as part of Guinness World Records Day which is in November?” Er, so

we did the world record in November. Er, the problem with that was it was so cold because we jumped from 15,000

feet and at that height, it was about –20° so within five seconds of leaving the plane, my hands were so cold I couldn't

feel the tricks in my hands which made it a lot more difficult.

To set a new world record, Martin needed to perform 10 tricks on the skydive. But his hands were too cold, and he

couldn’t do 10 on the first jump or on the second jump. And he only had one more jump because the weather was

changing, and he wouldn’t be able to jump in bad weather.

But after a couple of practice goes, I did do the record. I had to do a minimum of 10 magic tricks and I managed to do

11 on the skydive.

So Martin became a double-world-record holder. And he appeared in news reports around the world. The publicity

was great for his career, and Martin is planning to break some more magic records in the future.

So, there is a record for the most magic tricks underwater and I want to do this record because one, it's opposite of

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air, so from the air into the water. But also, my biggest fear is being underwater so I want to overcome my fear as well

as doing this world record.

But until then Martin is back on solid ground, doing what he loves most, performing magic right in front of people’s

eyes.

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Unit 11: Performance Capture

Part 1: A dream job

Today, all films make use of special effects and most use elements of performance capture to digitally create

characters and bring them to life. Tim Doubleday has been working in performance capture for over 12 years.

During this time he has worked on many exciting projects: from music videos and blockbuster feature films to ground-

breaking video games. He has seen incredible developments in the industry over the last decade.

But however much the cameras and computers improve, the basic process of trying to capture an actor’s movements

and translate these into an expressive digital character remains the same. And it’s this process and its incredible results

that Tim has always loved.

So, I got into the performance capture industry because I had a real passion in video games and in films so from an

early age I always used to play video games whether it be Nintendo, or later years I moved on to personal computers,

PC gaming. I did a degree in animation at Bournemouth University and there we studied not only animation but also

the more technical side of animation. At the time, motion capture wasn’t really a thing so it was more about studying

programming and studying art and animation together.

With his degree in animation and his love of video-games getting a job in the performance capture industry was a

dream come true for Tim.

So, I really enjoy this field because it’s, kind of, really, it’s always changing, the technology’s always moving so it

moves really quickly and you always kind of have to keep up and there’s always new things to learn.

Today, with the video games market booming around the world, the demand for high quantities of performance

capture content is increasing all the time.

So for a video game maybe it might last twenty hours or even maybe fifty hours whereas a film will only be two hours,

and maybe within that two hours there’ll only be, I don’t know, say, twenty minutes of actual performance capture

visible on screen. So performance capture is becoming a lot more common now in video games and in films

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especially. So as the demand’s been there, the technology’s improved and the cost’s come down as well.

Part 2: Performance capture in action

Modern performance capture technology is so good that sometimes we have to remind ourselves that many of the

characters we see on our cinema and video game screens aren’t ‘real’ at all. While the end results look incredibly

realistic, the beginning of the process of creating them is less impressive and even a little comical!

Today, Tim will be capturing some movements of Mike’s body for the development of a computer game. Collecting

the movements of a performer’s body is also known as ‘motion-capture.’ And it’s just one part of performance

capture.

The process starts in the studio full of special infrared cameras which are all linked to a central computer. Because the

cameras are recording movement in a 3-D space, Tim’s first job is to make sure that the computer understands exactly

where each camera is. This is called ‘system calibration.’

It is done using a strange T-shaped stick with five bright red lights. The stick is waved in front of the cameras. Each

camera records the movement of the lights and the computer collects that information. Tim watches this on his

computer screen. When the system has collected enough data, the camera light turns green. When all the camera lights

are green, the system is ready.

Mike puts on a skin-tight black suit and then he has to show the cameras and computer what his body looks like. So he

needs to stretch and bend in all directions in front of the cameras while the computer collects lots of information about

how his body moves. This is called ‘subject calibration.’ Now that the computer understands where the cameras are,

and what Mike’s body looks like, the next stage can begin.

Tim adds reflective markers to all the important points of Mike’s body – every joint that moves. It’s important that the

suit is very tight because they’re really trying to capture the movement of the skeleton, not the skin, so they don’t want

the markers to move from the joints.

Once Mike is covered in markers, they are ready to start recording his movement. The cameras capture information

from each of the markers as Mike moves and the computer processes it all. The movements create the digital character

on-screen and the data is recorded for use in the development of the computer game.

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Part 3: The human touch

Recording the physical movements of a person in a studio is only one stage in the performance capture process. Away

from the cameras and the lights, behind-the-scenes, more time-consuming work begins. The computer programmes

that Tim works with are incredibly powerful. They process and translate all the data captured in the studio to create a

moving digital skeleton.

But often the cameras haven’t recorded all the markers, or maybe one has fallen off the suit, so the computer doesn’t

have all the data it needs, and the skeleton doesn’t move correctly. So, the first thing Tim does is to check and add any

missing data himself. This can take a long time and it is especially difficult when there’s more than one person in the

scene.

When all the data is correct and the skeletons are moving perfectly, Tim can cover them with a computer-generated

skin and they start to look more like bodies. From here, the work of computer technicians and animators will turn

them into all kinds of characters and creatures in the world of the computer game or film.

Of course, there are limits to creating digital characters using performance capture. You can have the most powerful

computer in the world but you are still limited by how the human body can move. However, the skill of many of the

performers behind the digital characters is amazing. Often, they can move and bend themselves in unbelievable ways.

And it’s a physically demanding job, especially when they are working on developing characters for video games.

Performers have to repeat the same actions again and again, in slightly different ways so that the video game players

have lots of different options. A character might cross a river, or they might fall in the river – the performer has to do

both.

So, an actor’s performance is everything to us, really. The technology can only take us so far, it’s really down to the

performance of the actors to carry the scene and to carry the performance across. So, for example, you might have

somebody walking across a stage and they might just do a normal, average walk. Whereas if someone’s really put

some life into that walk, it’s going to be a lot more appealing. So, in terms of the technology, we really like to take a

step back and let the actors come through and deliver their performance as naturally and, kind of, in a most natural

way possible.

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With his years of experience in the industry, Tim knows better than anyone that it is the performers, not technology,

that are really the heart of performance capture.

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Unit 12: Making a Difference

Part 1: Words into action

We all like to think that we have a social conscience. We want to do the right thing, and we believe that if we could

we would try to help people who are less fortunate than ourselves. But it’s still inspiring to see other people putting

these thoughts into action.

When Bill Gates started his computer company, Microsoft, in 1975, he couldn’t have guessed that less than 25 years

later he would have become the richest man in the world.

Gates made billions of dollars at Microsoft, and in 1994 he and his wife, Melinda, started using their wealth to help

others. In 1999 they started the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and, with the help of other rich individuals like

Warren Buffett, they began making a real difference to the lives of people around the world. In 2008 Bill Gates started

working full-time at the Foundation. By 2010 the foundation had given over $24 billion dollars to programmes around

the world, with work focusing on global development and healthcare.

Much of this work focussed on preventable diseases that affected the developing world. Two-thirds of deaths in

children under age five in developing countries are due to diseases that can be prevented, such as malaria. Malaria is

spread by the bite of a mosquito and it causes nearly one million deaths every year. 95 per cent of these deaths are in

Africa, and 85 per cent of those who die are under 5 years of age.

But you don’t need to be wealthy to make a difference people’s lives. The day-to-day work of an individual can be

just as important as the huge resources of a billionaire’s foundation. Sometimes you just need to have the time and to

desire to help to make a real difference.

This is Pam Llewellyn, a nurse from a small town called Upton in England. When Pam retired at the age of 59, she

knew that she wasn’t ready to simply stop helping people. And just a year later she was living in a remote rural town

in Uganda in East Africa, using her experience as a nurse and working as a member of an organisation called

Voluntary Service Overseas, or VSO.

So, were her family surprised at her decision to give up her comfortable life in England to go and work in Africa?

I don't think they were surprised really. They know that during my life I’ve done slightly different things. I retired at

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59 knowing that I wanted to do something different and exciting and that was the beginning of my VSO journey and

the beginning of my first ever visit to Africa and my beginning of understanding diseases like malaria.

Part 2: A different world

VSO is an international organization that works through volunteers to fight poverty and disease around the world.

Over a period of years I’d heard a couple of interviews about people that had gone to Russia, South East Asia, Africa

and I always thought “mmmm, I’d like to do that one day” and coming up to retirement, I thought “I’m going to fill in

the form and see what happens.”

VSO sent Pam to the district of Miirya in the north-west of Uganda. In this remote, rural area many people live in

poverty, a lot of villages haven’t got running water and people have to get their water from a pump. Life expectancy in

Uganda is only 45. Pam worked with a team of local community volunteers who travelled around the district giving

families mosquito nets and talking to them about malaria prevention, as well as other health issues.

I was lucky because when I arrived in Uganda, VSO gave me medication and that was a tablet every day of my stay,

during my two years, so I took the tablet, I never forgot and I never got malaria. They also gave me a treated

mosquito net which I used every night of my stay there.

If Pam hadn’t taken malaria tablets or had forgotten to use her mosquito net she might have caught malaria living in

Miirya. And, unfortunately, this is the reality for many of the people she worked with who couldn’t afford tablets or

mosquito nets.

The only way to prevent getting malaria is to sleep under a treated mosquito net and of course, local people can’t

afford to buy them, they’re not provided free by the government, they are given out by some charities some of the time.

The volunteers all knew that if the nets weren’t used properly they wouldn’t protect anyone from malaria, so education

was an essential part of their work.

You need to understand why you need the net, what you're preventing and how it is best to use the net, so the project

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that I was working on really believed that giving a net alone isn't enough, you need to have an education package with

it.

It was quite a change from Pam’s life in England. Pam lived in the community and had to adapt to a very different

standard of living. Although, there were also many similarities.

Surprisingly you can go to a cash point, you can go to a hole in the wall, you can get some money out of your UK

bank account if you need it. Having said you can go to the hole in the wall, some days it doesn't work, some days

there’s no electricity. It’s very much the same, there are shops of a sort, Lucky 7 supermarket, which we used to joke

that if there were seven things you wanted, you were lucky, but you just adjust your life.

Part 3: A life-changing experience

Pam spent two years in Uganda and became part of the community in Miirya. Through her work, she didn’t just help

to change the lives of many people she cared for; she changed her own life, too.

I don't think I will ever be the same again. I feel differently about how I live here. I feel differently about how my

family live. And I’ve now been back over a year and I still haven't been into a big supermarket.

If Pam hadn’t gone to Uganda she would have missed out on a life-changing experience. But is there anything that she

would do differently if she could do it all again?

If I were to have the experience again, I probably would have done more homework before I left. I bought the guide to

Uganda and I bought the map, and I thought that was probably enough preparation. If I could do it again, I probably

would make more effort to contact more people who had actually been in Uganda for, as a volunteer or working short

term so that I could have been better prepared for what to expect professionally and culturally, from first hand rather

than from a book.

Many people are surprised at Pam’s decision to start work for VSO at the age of 60, but she believes that waiting until

she retired was a good thing.

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I don't think I could have done this when I was younger. I wouldn't have had the confidence to do it, I wouldn't have

had the skills to have done what I actually did in Miirya as a nurse and I don't think I would have survived very well. I

don't know but personally for me, I think it was the right time and it would not have worked so well had I gone when I

was younger.

And what was the most rewarding part of her two years in Uganda?

People ask this question quite a lot and it would be quite easy to say that during the time that I was there, that we

distributed over 6000 mosquito nets so that I know that 6000 families were benefiting, but it was the friendships and

people that I met, and that contact with ordinary people in Africa and visiting their homes, sitting on the floor in their

mud hut laughing over something is, is a joy and an experience that I don't think you can buy and I felt very, very

privileged to, to be able to do that.

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