Classical music television

Classical music television

The TV screen switches seamlessly to the horns during their solo in Mahler 4, the camera already zoomed in on the principal's fingers. The whole shot is executed with perfect timing. But how did a bog-standard camera operator know when to switch? Is there a whole breed of conservatoire-trained cameramen out there and how on earth did they get the job?

Twenty-five-year-old Anna Brickles explains. 'Not quite,' she laughs. 'It's actually all pre-scripted. A lot of work goes into it. The directors mark the score with camera notes after sitting and listening and deciding what would work best where.' However, she adds, 'I think the camera operators have to have a working knowledge of what a bassoon is, for example, otherwise they wouldn't know what the markings meant.'

Harrogate-born Brickles has just finished working as a researcher on the BBC Proms and is due to start work as a senior music director for Andrew Lloyd Webber's production company, Rug, following a stint on Any Dream Will Do. A cellist, saxophonist and clarinettist, Brickles did a BMus at Birmingham University but always wanted to work in TV, 'ideally combining the two'. As soon as she started university she joined the TV society. 'We were really lucky because being in Birmingham we had all the old Pebble Mill equipment,' she says. 'I spent nearly all my time at the society making silly programmes and getting loads of experience.'

'It can be hard to cope with but I enjoy the fact that I can go on holiday for two weeks if I want to'

Brickles has been working full-time in TV since she graduated, but she is one of the lucky ones. 'It's very competitive,' she says. 'Contracts are short-term and the longest contract I have had is three to four months. It can be hard to cope with but I enjoy the fact that I can go on holiday for two weeks if I want to.'

Working in TV is just about the most competitive career you could choose, and classical music TV programmes are so few and far between that you are bound to come across stiff competition. The BBC has a small output of music programmes produced by its Music and Arts department, but more and more TV production is being farmed out to smaller independent companies. Channel 4, for example, contracts out all its production.

Competition aside, there are a whole range of roles within TV for a music graduate: producer; director; researcher; sound engineer; music programmer; and the holy grail of presenter - at the moment reserved for the likes of James Naughtie, Myleene Klass and Verity Sharp. To be a presenter you basically need to cultivate a successful music recording career, then work for years and years as a journalist and jump in when a Proms presenter dies. Or ply TV stations with begging letters and get invited in for a screen test.

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