Off The Grid

Preparation for our radio feature was a bit more rushed than the time we spent for our live to air show. This is mainly to do with the timeline we were working with. After our Room With A View show was complete we had 2 weeks to focus solely on our feature.

We already had the vague idea of using people going off the grid; leaving the main source of energy that communities use and resorting to living solely off sustainable resources, such as the sun. Starting with these link as beginning research and development of idea:

Zero-waste living the new normal for Tasmanian family

How To Fit Two Years Of Trash In A Mason Jar

From here we decided to get in contact with Ceres Community Environment Park which is located in Brunswick, Melbourne. We were put in contact with their Eco House which operates on Saturdays and were able to go down and interview the tour guide, Nick, who runs the house open days. This was a very helpful interview to land as Ceres represents the major topic we were aiming to focus on; environmentally sustainable living. Being able to interview eco house operator, Nick, formed the basis of our narrative for the feature and provided us with the foundations of our interview audio.

Jeff Wehl is from One Step Off The Grid who is an electrician from Jindalee, Queensland who is helping people build houses that will be fully functioning independent of the main electricity supply. This meaning they operate on their own sustainable means of gaining water, electricity and power when maintaining regular household function. He’s important to our feature as he describes the way in which people can obtain sustainable living functions in their own home and how he can help to realise their aims. This interview adds to our narrative by explaining the first step in considering an ‘off the grid’ home; how to build it.

From here we attempted to contact people from Gumtree who had posted ads looking for land to build a sustainable home, looking for one to move into or selling one they’ve already built. We got in contact with one guy but unfortunately the interview fell through. I think this was a negative as it would’ve been a great addition to our narrative to talk to someone who looks forward to changing their lifestyle. I think the reason this fell through was just our poor management of the little time we had to get many interviews completed.

Lastly we got onto to Ross Harding from Finding Infinity who talks about some of the lifestyle events that now exist using sustainable energy; namely Off Grid Music Festival This helps to add a different view on the often misunderstood lifestyle of being ‘off grid’. It appeals to younger listeners and opens up an avenue of fun and exiting events related to the cause of sustainable living. We were lucky to land this interview as it helps to establish our narrative through creating a 360 approach to a life ‘off grid’; getting there, living sustainably and also how to have fun sustainably.

Overall our feature attained the feel and sound that we were after and introduced and explained our narrative through young and exited voices. It would have been nice to be able to have more time to get some vox-pops and non-biased views on the topic but with the time that we had I think we’ve done a great job.