“Everyone has a cell phone, everybody can record HD video and the opportunities to catch these once in a lifetime events on film are much more common now. People don’t want to see a news guy standing on the side of a road talking about an event - they want to see the raw, emotional, as it happened, unedited, no special effects, event as it unfolds.” - Aeroplane crash survivor Jonathan Fielding
This new documentary chronicles extraordinary events of the year through the lenses of members of the public who recorded history unfolding with their mobile devices.
Using interviews and footage from across the world taking in the scenes of terrorist attacks, meteor strikes, the aftermath of motorway pile-ups, and pictures which became international news stories, this programme tells the personal stories of eyewitnesses who were on hand to record dramatic events.
Among the contributors is Jennifer Treacy, who was running in the Boston marathon in America and recording progress on her camera when two bombs were set off as she approached the finish line. Her footage, supplemented by that of fellow witness Dawn Bennett, shows the chaos unfolding.
Jennifer says: “I turned the camera on myself as I was approaching the finish line and I think I screamed, ‘I can see the finish line,’ and I was just so excited to be finishing the Boston marathon which was my dream. And all of a sudden this big explosion - I felt the ground shake. My first instinct was to get out of the area. I think you can see in my videos you can see my sneakers. I immediately turned and I ran into a building. There was clearly panic on the street, people were crying. The police were immediately evacuating the area saying get off this street.”
As police hunted their second suspect in the bombing, Bob Glatz, a resident in the suburb of Watertown found himself perfectly placed to record the moment he was captured, on his tablet. He says: “All of a sudden there was an eruption of
