In April l995 at the Fortean Times Unconvention a BBC TV producer was amidst the crowd seeking out candidate film-makers for a new series that he then had in mind. Soon afterwards he contacted me and by the summer I had been invited to make a 30 minute documentary about UFOs.
It was a dream come true - my own prime-time nationwide TV programme. Within reason I could do what I wanted.. Here was an opportunity that I knew might never come again.
The series, of six programmes, was initially titled Real Life X-Files . This was changed to - Secrets of the Supernatural in February l996 after the company which makes the original X-Files made known (reasonably enough) that they were no longer going to allow people to trade off their invention, title or logo. There has been a spate of X-file type names cropping up here there and everywhere in the media of late. I guess they had finally had enough
So, if you are thinking of X-File related projects you had better seek the US company's permission first or big bucks may be heading out of your bank account in their direction.
It was a while before I was clear of the format of the intended series. When I first went to the BBC and was given a lightweight camera and various equipment to cart around with me I was simply told to practice, get used to it and film whatever you do. I suspect they were still trying to find other willing victims (sorry, volunteers) to devote nine months towards making a TV programme for not exactly huge sums. Money certainly does not enter into the equation here, I can promise you that. Those who decided to take part in the series did so for the opportunity, not the fabled BBC cheque.
Gradually I became aware that other participants in the series included Uri Geller (who certainly did not need the money) and healer Matthew Manning, whose work I had admired since I first got interested in the paranormal. They had free choice as to what they would do with their programme, as did I. Some might choose to make a 'video diary' feature of their life and times. Indeed the arm of the BBC making this series did also make the Video Diary series where someone shoots their day to day life on a camcorder and makes a kind of pictorial scrapbook of what they are up to. From what I have seen Uri Geller's programme is a little bit like that, but very entertaining.
I had to make video diary style films to practice with the camera - and I can tell you inhibitions disappear swiftly when you are on a train surrounded by people and you have to point a camera at your face and say 'I am now heading for Sheffield to attend the BUFORA conference....'
Once I got into the swing of the programme and the series itself began to firm up its intentions for the network controller I realised that to make a 'look at me' style film would have been a great waste of this opportunity. So, in consultation with Amir, my producer, we worked out a format which came to be called Britain's Secret UFO Files - which allowed us to make a proper documentary, not just a personal biopic about the life and times of a UFOlogist.
This has required careful planning and a very heavy schedule of filming. It has also meant that I used the BBC resources possibly more than the other programmes in the series have done. Yet still it was very much a two-person project. Amir and I did most of the work - that is planning,arranging,researching,reconnaisance,filming,interviewing,editing,scripting - between us. As such it has taken far more of my time than I ever envisaged it would - or I suppose it would have done had I just made a simple video diary.
However, what I wanted to do was try to make a unique UFO documentary. Having just 29 minutes on screen I soon learned many lessons about timing, what is filmable, what works on camera and does not and so on. For example, you have to fix on a very specific point for the programme and not try to do too much. So we decided not to attempt to prove that UFOs are real or to argue that UFOs are this, that or the other. Possibly unlike any other documentary yet made we never even address those questions - although I think it is implicit from what we do that UFOs are far from readily explicable.
The format we chose was to examine what the British government knows about UFOs behind the closed doors of its Ministry of Defence. How have they handled this problem for the past 40 years? What do they do now? Where are the files? Are there any secret locations where research goes on? So it became a sort of quest for the truth, with the help of a number of key players.
How successful this will prove remains to be seen. Although we have one eighth of the air time on national terrestrial TV that a satellite-only series about UFOs gets later in the year, their budget is in fact vastly more than ours. So there were serious limitations imposed by this difficulty. Nevertheless, we have tried to use those shortcomings as an advantage and where we lose out in terms of money we hopefully gain in straight non-nonsense talking. We shall see what people think.
Editing, script-writing and recording of the voice-over brought further changes and we were tinkering with the programme up until mid March, when it had to be ready to show to Michael Jackson (No - not that Michael Jackson - this one is head of programming for BBC-2). The decision was taken to open the series with my programme, which puts some responsibility onto it. But the internal viewings within the BBC have thankfully been quite favourable. I doubt they have ever seen UFOs approached from an objective, non sensationalised and argumentative perspective before.
I gather that there is hope that the programme will be sold abroad, may well get a repeat at Christmas and could even make it to BBC-1 later. But these are all ifs and buts. However, they reflect the fact that I did have a responsibility to the UFO subject to keep in mind here. It is not everyday that a working UFOlogist gets offered half an hour on national television to 'do their own thing'. I have tried not to waste that opportunity, and whilst I am sure there is much I could have done better and which you may feel I should have done differently, I hope it might open a few eyes.
Even seasoned UFOlogists will find a great deal of new material. We made breakthroughs on two famous encounters and have very important witnesses on camera for the first time ever about a case known the world over and which was investigated by the Condon Report in l968.
Britain's Secret UFO Files is scheduled to appear at 8pm on Thursday 11 April on BBC-2.
Jenny Randles