James Stodd – Radio Producer
Sound
Free day of Radio training from the BBC
Here’s a brilliant chance for a free day of training for professionals in independent production companies, freelancers, commercial and community radio – hosted by the BBC. And I’ll be running a session on the day too.
It’s on February 7th – tickets are available from January 10th on the BBC Academy website.
Tim Davie, director Audio & Music, said:
“This is a great opportunity for programme makers across the radio sector to learn and get inspired by the creativity of others.”
Hosted by the BBC Academy in partnership with Skillset, Radio Fast Train will be produced in association with the Radio Academy, Radio Independents Group, RadioCentre and the Community Media Association.
I’ll be running a session entitled “Promotions and Branding – an Essential Guide”. It’ll be all about creating great promotional campaigns. So, if you have worked on a radio campaign that you think could do with showcasing, please let me know, as I’d love to feature some non-BBC work too. And if you want to come along, apply for tickets as detailed above.
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- Community Radio Workshop Comes to an End (richardrego.wordpress.com)
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Fireworks Soundtracks and Mashups
Image (C) Merlin Fireworks
“James – we need you to make a fireworks soundtrack. It needs to be 15 minutes long. Oh, and it needs to be beatmixed..”.
I have only had to make one full on fireworks soundtrack mix.
It was around 2001 and was for the AXA Skyfest Cardiff. It was a huge 15 minute display to celebrate the first Football FA Cup Final to be hosted at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium (whilst London’s Wembley Stadium was being rebuilt). It took me a few weeks to make ( through various incarnations) using a very basic setup on ProTools5 (my first ProTools Rig) and with no fancy Elastic Time tools – just clever edits a little varispeed and a lot of edits.
It worked pretty well and it was fantastic to see the whole of Cardiff Bay lit up to a fireworks display set off and designed by the company that produced the fireworks for the Olympics ceremony at the Sydney Games. You can hear it here. I just listened back to it for the first time in a decade – and whilst it’s a little ragged in places, it was pretty epic!
I was at a party last night so missed the huge London 2012 New Years Eve fireworks display. These have become a Traditional part of each New Years celebration. My friend Will Jackson has tracked down the mix from last night’s display – so thought it worth a share here. It was mixed by BBC Radio 1 and Asian Network DJ Nihal. Take a listen here
In fact this mix was curated by Nihal and engineered by BBC Radio 1 Head of Station Sound, Dan Mumford. You can read more about how the display was put together here
My friends at the Benztownbranding Blog have also recently showcased a very clever Beatmix from David Konksy at Sydney’s 2DayFM here. 30 songs in 3 minutes!
And if you REALLY like this sort of thing – get bang up to date with DJ Earworm’s United State of Pop 2011
Now – if you have a good hangover cure after last night’s celebrations – let me have it…
Related articles
- 2011-Firework displays around the world! (djleekee.wordpress.com)
- London Celebrates Arrival of 2012 (shoppingblog.com)
- Big Ben chimes herald Olympic year (mirror.co.uk)
Educating advertisers: avoiding the “creative abyss”.
Photo by James Stodd on Instagram
Does radio really suffer from a “creative abyss”? Are there a lack of ideas? (hence the tenuous light bulb reference..)
Long time radio commercial producer John Mountford, from commercial production house JMS thinks so.
You can read his blog post here .
In the post he says;
I believe the progressive devaluation of radio creativity is in great part down to the radio industry itself. Whereas it should be actively encouraging creativity, its own systems run directly counter to this.
I have often worked alongside some huge advertising agencies. Some of them “get” radio and some don’t. And their “big ideas” (often TV based to tie in with big TV campaigns) aren’t necessarily always big enough for radio. We normally help them get to a good place – it’s a bit of a collaborative process.
We make great efforts to help these agencies to understand radio, and also the uniqueness of BBC radio. A snall number of the people I meet admit they don’t listen to radio at all. So education in what’s special about radio is often needed.
We bring them in for creative sessions, take them into the radio networks to see how radio is actually created. It’s a two way process, and needs to be collaborative. But with persistence, it can pay off too.
In answer to John; I feel your pain – particularly with some smaller scale local advertising.
Stations are to blame in this – but sometimes it’s down to a lack of understanding by advertisers. There is a need for radio stations to educate their clients, and it seems the RAB are doing a lot to assist in this area.
But it’s down to educating sales teams too. And if they don’t have a love for the medium – we’re stuffed.
