'The well-lit wide and medium angle becomes the powerful shot with movement towards and across the frame the key to creating the sense of reality. The skill of those behind the camera was to find that position and angle of view which allowed movement to take place within the frame. Only the slightest movement - a gentle crane up or crab - was required to create, with a foreground, a three-dimensional illusion. This 3-D aspect of increased resolution which was to be explored later in the making of our programme on Crathes Castle becomes more apparent when viewed on 28-inch sized screens and larger. At the Edinburgh Tattoo massed bands were allowed to march towards us and past the cameras left or right out of frame, creating a marvellous perspective. The viewer was therefore placed in the best seat in the house where, with surround sound, the music and applause came from all directions. The mid close-ups and close-ups tended to be used for shorter periods as a 'tag' or punctuation'to illustrate stunning detail-the bead of sweat, the glint in the eyes, the shining brass. A serious limitation, since we were using saticon tube cameras, it were light levels and hence the depth of field. The extremely high-quality lenses were generally wide open requiring difficult decisions on the correct focal plane. Enhanced electronic viewfinders did not make this easy for the camera operators.

'Nevertheless, we created some beautiful focus-pulled shots not normally seen with the human eye. The lighting director and I had detailed discussions before and after each performance in order to resolve problems associated with critical colours and lighting levels. Paramount in his mind had to be the 625 recording taking place later in the week but nevertheless adjustments were made in order to take account of the vastly improved contrast ratio and colour rendition, plus the ability to see more detail in the darker areas of the picture. Lag from the saticon tubes was sometimes a problem so I tended to direct cameras towards those higher-keyed shots and alter my production script accordingly. Lighting is fundamental to creating first class television pic- tures. We all watch the poor lighting created on some cheaply-produced soaps, but it is equally as easy, if not easier, it to generate flat pictures in high definition television. This I later discovered when recording the Edinburgh String Quartet.