By: Blonde Two

I know… a strange list for today’s Tuesday’s Ten but then, back in 2012, we Blondes didn’t think we would end up being asked to make TV programs about navigation and wild camping on Dartmoor either. If you ever find yourself in the position of helping a production company plan their wild camping filming on Dartmoor, here are our 10 top tips.

  1. Plan well in advance. That way you will have time to sort out all of the below (except maybe the weather…)
  2. Know as much as you can about the area in which you will be filming. Films need dramatic backdrops and striking features (apparently that’s Dartmoor not us!) You also need to know about car parking, bogs, crowds and how long it is going to take to get from A to B.
  3. Don’t know too much about the area in which you will be filming if the TV company wants you to navigate to somewhere interesting that you haven’t found before (this caused a few problems when we discovered that we have been to most Dartmoor places!)
  4. Make sure you look at the Dartmoor wild camping map to check you will be wild camping in an authorised area.
  5. Understand a bit about the land ownership on Dartmoor. The National Park only own a few very small sections. You need to do this because…
  6. Most of Dartmoor is privately owned and you will need to make sure you have Dartmoor filming permissions from all of the relevant landowners.
  7. Make some good contacts with Dartmoor National Park and the Duchy of Cornwall, they are very friendly and will be able to help you with filming permissions for many locations… but not all.
  8. Include fees for Dartmoor filming permissions in your budget. For some areas (not all) these are a lot higher than you might expect.
  9. Check the Army live firing times for the areas in which you plan to film or you might end up with another story altogether!
  10. Check the weather forecast… every day… for at least a few weeks ahead… apparently the cameras don’t like the mist, which is why we Blondes may, or may not, be waking up with bad wild camping hair and a camera pointing at us this morning…

We’ll let you know if it all works out…