System News

In October 2010 a film crew gathered at the old Titan dig compound to shoot a piece for the BBC magazine programme “The One Show”. Previously Dave (Moose) Nixon and Graham “Grum” Wolstencroft had spent some time on maintenance and safety at the site allowing the main crew to descend with its presenter, the intrepid Dan Snow.

Gavin Newman filmed and Moose and Dan dangled. Lighting technicians, producers, assistants, SRT and safety experts all fussed around to get the best out of what time they had.

Dan was in safe hands but his relief on returning to the safety of the window was tangible.

An unusual 4WD vehicle housed a beefy 30kw generator.

The lamps used at the head of the shaft were 2 x 2.5kw MSR (medium source rare earth) which gave a light output at the same frequency as daylight, but with a brilliance roughly equivalent to 25 x 500Watt halogen lamps! Also suspended lower down in the shaft were 2 x 200w lamps powered off 30v batteries through inverters. They combined to make Titan appear as on a sunny day with the “roof” open!

Dave Webb October 2010