ABSTRACT
The ADAPT project set out to film and analyse the skilled users of historic television equipment as they re-encountered and used it again for the first time in many years. This chapter focuses on how the experimental media archaeology project was conducted. The ADAPT material was to be made available for free to a wide range of viewers, from academics and students to film and television fanatics, collectors, technical experts and the wider public. The amount of research needing to be done by the producer in television’s preproduction phase can easily be underestimated. The participants were offered a blind date with their past, enabled and recorded by the research team. The hands on approach was crucial as it offers far more than a traditional interview with veterans about their past work. Approaching the project as if it were a television production was useful in breaking down each element required into a sequence or scene.
