Local celebrity gardener Ernie Brown and Chairman of Grimsby in Bloom, ditched his spade in favour of a spanner this week as he took to our studio for an afternoon of car mechanic capers in front of the green screen!

The studios have been commissioned by Public Health to produce a Men’s Health DVD for the men folk of North East Lincolnshire in which Ernie is to star as the presenter. Ernie was so excited by his day in the studios we even made it into his Grimsby in Bloom Blog! Here’s what Ernie had to say:

Bloom Blog

I spent an interesting afternoon at Immage studios on Margaret St in Immingham last week. I was there to film the opening and closing sequences to a programme that they’re developing to promote men’s health. It’s a very worthwhile project and I’d been looking forward to taking part since I was first asked just before Christmas, last year.

“Yeah, no problem, I can do that!” I exclaimed, excited at the prospect of performing in front of the cameras once again, little knowing exactly what it was that I was being asked to do.

I’ve done quite a lot of filming for local, regional and national telly over the last few years, but last week was the first time that I’d had to perform in front of a blue screen.

“Make sure that you don’t wear a blue or purple shirt on the day” said Kimberley at Immage Studios. “It’ll make your body disappear and make it look as though your head is floating in mid air”.

The programme, as I said, is about Men’s Health and its being approached through the medium of motor mechanics. So, last week, there I was, underneath the hot studio lights in a pair of grubby black overalls performing to camera. “Ernie, would you mind rolling that old car tyre across the floor a few times please?” “Ernie, would you pick up that large wrench and pretend to be tinkering about underneath a car bonnet?” “Don’t worry, it won’t look daft, we’ll just add the car later on when you’ve gone, that’s why we’ve got the blue screen. We can just cut out your moving image and put whatever we want behind you. That’s right, just pick up those spark plugs and imagine that you’re connecting them to the battery, that’s great!”

It was indeed a very strange afternoon, where all of the showing off was visible but all of the hard work was really going on behind the scenes where it couldn’t be seen.

It was a great afternoon and thanks to Ernie for all his hard work the graphics are looking great! Keep your eyes peeled for the new DVD due out before Christmas, just in time to fight the festive bulge!