Diagonal Diary: Behind the scenes of Matt Bishop ‘Up to Speed’ with Alan Gow
Earlier this week, we published a 48-minute cut of an interview conducted by our MD Matt Bishop with the Chief Executive of the British Touring Car Championship, Alan Gow, which was filmed, edited, and distributed by our team.
Alan, 69, has been at the helm of the BTCC for almost 30 years and has been involved in automotive or motorsport since he left school at 16 years old in Melbourne, Australia, where he grew up. It was there, over 15,000 kilometres (more than 9,000 miles) away from the United Kingdom, where Alan has spent the majority of his career, that he first made a name for himself in motorsport.
Alan worked closely with Peter Brock in the management of the Australian racing legend touring car team Down Under before moving to England at the end of 1990 after it was sold. It was then that Alan formed TOCA, which subsequently purchased the rights to the BTCC the next year and started a revolution in Britain’s premier motorsport championship.
Aside from a brief two-and-a-half-year sabbatical at the start of the 2000s, Alan has been Chief Executive of the BTCC ever since, leading it through the iconic Super Touring regulations and into the modern era which, just this season, delivered one of the closest title fights in the series’ history.
Alan has overseen numerous technological revolutions in the BTCC, such as the introduction of catalytic converters and unleaded fuels in the early 1990s, and most recently the adoption of 100% sustainable fuels. In 2025, a fossil-free fuel developed closely with long-term BTCC partner Haltermann Carless will be running in all cars after a successful two-round test in the #18 Duckhams Racing with Un-Limited Motorsport car of Daryl DeLeon in the closing stages of the 2024 season.
The BTCC’s commitment to being ahead of the game – not simply led by other championships – when it comes to environmental awareness is a key talking point in Alan and Matt’s interview, which sees the pair discuss in detail the BTCC’s history of being industry leaders while retaining its critical road relevance that feeds the ‘win on Sunday, sell on Monday’ philosophy.
Alan and Matt shift gears to discuss the BTCC’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within its paddock, including strong female representation both in the garages and on track. There were two female drivers on the BTCC grid as recently as 2021 when Jade Edwards and Jessica Hawkins raced at Snetterton, but it was over 30 years ago that the series had its first female winner, Netten Lindgren, who won her class at Thruxton in 1990.
Alan reiterates the fact that the BTCC has always welcomed female talent with open arms and continues to nurture upcoming female drivers and workers through its highly-regarded support package and numerous off-track activations, such as the Renaissance Foundation’s visit to Brands Hatch, which Diagonal Comms devised.
The interview, which was filmed using professional lighting and three high-quality cameras at Diagonal Comms’ City of London office, acts as a useful tool for amplifying the BTCC’s key comms/PR objectives as the series focuses on building a more sustainable and inclusive future. Strong DEI strategies and an innovative, proactive commitment to sustainability are becoming increasingly crucial to sponsors and fans in motorsport, increasing the appetite among clients for media content that allows key figures to promote progressive values, such as interviews.
Behind the scenes, tens of hours went into the planning, production and post-production of the interview. Alan arrived at our City of London office to a pre-prepared recording setup, which consisted of two carefully framed close-up shots (one focused on the interviewer and one on the interviewee) and a wide-angle master shot that captured both subjects. Two key lights and a pair of background lights produced a complementary image of Alan, Matt, and the set, which was designed to give the interview’s backdrop character and a professional feel while ensuring that BTCC branding was present throughout. Small microphones were attached to Alan and Matt’s clothing and connected wirelessly to our cameras to capture clear audio throughout the interview without distracting the viewer.
Once filming was complete, our team turned its attention toward constructing the video for publication using industry-standard Adobe editing software. To begin the post-production process, all three angles were synced to ensure continuity and the shots were colour graded from a log profile. A consistent volume level across Alan and Matt’s mics was established in the audio tracks next, before our team meticulously cut together all three camera angles across over an hour of footage to build an immersive perspective of the interview that flows smoothly from the interviewer, to the interviewee, and into the master shot in line with the conversation.
Relevant B-roll of cars, drivers, and circuits from throughout Alan’s reign as Chief Executive of the BTCC were overlayed throughout the interview to provide a visual representation of the discussions, ranging from 1990s and 2000s archive footage to clips captured by our BTCC media team this season.
Bespoke animated graphics were added once the main structure of the full-length interview was complete. Lower-third titles were placed at the beginning of the video to introduce Alan and Matt and their roles, while music and a Diagonal Comms logo were added to smoothly kick off and conclude the video.
Our team subsequently created five clips taken from the long-form interview, including a trailer to be posted upon its release, to promote it on vertical-based, short-form social media platforms such as Instagram and YouTube Shorts and widen its reach using attention-grabbing snippets.
The full set of content paired with social media copy was subsequently signed off and scheduled in collaboration with the BTCC, ensuring the interview and its key comms/PR messages hit the largest audience possible.