An issue in me hosting, which I recognised in the three separate times we had been recording our demo… was the fact that I constantly verbally respond to people with “yeah” and some “aahhh” quite often. Which I kept doing all three times. Because when I listening back on the recording, I realised I was still doing it in that final demo recording! I’m annoyed at myself but I must keep trying to train myself to cut it out. I shall get better! I believe in me!
Recently we’ve been working on our running sheet this week for our demo and have been working on deciding which interviews will be appropriate for our first Room With A View show on Triple R. As I have mentioned before, my ideas were more about people and their hobbies or skills. However, the others had more organisation-based interview ideas. I think a little mixture will be ideal though, so it works out. We’ll need to pitch our interview ideas to Elizabeth McCarthy from Triple R before we go ahead with our interviews (she’s one of the head-honcho Talks producers and we must be granted a special email detailing we can go forth with thy sacred ideas).
We’re going to each pitch an idea, so we’re all putting in the same amount of effort. I think I’ve decided to go with the Swordcraft interview, as I’m genuinely really interested in discovering what it’s all about (note my somewhat medieval ending to that last paragraph) and think listeners will find it fascinating too.
Next post will delve into the fleshed-out interview ideas we send!
After a few days of racking my brain and a fairly extensive stalk through my list of Facebook friends and posting a status to check if anyone out there would be an exciting soul interested in partaking in an interview with me for this class, I hit some grand ideas of who I could speak to! I’m quite keen to be conducting interviews with these characters as I’ve always really enjoyed finding out information about hobbies, jobs, collectables etc. which I don’t have a wealth of knowledge of/in. Such as when I interviewed a taxidermist for a short documentary in first year and got to be so up close and personal with these intricate and delicately crafted (dead, but re-assembled) creatures. It became something tangible for me, rather than seeing it in a museum and not being able to appreciate the detail. Discovering these new crafts etc. will open your mind and inspire different views about a realm of topics.
I work in a second-hand / vintage clothing and goods store in Brunswick and absolutely love it there. If you know anything about Sydney Road in Brunswick, you should be able to gather that the store would definitely have it’s quirks as well as it’s fair share of excessively outlandish, enthusiastic, eccentric and/or extroverted customers! Which is exactly what it has. There are several people who come into the store who I find really interesting and they’re great conversationalists. There’s a few people who collect certain objects and will always check for them. There’s several hoarders who buy up big. Then there’s also the cheeky shoppers who haggle an already cheap price, down and proceed to whip out a huge wad of cash, give you a 50 or 100 note for their $5 item… Ridiculous. Not so much the hagglers (that was just a rant because I can’t stand the cheek of it), but the hoarders and the collectors I would love to stop and plan an interview with them about what their lives are like, how they began what they do and why they do what they do. As well as the customers, the bosses there are also interesting subjects because they’ve been in the business for about 10 years and have seen it all!
A university friend who I met recently, alerted me to the fact that he’s involved in Swordcraft which is where people dress in medieval attire and (pretend) fight each other in Royal Park once a week. Here’s a little taster of what that’s like…
The closest thing to this I have ever involved myself in, is performing in Shakespeare plays in high school… and I’ve watched Lord of the Rings about… once? So you can get an idea of how far removed I am from the nature of this hobby. However, in saying that, it has not stopped me being wildly intrigued.
Talking to people who are internet / Instagram famous would be interesting and focus the interview on combatting keyboard warriors! I have a few friends in mind that are within that bracket. A friend said he’s really good at the kazoo, which would actually be rather entertaining (if he’s actually being serious). Another friend of mine taught himself how to throat sing. Another collects CDs, something which not many people seem to do anymore in this internet age. A friend’s father collects a number of collectable cards as well as has many records. Another collects rare currency and she claims some would be worth around $2k!
There are a few taboo-type subjects I’d be interested in exploring through interview, to help inform others. I have connections to people who work in the ‘CamGirl’ and ‘CamBoy’ industry… basically like sex work / online pornography but they get paid to stay by themselves in front of a camera for another person to view. I also know some people who are into graffiti / street art – to discuss the ideas someone has, who actually takes part in this form of expression could possibly open eyes of people who really don’t like it, but are looking from an outside perspective.
I have several other interview ideas, but these are a few for the minute, my discussion in our next class will contain the rest!
Firstly, I’d like to express how thrilled I am to be back at uni (note: this is not sarcasm). My mind was not being exercised enough over my break, and I was beginning to feel like I was going a little bit crazy. I did begin working on an experimental film project with a few friends from my hometown (one who was visiting, and some who have moved here, but intends on moving here in the near future). It was good to get the ball rolling with this, we began brainstorming about a month back and actually managed to get around 2/3 of the proposed shoots done. In doing that, I felt like I was able to ease myself back into my media-mind again! Now here I am, back at RMIT for my final year and lunging into a studio focused on something other than film this time round, a studio all about radio!
Radio had been something I had veered away from while practicing media because I have always thought about how anxious I’d be on air! However, after being selected for this studio, and listening to radio more while at work and over the holidays I realised it would actually be really fun to get involved. As well as understanding the enjoyable aspect in hosting, today I also factored in how there were other roles in this Triple R based radio studio – such as producing! I want to attempt to get a feel of as many aspects in radio during this studio, that’s an ideal situation.
Knowing that this is not the first time that this studio has run and seeing our tutor, Bruce Berryman, is exuberant in nature, passionate about radio and has been in the industry for several years – all of these aspects combined have piled up to cause me to have… a BRILLIANT feeling about this class. I’m really excited and I’ve also had a few friends who have done the studio who came out of it really pleased with what they’d learnt and produced.
For next week’s class we’re required to come up with a few interview ideas for a demo tape we’d make with a group of around 5. We’ve been asked to think of some interesting subjects we may know and try to stray from bands, as they’re often interviewed on Triple R. We’ve got to mix it up some more and create content people will be keen to tune in to! I’m yet to brainstorm, but you’ll see a brainstorming post in the next few days!