GUY DE LA BÉDOYÈRE MA FSA FRNS FHA

Historian, archaeologist, author and broadcaster

1. NOTE TO TELEVISION AND FILM COMPANIES

I am NOT under contract to Channel 4’s Time Team and never have been. Any arrangements made with me to take part in Time Team have been on a purely ad-hoc shoot-by-shoot basis. I am therefore free to take any other commitments that I wish to, and always have been.

I don’t provide a free/gratis on-demand consultancy service to TV researchers. I work on a strictly freelance basis either for appearances or consultation. So if you’re a television researcher who fancies ringing me up on the expectation that I’ll sit on the phone for hours doing all your work for you for nothing to help you, especially with a pitch that is 99% guaranteed to disappear into the Black Hole of a commissioning editor’s desk, please don’t bother. No exceptions, so please don’t ask – I have heard every excuse under the sun. Here’s some of them:

·        We’re on an education budget’ (I love this one – what on Earth does it mean?)

·        ‘We’re making a film for xxxxxx but the budget isn’t settled yet’ (translation: it hasn’t even been commissioned yet)

·        ‘Well can we just talk now and then when we hire you for the programme we can talk money then?’

·        ‘I’m afraid I’m not allowed to talk money – you’ll have to speak to our production manager’

And the best of all, worth including because it’s so funny:

·        ‘We can’t afford to pay you but we’d buy you a good lunch’. Nice to know my expertise is valued at roughly equivalent to a bowl of pasta and a bottle of sparkling water!

However, if you are seriously interested in approaching me about taking part in a film, then by all means contact me on the email address shown on the HOME PAGE. I shall be happy to get back to you but you should expect to discuss the fee first – I work on the basis of whole day-rates, not a TV ‘hour’-worth of filming (attending a shoot invariably involves writing off the whole day for travel etc and the day I experience a TV hour that lasts 60 minutes will be the day I eat my hat). I am not prepared to discuss any sort of filming or arrange a date until a financial agreement has been made with your production manager and I am (frankly) sick and tired of the way some production companies try to avoid this.

Either way, I now work fulltime as a teacher, which means that my availability is extremely limited and I will put school first where it belongs and TV a very firm second, which is definitely where it belongs.

 

2. USE OF MY IMAGES: NOTE TO AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS

Thanks to various publishers who have defaulted on previously agreed terms for the use of my images, and one author who helped himself to half-a-dozen of my pictures without asking and tried to conceal the fact by digitally manipulating the images, I now only grant requests to use images if the charge for doing so is paid in advance. The image will not be released until after receipt of the fee. This also applies to picture researchers who work for publishers ‘who only pay when the book is published’. No exceptions. If you are happy with the conditions I’ve outlined then by all means get in touch.

Anyone who uses one of my pictures without permission will find that the relevant publisher has been contacted, informed of the breach of copyright and invoiced an exorbitant sum accordingly.

IF, however, you are a school or university student, or you teach in either a school or university, you may freely copy my pictures from this website or one of my books to use in classes. But I would appreciate it if you credited them to me.

 

3. FINDS

If you’ve found a coin or what you think is an object of archaeological interest, perhaps because you were out for a walk or were using a metal-detector, by all means email me and tell me about it and if I can identify it for you I will. But you should also report it to the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Their job is to take down the details and record your find so that we all benefit from the information. They’ll also tell you what you should do with it. Lots of detectorists are already routinely sending information about their finds in.

Please don’t ask me to keep your find secret from the PAS. Any information I receive I will automatically pass on to the PAS, because that’s in everyone’s interests. It’s a great scheme and it’s generating an invaluable resource.

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