On tonight's program we reveal the shocking truth behind one of the British Amry's most reclusive and shadowy units- the all-female SDS. We are privileged to be speaking to Agent Ariel Anderssen, the first member of the SDS to grant an interview, with special permission of the Ministry of Defence. Tonight we find the true story behind the SDS's daring rescue of kidnapped diplomat's daughter Anastasia Richardson...

Hywel's Note: this video was shot as part of a "sort-of" video shooting tutorial which Ariel and I ran for some of the other photographers who work with us on the site. Although we're still very much getting up the learning curve ourselves, it was very interesting to try to pass some of what we've learned on to the others and try to get them involved on the video side of the site. We're still trying to devise a good pattern of working for video shoots and it was fun to have a go at shooting something in a different style... and also in a very unusual working condition where we shot a few scenss, went into the edit suite and tried to put it together, then went and shot a few more scenes.

We also tried to shoot something a bit different for us, in the style of a TV show and with framing voiceovers and interviews (inspired by watching Amadeus the weekend before, although you wouldn't know it!) That way we would have to be thinking a lot more about what we were doing than perhaps we would if shooting something in a style we'd done several times, which helped as we had to explain all our thinking processes as we went along directing the shoot.

I put together a few notes before the session, which you can see here if you are interested.

As always, many thanks to Steve, Merlin and Svampen for giving it a shot, to Pling for being a very game damsel distress who had to wait the whole morning before being tied up, and for Ariel, without whose expertise and inspiration the videos on Restrained Elegance would be a very pale shadow of themselves. It was fun!