Evan Pugh

What makes the common person tick? As humans, we try to understand how each other work by removing ourselves from our comfort zones. This can include, grouping strangers in a house, jungle, or island.

I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here…, Big Brother, Celebrity Big Brother and Love Island are all television shows that I have worked on. Exposing the joys of human existence, through the medium of television. I enjoy portraying individual’s personalities by using images to create stories.

I come from a background of multi-camera, reality, live television. This includes directing on Big Brother for ten years. My role as ‘reality director’ is to capture the lives of those living ‘in reality’. I cut between and record the interactions, which are captured on the fixed-rig and manned cameras around the set.

What you capture and decide to include in the final product can have a big impact on the audience. One notable example of this, during my time on Celebrity Big Brother, was Shilpa Shetty and the race debates, which caused a media firestorm. However, it created a conversation in the public domain, which perhaps would not have happened if it had not been for the television programme.

I lecture on the BSc (Hons) Television and Broadcasting course. My main teaching area is live television production, which includes working in a live television studio and making VTs (video tapes). I also cover producing and directing, camera operations, lighting, and sound.

It is a very broad course, so it covers lots of different aspects of television and production. If you go on to work in the television industry, whether that’s as a camera operator or a producer and you understand all those other job roles, it will enable you to work better, as part of a production team.

At the university, the students can explore different avenues and learn the craft, without the fear of making mistakes that could affect their career.

Furthermore, my experiences in the industry allow me to share the best practices with students, so that they can apply them to their own work.

As a new researcher, most of my work so far has been background and industry-based work. I am gradually collating ideas, experience, and theories to start putting together a more definite area of research.

Two main areas that are of interest to me are:

• Ethics and how productions work with contributors to safeguard their appearance on television shows.
• How the press and social media interacts with these types of television programmes. As well as the impacts on contestant’s mental health.