[Festival Crew] Fresh Air on Radio 1

[CJT Ainsworth]

Dear all,



You may have receieved Tim's email yesterday about this Radio One wanting to
have three 3 min features on the Edinburgh festival amd have asked Fresh Air
to help them do it!  Pretty cool eh?   This is yet another excitable email
to give you all the full details…



The background…

 Heather and Cami went down to the Radio Festival in Cambridge a couple of
weeks ago where we were given the opportunity to chat to young professionals
in the radio industry.   The set-up was based on "speed dating", travelling
round chatting to a number of industry types.   There was a representative
from Radio One, who Heather chatted to about the recent developments in
podcasts and downloads.   She'd been talking about their festival podcasts
and how successful they'd been and it was just like what we were planning on
doing for the festival – she'd not heard about it so I told her everything:
how it'd be news, reviews, downloads, podcasts – how they'd be linked where
possible – how we were used to broadcasting on the net and this was the next
logical step - how lucky we were to be part of this huge enthusiastic team –
and how excited we all were.   Between Heather and Cami (we were split up
early on) we must have made a fairly good impression because Claire phoned
up the Radio Academy to get our email addresses and emailed us (copying in
manager@ ) yesterday.   Cami (admittedly attached to my computer) ended up
having a good old natter with Claire.   As Festival Coverage Co-ordinator,
Tim wanted more details and so I gave him Claire's number and they also had
a good chat, discussing logistics and things.


Me and Cami agree with Tim when he says it would probably benefit from
having a small dedicated team working on the project, but this is going to
be a Fresh Air-wide thing.  This is such a ridiculously good opportunity to
publicise Fresh Air, raising our profile both for the festival coverage but
also for our term-time broadcasts and we should take it like the gift it is
with all enthusiasm and smiles.


So here's the spec:

Radio1 want us to produce 3 x 3min reports starting from next Wednesday on
Jo Whiley's show, In Live Music We Trust.

We'll review and preview the week gone and week ahead, getting in as much of
the atmosphere of the festival that we can.

They'd like a mixture of music and non music events and agree that T in the
Fringe is a good place to start!

The pieces need to be delivered – preferably in Stereo MP3 - by last thing
on Tuesday and we need to get an idea of content to them by Monday morning
so they can script around it.

This is how we propose to work it.
Everyone in the crew works towards collecting potential audio.  If you get
something amazing when you're out and about doing My Festival or perhaps you
bump into Tim Minchin drunk in a bin- we all try and get the best audio we
can.  In this sense everyone has an opportunity to be involved as reporters
and it gives us incentive to try a little harder. Producers should also
monitor the interviews theyre editing for any amazing soundbites for
submission. Finally the crew are also able to put forward ideas on how the
feature may be structured, within the spec we've been given.  Everyone is a
reporter.

However, we think we should also have a small production team working on
piecing the feature together, compiling the audio and editing it etc.  That
means some main researchers, producer and a presenter.

It would make sense that Heather is a researcher as she is compiling the
features for the site and Chris should probably be the producer- being head
of production!  But this is up for discussion.

As for the presenter- Radio 1 want continuity which means they have
requested 1 presenter for the feature- we think this should probably be
elected in someway so that it is fair.  I tihnk it is important to point out
that although there is 1 presenter, we can have multiple reporters who would
still appear on the feature- that way we can spread the opportunity around
within our remit!




How do i get involved?
We are holding a meeting on Wednesday night to listen to Jo Whiley's
show and then have a brainstorming session to discuss ideas for the package.
 The meeting will be held at Kirans *3:30pm* til around midnight, as both
heather and cami have various committments to fulfil, we feel a drop in
style thing would be appropriate.  Kiran's address is 34/3F2 Marchmont
Crescent, Marchmont, EH9 1HQ.   It'd be nice to listen to the show live, but
there is also the listen again function if necessary.  Do your research,
look at the big names, but also what's been hyped and what you personally
feel deserves being hyped.   They're after "atmosphere" so I imagine that
means more than just the slick big names, but the back burners, the
obscurities, the things that make the Edinburgh festival so exciting.   We
have free rein to express our enthusiasms, so I think we should offer them
that something different – the informed insider's insight.



If you can't make Wednesday, then give me or Cami (07811440724) a call and
we can talk any time.  My number is 07932520866 and I know Cami available
(and in Edinburgh!) is also ready to take your calls.



This is likely to be a lot of work and you probably won't get the
recognition you might feel you deserve, but you will have contributed to
something really bloody exciting!   We need our best reviewers (comedy,
music and theatre) on hand, we need our best audio editors – and we need to
know that you're *reliable*.   It really needs to be Radio One standard
broadcasting.   We're more than capable of making an good impression and I
know we have the talent, the drive and the enthusiasm to make it the most
amazing 3 lots of 3 minutes they'll have had all year.





Please email us if you're interested!
 festivalprogramming at freshair.org.uk
festivalfeatures at freshair.org.uk

Looking forward to talking to you all soon,



Heather and Cami xx



Ps, check out the In Live Music We Trust page here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/innewmusicwetrust/jowhiley


-- 
Fresh Air the Alternative at the Festival
Head of Festival Programming
Contact: festivalprogramming at freshair.org.uk 07811440724
www.freshair.org.uk
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://ourea.site5.com/pipermail/fa.festcrew_freshair.org.uk/attachments/20070731/030d947e/attachment.html