Working on a series like Glamorgan Coastal Lives, you have to be prepared to throw yourself into anything and everything from filming fishing in the most remote parts of the Glamorgan coast in torrential rain and wind (in August), following young lifeguards on their first day of patrol in baking hot sunshine (also in August) to riding the big wheel in Barry Island Pleasure Park when you’re scared of heights! It also involved tasting weird and wonderful craft beer brewed with ingredients from the coast (including seaweed!), making friends with hundreds of little four-legged dachshunds, to filming in a unique lived-in castle dating back to 1180. These are just a few stories you’ll see in the series.
Leanne (Producer and Director) and I (Assistant Producer) had never met each other, let alone worked together before we started on this series! But over four months last year, the coast became our playground and the contributors, our friends.
During our time filming we found that the Glamorgan Coast was home to some truly spectacular landscapes, charming and historical buildings as well as wonderful, kind and funny people. All of our lovely contributors let us film with them from morning to night, during ups and downs, from planned events to some unexpected catastrophes (watch out for the giant veg!) they let us in and trusted us, the film crew, to tell their story.
One young couple making their mark on the world who feature in the series are Craig and Aimee from Barry Island, aka ‘Kinging It’. ‘Kinging-it’ is their approach to life, they rule their own lives by being their own bosses, they travel the world and document everything via vlogs, they’ve become incredibly well known all over the world, with thousands of followers across all social media.
Their pure determination to be who they want to be and do what they want to do stems from the two of them experiencing difficult times. In 2008 when they first met, Aimee was diagnosed with cancer and Craig broke his neck when in New Zealand. Thankfully they both recovered, decided life is too short and took the world by storm! And they haven’t stopped since. After travelling in 2015 they took a short break in 2016 and returned to Barry Island to save money, before jet setting off again. Thankfully for us, they were home just at the right time.
They worked with different local authorities around Wales, and with Visit Wales vlogging from different Welsh attractions including when we followed them around the Vale.
Filming with Craig & Aimee was a lot of fun! Their enthusiasm and love for life is both inspiring and intoxicating. They threw themselves into all kinds of experiences from paddle boarding for the first time, paint balling, karting and they even went under the needle for tattoos! They showed us around Barry Island in all its glory, proved how hard they work to get what they want, and illustrate what you can do when you set your heart and mind to it. They’ve introduced Wales to the vlogging world. (They worked so hard in Wales they’re now vlogging from The Philippines!)
Filming an observation documentary like this takes a lot of time and effort from both the crew and contributors, but when you have a mixture of the right stories and characters it makes life that little bit easier, especially working on a beautiful coastline.
Be wary though, if you venture out to visit the Glamorgan Coast, take a tip from us – remember your muddy walking boots, sun cream, wet weather gear, picnic rug, umbrella, sandals (you’ll never be able to second guess the weather – believe us, we’ve been there!) and don’t forget your camera.
Glamorgan Coastal Lives begins on Friday 7 April at 7.30pm on BBC One Wales.