This year at the London Marathon, we got the opportunity to record footage for Sense Charity for promotional content to use online. Sam went out to film the Sense checkpoint, the race finish and post-race reception at Tiger Tiger. Here’s how it went:
I’d never been to the London Marathon before. I was very excited. I arrived at London Liverpool street for 11am, and after a chicken bake and black coffee from Greggs, I saw Tower Hill on my maps – where my Sense checkpoint was located – was only a 12 minute walk from the station. I headed there and immediately after walking down the steps, the excitement began. The crowd was clapping and cheering, bells were ringing and a camera helicopter was flying low over head performing an impressive sideways manoeuvre. I looked at the race course and there was a lone runner speeding by. I later found out that was Mo Farah running his last ever marathon! So it was off to a good start.
After finally figuring out there was an underpass to the Tower of London side of the course, I met up with Mark Thisslewood, who would be chaperoning me for the day. Everybody at the Sense checkpoint was so lovely and hospitable to me, despite the chaos of endless streams of people and rain. I got right to work filming establishing shots and B-roll of people going by, as well as the odd runners of the elites flying by. After a while I headed back to myself on the other side, to get some shots from a good vantage point of the sense crew checkpoint 3, cheering and clapping for the runners with the orange and purple banners flying behind them. Then I returned back to the checkpoint side to join everybody watching the general runners and capture shots of people interacting, Sense runners and any great moments that happened. It was such a buzz being there listening to all the claps and cheers, I feel I got some great footage and it made me want to take part in the marathon myself!
After an hour being tightly squeezed between one another along the metal barrier, me and Mark made way to the finish line, to try and capture some sense runners crossing the line and get some Vox Pops and general shots of the naturally exhausted but ecstatic runners. The finish line itself was well out of bounds for the general public, and it took me and Mark a good half an hour to walk around to our point after navigating ourselves through St James’ Park. Once we arrived, it was mainly B-roll of runners walking to greet friends and relatives, as well as some great Vox Pops and footage of our Sense runners holding up their medals for completing the marathon. We managed to capture a good 6-7 runners for quick interviews, proving to be the best to get some nice answers from the runners while emotions were high, and them just being available! It was a pleasure to film the runners while Mark asked the questions, they are some extraordinary characters who have so much to say about the marathon and the charity, it was awesome to congratulate them and hear what they’d like to say.
Finally, after the finish line, it was a short 10 minute walk to Tiger Tiger, where the post-race reception was taking place for all Sense runners. Great venue with a nice atmosphere of relief and accomplishment through everybody. I got some shots of the venue, and interview 2 runners, one of which’s story has been used extensively in Sense’s promotion of the race due to the awesome nature of his accomplishments having ran a multitude of some of the worlds most prestigious marathons. We got a bite to eat from the free buffet, took a 10 minute chill then called it a day. We could tell that while there was relief in the air, of course, the runners were completely knackered, and weren’t particularly up for answering any questions. So, me and Mark made the executive decision to wrap up after a successful day of filming.
What a day it was! I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to capture some great moments from the London Marathon 2023. Come Monday the footage was uploaded and whizzed off the Sian at Sense for the edit.