It’s great to see the industry ramping up again….in 2022 I have an exciting lineup of gigs including the Ideal Home Show at London Olympia and the SEC Glasgow, Infosec at EXCEL, The Wellcome Collection London, the British Academy, Searcys Euston, and working the QL5 at the British Library Auditorium (where I am on the freelance audio mixing pool).
Derek Gibbons Production CV 2022 (.pdf)
British Library Events: Sound / lighting operator
I also enjoyed the challenge during the Covid period, of remote mixing a live stream for NAMM and The Midi Association: “The MIDI Innovation Awards”. This involved live sound mixing and additional AV duties, showcasing MIDI controllers invented by the finalists. Multiple Zoom feeds, international guests from the UK, Brazil and Europe, live performances from New York and VTs to cut to. OBS, Focusrite audio interfaces, SONY radio mics and multiple Apple Mac Pro / Apple M1 audio feeds.
I began the television production part of my career journey at Teddington Studios, London back in 2003. This was the home of, amongst other things, This is Your Life, The Office, Pop Idol, The I.T. Crowd and more. Sadly those iconic studios were closed several years ago, but I still utilise the production skills I learnt and harbour some fond memories from that time.
I was trained on studio camera technique (Using and steering peds, focus & peaking, use of extenders etc.) by the brilliant Terry Pearce (TP) who worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, and countless British TV dramas for many years.
4:3 (later converted to wide-screen) IKEGAMI camera heads, Canon DigiSuper lenses, Autocue, Vinten Teal and full size PEDS were the order of the day back then. Even though I transitioned into presenting and Acting work in front of the camera, I still enjoyed continuing to work behind the scenes as well.
Del Gibbons on camera at Teddington Studios
When Pinewood Studios took over Teddington, I maintained an oar in the production world by working as a sound operator and VT operator (initially using actual digibeta videotape before it all went onto video servers :D) , and later worked as a graphics operator in Teddington’s smaller studio 7 for a TV quiz show. I took the operators course at Pixelpower in Cambridge to learn the fundamentals of the Clarity broadcast graphics system.
Probably most familiar of the behind the scenes roles for me is working in sound as I studied that at university for 4 years as part of my music Honours and Masters degrees. I continue to write and mix production music from my well-equipped home studio.
Derek Gibbons (Del Gibbons) Presenter // Composer // AV Editor 