Dig Watch: Post-Dig Reflections

With the dust finally settling after our first dig, Derek and Lawrence have decamped to a local pub back in their Dorset stomping ground to reflect on the experience.

It was a whirlwind three days and with the second dig fast approaching, we're busy preparing for another eventful weekend. We're reading all of your comments, making some tweaks, and feeding these in to our Dig Watch plans. Please look out for more trench-side action coming your way very soon!

As Derek and Lawrence highlight, our coverage posted during the weekend is one part of a much larger picture, slotting in alongside the film crew for the main shoot and, of course, the archaeology itself.

With multiple strands running at once, we can't reveal the whole picture in real time, but we will continue to share more behind the scenes insights and interviews in the aftermath and the weeks ahead.

Once both digs are complete, the main show enters the post-production stage. This is another crucial and complex piece of the puzzle, as the director and editors wade through the mountains of footage and data amassed over each weekend, in order to construct a coherent narrative. Our interview with Media Manager Sam gives some sense of quite how much data is collected over three days and how this is co-ordinated.

This is also the stage when additional processes and effects (including overdubs, titles, graphics, illustrations and Raysan's 3D reconstructions) are woven into the footage.

As the same time, finds are being processed, analysed and conserved, while data is collated together and analysed for the official archaeological report. Every dig must be accompanied by a post-excavation report, publishing the dig's aims, findings, limitations and recommendations for future work.

It will be some time until all these aspects come together, but we will keep you updated on each as the process develops, and outline a schedule in due course.

In the meantime, we have much more Dig Watch on the way. We're striving to achieve that balance between giving a sense of the action as it unfolds while delivering the best production values we can in the field. We also have some more incredible 3D models to reveal during the dig, so watch this space...

Thanks again for all your support and we really couldn't do any of this without you!

NEXT Q&A: Please let us know your questions for the next Q&A session in the comments below.