A fit of the jiggles..

An American friend of mine, Lenslinger recently wrote about filming ladies of a certain age... Exercising. And I agree, filming women trying to improve their image whilst jiggling about to 70's and 80's pseudo rock, dressed in loose fitting, sweaty jumpsuits makes a cameraman nervous. Trying to film a four shot sequence of a 40 something housewife with a 4lb weight in both hands, marching on the spot to The Eye Of The Tiger makes for a volatile mix. She had the eye of the tiger alright, and I was the doe eyed newborn deer about to have it's jugular lacerated if I did not remove my lens from beneath her ample, dare I say it, voluptuous frontage.

Filming from behind... Advisable.

This was a delicate situation, that needed a delicate response. Should I move in to film as they slowly gyrated their hips whilst sat on a giant rubber ball, or should I just zoom in and capture the pelvic floor tightening exercise from afar..? I think you know which one I chose.

There was a chink of light in this darkness of male indecision. I saw it out of the corner of my squinty left eye.. One of the ladies smiled at me. It could however have been a painful wince as her sports bra pinged open, or a response to a muscle spasm from the pelvic area, following over tightening, but I took it as an invitation to sidle over, get up close, and film the jiggles.

You see, in this game, you take a chance on what you perceive to be an open invitation. I could have missed that small but telling smile. But having seen it, out of all the other looks that said "Please take that lens away, or I will perform an impromptu colonoscopy upon you" I took the chance and came away with the sequence required. And thank the Lord Almighty for that, as next up was the boxercise routine. And I'm sure one of those ladies was looking at me as her sparring partner...

Paul Martin
www.media-attention.co.uk