Live Firing for British TV Documentary
I have received the following communication from a producer for a British TV documentary, Alex Hocking from Channel 4. I have been back and forth with him on the email. This is what he has to say:
“I am researching into prepping/survivalism for a UK TV programme, for Channel 4, a major broadcaster in the UK. In recent years there has been an increase in interest in prepping and self-reliance in the UK with numerous new forums and websites being started. Probably due to threats like epidemics (Ebola for instance), economic instability across Europe, changing values in Britain itself and wars breaking out across the globe (e.g. Middle East, Russia), people are starting to question what they would do if society breaks down. What can they do for themselves? What if the government doesn’t come and save them? Who will protect them? Ultimately, we live surrounded by water on a small island, so if people don’t know how to grow food and don’t have stores, how will they eat? We aren’t allowed to have guns, so how will we protect ourselves?
With this in mind, we would like to explore what prepping/survivalism is all about. However, although interest has been growing, the UK networks and organisations are not as well developed as in the US. We’d prefer to be able to show viewers a better organised and effective group to show what is possible, which is one reason for contacting you. Another reason is that the scope of training in the UK is limited: we do not have the right to bear arms so, with the exception of a few hunters and farmers, there isn’t the same ability for British people to prepare themselves should any disaster or societal collapse occur.
We are not making so-called ‘reality’ TV with faked scenes. Our intention is to take more of an observational documentary approach: through spending time with you, training, talking, learning about your values and why you prep, our presenter and our viewers will learn something about prepping in the US. We are aware that some other documentaries have veered towards the sensationalist and the phoney, our intention is to have our presenter meet some ‘proper’ preppers, but we can’t do this without your help. Good documentaries require good contributors and we are happy to work with you on this, to follow your lead: you are the experts, not us.
If I were a prepper, I would no doubt be worried about confidentiality and secrecy. We understand this and are open to ways of preserving it. Assumed names, masks or taking the camera team to secret locations (e.g. blindfolding the presenter on route) is fine by us. We don’t need to know everything about you and do not expect to be told. I respect that you will have boundaries, please let us know about them so we can work within them.”
They will be in the US from the 11 to 17 of November. Their first stop is in CA to interview some preppers. I see this as an opportunity to get the rationalist word out there. Once they are done in CA, they have the ability to visit another location. So:
1) If you want them to go visit you, then let me know and I will put you in touch.
2) If I can get sufficient alumni together, I am happy to run a day two over the weekend of the 15/16 November. I see the scope of that as running some live fire exercises with Alumni, such as the Combat Patrol class raid, similar “good for TV” live firing etc, in order to get a positive tactical message out there.
If you are an alumni of Combat Team Tactics or Combat Patrol and would be interested in such a weekend, please let me know. I am led to believe that you can have whatever anonymity you want in the filming. They would also like to take the opportunity to interview people and get a rationalist perspective on prepping etc. If we have a group of decent students, that gives a broad scope of sensible Patriots for them to interview, rather than a bunker full of nut job doomsday preppers!
Channel 4 is big in the UK. There would be no immediate financial benefit to MVT, given that we can’t train foreign students, due to ITAR regulations, so it is not like there would be a sudden influx of Brit tactical tourists!
Let me know.
Max
P.S. Let’s head off the usual rush of doomsday predictions about TV documentaries. This may be useful. If you are not interested, then keep it to yourself.