As part of the combined 30 Days of Creativity project and ABC POOL project myself and fellow poolie, Anna Bolton got together to draw a sea creature or object every day for the month of June. The end goal was to then take these images and turn it into a stop motion video finale (watch it above!).
This video will then be mixed together with some other #30days content and shown on the big screen at Federation Square in Melbourne throughout July.
Photos from the making of Seaing things:
I first heard about In the Dark while I was at uni last year, it was a website my radio lecturer, Virginia Madsen had suggested we check out – it seemed like an awesome idea. I’d been wanting to organise it here in Sydney ever since and about a year later I finally raised the idea to some people at RN, they were really keen to help and it actually seemed like it could happen. I got in touch with Nina Garthwaite who started In the Dark and asked if I could start it here – she was also very enthusiastic to make it happen.
A lot of organising later, with the help of Radio National as well as 2ser the first event finally took place on June 17.
Around 70 people fit into GoodGod Small Club on Liverpool St to hear pieces by Tony Barrell selected by producer and sound engineer, Russell Stapleton. It was so great (and also a relief) to have so many people come to experience some of Tony’s work – great to be listening as a cohort and great to be hearing conversations about radio features in the break and after. I’m really glad with how it went and hope to help put on many more in the future and feature a wide variety of audio makers and lovers.
In July this year Radio National’s live music show, Music Deli will celebrate 25 years – a remarkable achievment on any level. Presenter and producer Paul and Alice flew up from Melbourne to record a special concert with Ethiopian-turned-Australian, Dereb the Ambassador. The recording was in 227, mixed by Mark Don. Here are some photos.
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’
My mate Glen Stubbings got in touch with me about a job he’s going for at cricket Australia, for part of his application he needs to create a 1 minute video about himself. Early on last Sunday morning we went down to my local cricket nets and recorded a couple of takes. Tonight after work I’ve had a chance to edit it. I edited on imovie and recorded to DV tape on an SD camera I’ve had since 07. Soon I’ll have better gear, I’ve been talking too long about getting an SLR, I just need to get out there and get it.
Fingers crossed Glen get’s the job!
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’
The Eugene Goosens Hall is a grand venue pretty much underneath the ABC Ultimo building. It would seat about 200 and would fit an entire orchestra on the floor stage, in fact that was it’s original purpose. Tonight an experimental piano duo Satoko Fuiji and Alister Spence will flood the space with interesting sounds. Phil Mckeller is mixing and while we were setting up told me stories of the Goosens, big stories about big parties triple j had there. At the end of every year they’d put on a big charity event and fill the space with kids and electric guitars.
Tonight the crowd and vibe was much different, about 30 or 40 spread out on the extremely comfy chairs and watched the show – a one hour set. I videoed the performance and will cut this up with Roi at a later date, in the meantime here are some photos.
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.
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.
After recovering from a huge Mexican feast last night, I woke this morning ready for a big day of editing. I start mixing the youtube symphony piece with Mark Don tomorrow.
As I type the train is going over the Harbour Bridge and that idiot who climbed up on the bridge and held the city to ransom to get his kids back has come into my mind. He cost the city millions of dollars in productivity but I did love how poetic it was. It’s almost out of a spiderman movie, where the hell were you spiderman?
At Wynyard now, got to get ready to jump off, luckily it’s a smooth ride in… I’ll be hacking away at interviews for the next 9 hours or so, wish me luck!
Today was not the happiest or proudest day of my life, but it was a good day. I didn’t really want to go but my parents asked me to and it’s not like I’m going to graduate again any time soon. It was a ceremony full of all the pomposity you’d expect. Funnily, or not so funnily, I graduated with the wrong faculty and the wrong robe colours, someone in the grad office hadn’t checked my transcript that still says Ba. Psychology and the degree which I actually qualified for which was MEDIA. So I sat with the science and economics people and graduated anyway. The people at the grad office said if I want to go again I’ll get my robes for free… thanks?! …
That night we had a HUGE Mexican fiesta with burritos, tacos, nachos and coronas – this was awesome!
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
They were swept up in the early ‘90’s grunge-rock era at a very young age. They toured Australia and overseas and played with bands such as Mudhoney and Nirvana before fading away like checkered colours on a torn flanno…
But now Tumbleweed are back, free from the evil constraints of a record deal and ready to embrace who they are and what they love doing!
I caught up with Lenny just before their first show in years at the Metro Theatre.
Broadcast on The Band Next Door, 2ser, 107.3 – March 2011
Last night (Thursday, 3rd March) many of the indie music movers and shakers gathered at the Annandale Hotel for the announcement of the, 2011 AMP winner. Nominations included; Dan Kelly, Tame Impala, Sally Seltmann, Pikelet, The Holidays, Cloud Control, the Drones, Eddy Current Suppression Ring and Garrath Liddiard. The judging panel had met and deliberated several times and their final vote was in.
As the i-phones were poised at the ready, the winner was announced – Blue Mountains natives, Cloud Control were the victor and as if the media attention isn’t enough, the band receive a whopping $30 grand. Unfortunately, no band members were present to collect the gong but (of course) label reps (Ivy League) were there to pick it up and read a thank you letter from the band. Cloud Control are currently in the UK trying to crack in to the European market but will be home soon for another short tour with Jinja Safari and Fishing. (Sydney Metro – 24th March, AA and Melb Forum – 25th March, 18+)
I was there to report the event and interviewed judges Tim Levinson (Urthboy) and Kram, nominees Pikelet and Andrew from the Holidays as well as general punters and Matt Rule, part-owner of the Annandale.
Broadcast on the Friday Daily, 2ser – March 2011
The Australian Music Prize (AMP) is all the talk this week with nominee, Pikelet (Evelyn Morris) stopping by to have a chat while she’s in the state to play the gig and attend the announcing ceremony. As well as that, new music from; the Middle East, Parades, Architecture in Helsinki and Mike Noga.
