I recently had the pleasure of filming the 2018 Guernsey Literature Festival for Spike Productions, and creating a short promotional film that the festival organisers can use to attract new speakers for next year’s event. You can view the video by clicking the ‘play’ button above.

It was a gruelling few days, carting my video equipment between various venues to capture a wide variety of events, but I enjoyed the assignment immensely. In making this film, we aimed for ‘short and energetic’ - to cover as much of the multi-day event as possible, in a quick, easy to digest promo video. Of course that meant that a lot of footage had to be cut, but I tried to retain as much of the spirit of the event as possible. I particularly enjoyed the events that catered for children as they love to interact and aren’t often put off when they notice a camera pointed at them.

During interviews I was honoured to meet some truly inspirational people, including Katie Piper, Dr Rangan Chatterjee, Evan Davis and of course, the amazing Terry Waite, among others. What struck me most was the friendliness of everyone - not just the guest speakers but also the audiences and all of the volunteers too. The whole festival was superbly organised with capacity audiences at most events. The variety and quality of speakers made for several days of intriguing, interesting and entertaining presentations that appealed to a much wider audience than just avid book-readers as the festival’s name might suggest.

This was my first experience of the festival and I can’t recommend it enough. If you like to be entertained, enlightened, inspired and educated by a diverse range of quality speakers, then book your tickets early for next-year, because the Guernsey Literary Festival is going from strength to strength.