Mixing The Shearing Game

Posted on October 23, 2011 by Mike

Tomorrow I head into work to finish the mix on a 360 I’m working on called ‘The Shearing Game’. It’ll air early next year and is about shearers and those that work in the shearing industry from a town in central west NSW called Hay.

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For the program I travelled to Wagga and Hay and spent a week talking to anyone and everyone about the shearing game. In Hay I stayed with shearing contractor, Lional ‘Keeno’ Garner in his big Queenslander home with about 20 other shearers.

The program is my first full length 360 and has turned out really different to how I imagined but I’m pretty sure I’m happy with it… in a couple of weeks when I let the dust settle I’ll know for sure if it’s any good (fingers crossed..) but in any event I’ve learnt so much about the shearing industry, country towns and of course those who live it. If anything I hope the piece will be an eye opener and insight for city dwellers. The city/country divide is huge.

I’m mixing with the award winning Phillip Ulman for the first time and the process has been very different to other docos I’ve made, Phillip has a distinct way of working which has taken a little while to adjust to but I think I’ve worked it out.

This piece turned into a real production in the end. The idea I had for the narration involved a bit of acting – it would be set in a chiropractor’s office and I would be telling the story to a chiropractor (having obviously just returned from helping out in a shearing shed). A lot of thought has gone in to trying to make it engaging, sound good and not be too naff, cliche or cheesey. Hopefully listeners aren’t freaked out by this element.

Another thing which was different in the production involved a binaural recording. Binaural recording is when get two small microphones and insert them in your ears (or a dummy head’s ears). By doing this you are trying to capture (record) the exact sound someone would hear if they were there themselves. Maybe I haven’t explained that well… I’ll just explain what we did. We put special earbuds that were microphones in our volunteer, Phillip’s head then Claudia shaved his head. We were trying to get the sound of having a hair cut so we could make a surreal bit when a shearer explains how he shears a sheep. When the listener listens to that section (with headphones on) they should feel like they are getting a haircut!

Still confused? Put some headphones into your computer and listen to what I’m talking about…(here’s the raw audio of how we did it)

Two photos in the studio (256). Steven Tilley (who plays the chiropractor in the doco) and Phillip Ulman trying to get some generator buzz out of an interview I did with a shearer in his caravan.

Opera at the Dish

Posted on October 8, 2011 by Mike

When you think of music and Parkes you probably think of their annual Elvis festival but all that may change this weekend. Opera at the Dish – from Bellini to Broadway has been organised to celebrate 50 years since the telescope was built and help raise money for the McGrath foundation.

In the excitement of this momentous occasion I went to Parkes and spoke with local opera singer Dallas Watts who will be performing on the night.

Broadcast on The Music Show, ABC Radio National 8th October 2011

That night I did a live cross with Robbie Buck on his show Evenings on 702 Sydney, syndicated around NSW and ACT.

Garage Saleing

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Mike

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A couple of weeks ago I spent a Saturday with Guy and his family, a friend of mine who was hosting a garage sale. The story was produced to promote the New Beginnings ABC Pool project that I’m running.

Across Australia young and old celebrate the garage sale, a weekend ritual of haggling, bargains and community spirit.

At their first garage sale the Maxwell family will see all types; from the addicts to those that wouldn’t dare leave the car. All items must go but the big question is, who will buy the purple pleather boots?

Flick through the record collection, dig through some preloved toys or try on a hat – it’s all in the fun of garage saleing.

Broadcast on 360documentaries, ABC Radio National 17th September 2011

The Music Video Mash Up

Posted on July 16, 2011 by Mike

Over the June long weekend this year I spent quite a bit of time following around a production crew and musician who were together competing in this years Music Video Mash Up competition (or MVMU).

The MVMU is the brainchild of Brisbane creatives Dorian Ribeiro and Glenn Bernauer, a young duo who own their own production company. Their twist for this comp was using local musicians songs as the basis for the videos. This allowed teams to not have to worry about editing sound, convergence and collaboration of creative practitioners and also gave teams endless possibilities of exploring the ideas, form and elements of the music video.

Here’s the finished product that the Hungry Metal animals and Mordechai produced (in only 72 hours!)…

The Music Video Mash Up aired on The Music Show, ABC RN – 16th July 2011

11 June – A Convenient Journalist

Posted on June 11, 2011 by Mike

Last night after a huge day of the youtube symphony orchestra piece I went along to the registration of the Music Video Mash Up competition. On my way back to work to pick up my things I spoke to Alex, the producer of tomorrows ‘change’ themed episode of All the Best (see Wednesday’s post on Red Riders). She told me she was pretty stressed out and a couple of stories had fallen through. As I walked down Oxford Street with my recorder I knew there was a change story somewhere and although I was tired I was feeling up to the challenge of producing finding and producing something by 9am the next day. By this stage it was 10pm and I was outside a 7/11. I asked the guy behind the counter for ideas, he didn’t have anything but I did ask him what he thought about the idea about asking a cross dresser. He gave me some good advice on how to ask a cross dresser for an interview but he couldn’t help further than that because some guys key card had been eaten up by the 7/11′s ATM and he was going crazy.

Walking further down the road I got to Oxford Art Factory and of course out the front is my mate Alex the bouncer, a key character in the Peter Combe story I did for the Music Show. I know Alex has been working on Oxford St for forever so she was bound to know someone I could talk to, and she did. She recommended a place directly across the road and I thanked her.

I crossed the road but had to turn back because I realised I was running low on batteries. I went into the convenience store next to OAF and bought some, these guys had also remembered me from the Peter Combe story – they weren’t interviewed for it but I used their shop as a quiet space to interview fans. I told them about the story and Mick, the main guy asked why I wasn’t interviewing him… I said I would love to interview him but he needed to tell me a story in his life about change. After a couple of ideas he came up with something perfect – his dream job and how he wants to make a big change but is being held back for all these reasons.

After the interview something really special happened. One of those great, spare of the moment things where you thank yourself for keeping the recorder on (or forgetting to turn it off). TIP: After an interview always keep the recorder running. I’ve heard/read about this before and know it’s true but it’s so easy to forget.

Broadcast on All the Best on FBi 94.5 on June 11 – ‘Change’

Red Riders Ride No More

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Mike

Alex Grigg - courtesy Will Reichelt

Sadly, the Red Riders, an amazing Sydney band who formed in 2003 have decided to call it a day. As a fan myself I was particularly saddened. They made really catchy indie rock that had many emotional layers and were a huge influence on a band I used to play in.

When I was contacted by Alex, one of the producers from All the Best on FBi about producing a story on them for their episode on change I naturally couldn’t say no. Something else exciting about this piece was that they had the audio from the first ever radio interview the band had ever done! I tried using this audio in a number of ways as a sort of flashback, but each time it was very confusing – it was almost impossible to tell which was the new audio and which was the original interview audio. To get around this I just put a big chunk of it at the start and then went into the current, ‘reflection’ interview.

Broadcast on All the Best on FBi 94.5 on June 11, 2010 – ‘Change’

31 May – Prog Lives

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Mike

Today Mark and I finished mixing the final prog episode – Rock and the Now. It’s the fourth part of our progressive rock series titled, Rock and the New.

We listened to it without stopping with the clock on and made notes, mine were mostly little things… a couple of popping ‘P’s to double check and some parts where I thought the music was too loud. We had a look at these as well as the Mark’s changes and we were done.

For a piece that I wasn’t enthused about to begin with, I am now totally ecstatic and proud of it. It was good for me to work on such a meaty piece – I learnt so much historically, not just about prog but where it fit in to contemporary music. It was also great collaborating with Mark (engineer) and Cathy (the EP), our different complementary backgrounds/ages combined made a great team.

The best thing about this piece (and probably the series) is how music is used on two levels. Firstly, as an example of what the talent is saying and secondly, to explain what the talent means. I think there’s a big difference in the two, the latter is often not always possible to achieve but should always be aimed for. This is hard to explain in writing, you have to hear it and it can be done in many ways. It includes things like weaving and matching the music into what the talent is saying. I’ve been thinking about this sort of thing a lot and Mark Don is particularly skilled at it, so a little bit has hopefully rubbed off on me – he did it heaps in the Wide Open Road series (amazing website, ideas with a huge scope). I did it a little bit in my fictional piece on a pet fighting fish.

The music in Rock and the New also drives the pace and is the biggest means of keeping the listener hooked.

30th May – Vivid Kuntz

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Mike

The first day of a 2 week mixing block with engineer Mark Don has just finished and I’m stuffed, totally exhausted but it was a great day. The game plan is to master the final prog episode (ITM is doing a series on progressive rock) in the first three days and then mix the youtube piece (piece on the Youtube Symphony Orchestra) for the remaining time.

This morning we re-recorded the script – for the absolute final time. I knew it back to front and after the training session with Tim I was really confident and feeling good about it. We recorded it in the mixing room (as opposed to a studio) and I had no head phones on. I was in a good fram of mind, had made the alterations to the script and was able to deliver a much more relaxed and conversational read. I think not have cans on also really helped me for some reason – next read I’ll try it first without headphones and see if it makes a difference again. I learnt so much from the script, it is a very difficult thing to get right (I think) and the biggest thing I learnt I reckon is to listen. A lot of the session with Tim was just listening to myself and understanding where it sounds bad or unnatural and altering the script to make sure I don’t do it again.

I checked twitter in the middle of the day to see what was happening and found that a guy that’s here for the Vivid Live festival, Tom Kuntz, was going into Zan Rowe’s show on jjj – I had put a request in to interview him for a piece on the music video clip I’ve been wanting to make. The publicist for the Opera House had agreed that when he went into the ABC building for Zan’s segment he could come down and be interviewed for ITM – I was shocked! I jumped on the phone, she’d forgotten all about it and was able to tee it up afterwards… lucky, very lucky. Fortunately in my lunck break I was able to book a studio, borrow a video camera from Digital and write a couple of questions down. After lunch Mark pannelled the interview. Here’s what the set up looked like:

The interview went well and I was excited to have a great quality camera (to DV tape) and the special light that I moved in from the breakfast studio.

Spent the rest of the day mixing prog with Mark, looks like we’ll wrap it up tomorrow.

Right now I’m watching a 4corners report by Sarah Feguson on Indonesian cattle Slaughter houses, totally horrific but important viewing.

Peter Combe – An Unlikely Rock Star

Posted on May 21, 2011 by Mike

Didn’t have a chance last night to fix up the online content for the Peter Combe piece so went in this morning to do that. By ‘online content’ I mean creating a page for the story so people can click in and view all the details about that story. To do this I just need to fill out a form using a program called WALLACE with details such as an intro blurb, producer, links and photos or video. Just when I’ve got the hang of Wallace, the ABC are overhauling it and shooting through a new program that will make Wallace look like a claymation character. I’ll stay tuned for training.

My piece on children’s performer, Peter Combe went to air today, you can view the full piece over at Music Show’s page here, or listen to the extended audio version here:

Below is a shortened version of the story with video and photos. I used a very dodgey camera and imovie for this so I realise it’s not the best quality; it was also only my second attempt at a video! Not making an excuse just trying to say although video content is a big challenge with a whole range of new skills needed, I’m very determined to keep at it and make each one better than the last.

Broadcast on The Music Show on ABC Radio National on 21st May, 2011

Serendip

Posted on December 23, 2010 by Mike

In October 2001 the Williams family embarked on what would be their last family holiday with all 6 members present. They stayed in a rented house by the Bellinger River called ‘Serendip’.

What was to be a simple canoing trip on one of those days quickly turned into a holiday moment no one would ever forget..

Broadcast on 360documentaries – December 2010

Just One Dollar

Posted on December 19, 2010 by Mike

When you start out in the radio/media industry you have to get up a of unpaid work to get experience so you can get a job – that’s just how it is.

So what do you do when you’ve run out of money to get a bus home from the city? You just need ONE DOLLAR but how do you get it? Busk? Beg? Steal?…

….. try and sell some free CD’s you were given and make a radio piece about it??

Broadcast on FBi, All the Best – Dec 2010

King of the Beach

Posted on December 14, 2010 by Mike

He’s strong, smart, friendly… and ‘BLUEY’ is also very good at swimming. He’s also good mates with Bob Carr too but don’t get him mixed up with all that political stuff.

Bluey is a fish that lives in Clovelly Bay. Recently, All the Best’s Mike Williams went on a hunt to meet the beloved creature… but will the Clovelly local be out to play? And is this the real Bluey? And what would happen to someone If they tried to catch Bluey?

This is a story about the king of the beach…

Broadcast on All the Best, FBi Radio – December 2010 ‘Compass – East’

Future of Sydney

Posted on November 27, 2010 by Mike

Tony has been homeless for about 5 years, he has a drinking problem and blames only himself for his situation.

For All the Best’s Time warp episode I went around town and asked people about what they think the future of Sydney would be like.

Tony felt very strong about the NSW governments push to transfer those with mental disabilities into the public housing system.

Broadcast on All the Best, FBi radio – November 2010

Day 11 – Wild-SLIDE!

Posted on November 21, 2010 by Mike

Our flight home to Sydney wasn’t until 4.50pm so we had quite a bit of time to kill. After dropping the girls off to do some recording we went on a bit of a trip to a bakery the guys had told me lots about. Thery weren’t wrong, it was awesome.

And then, from a distance we saw blue cylindrical pipes coming out of the sky. It was a mini theme park, and those pipes were unmistakably a water slide. Tonguey, Nick and Jimmy could not help themselves and bought a one pass to the amazing park. It was a hot day in Adelaide and we were right on the beach. Dixie and I chilled and watched from the side whilst Scoob when for a long walk by the beach.

The hour passed fast (as themepark hours always do) and we got in the car to head back to Adelaide airport. Most people slept on the flight home and by the time we arrived back to Sydney everybody was pretty broke and pretty ready to get home. Tomorrow they’ve got an interview on the triple j hip hop show and then it’s only 2 days before they have to jump on a plane and do it all again. Watch out Hobart, Brisbane and then finally, the home-coming party – Sydney.

Day 10 – the directions game

Posted on November 20, 2010 by Mike

Tonguey let me crash on the spare bed in his room that night and the following morning it was a rush to find all the band members who were now scattered around the city. I jumped in a taxi and then caught the Skybus to the airport, I was on a separate flight to our next destination, the city of churches: Adelaide.

Although we don’t stay in cities very long, touring is obviously a great way to see a lot of the country, in a very short amount of time. I noticed Adelaide is a very quiet city and once we checked in I asked the guys about getting bored on tour. Their answer surprised me, “we’ve got i-phones to keep us entertained.” I’ve heard that sentiment a lot on the tour; what did artists do before the i-phone. Later that night I was even more shocked when we talked about the i-phone on tour and table manners, check this out…

The Rocket Bar in Adelaide was completely different again to the previous nights venue, more of a multi-level bar with swanky furnishings and night club feel with a long narrow staircase that lead you up to the venue. The sound guydidn’t look like much of a hip hop lover and he wanted to leave early because his own band was playing a house party somewhere. We negotiated we could finish half an hour early at 12.30, we would not end up finishing till 1am though.

At several shows throughout the tour there is a local support band that plays before Class A, tonight it was a group called ‘Dropped at Birth’. They had been helping out with the promotion and were totally stoked to be playing alongside The Wildside crew. I caught up with them and found out the pretty hilarious way they scored the gig…

They call Adelaide the home of hip hop and tonight they did not disappoint in keeping the name. The audience were really, really getting into it, screaming the lyrics back at them. Lupi compared this afterwards with one of the Perth shows that was packed out but people weren’t getting into it which made all the difference.

Everyone was on a bit of a high after the gig, and driving home we had a bit of fun with what’s known as the the directions game, jump in the car with us right now to check it out…

Needless to say we tried this the following morning when we were with Class A and Rachel Berry and they weren’t too impressed, maybe you won’t be either or it was one of those things you had to be there for. Either way at the time it was hilarious.

The guys had been given a real lot of kush to get through tonight so they set to task chilling out. I walked back to where I was staying and DJ Maths kept me company, he had a 6am flight back to Newcastle in the morning so there was no point going to bed at this stage (it was 3am). As we were walking down the street we heard some starnge music coming from an even stranger building. We walked in to check it out and it was this crazy warehouse style gig, turned out the place was an old mental asylum and they were holding a one off gig, even weirder was that the soudn guy from our gig was on stage playing bass. We stayed and had a chat to him after the gig about the coincidence and Adelaide and then we found a fooseball table and played foosball until about 4am. What a great end to a massive day.

Category Archives: Documentaries / Short Stories