I was bursting with enthusiasm about today’s radio show, as I was going to follow up with the crazy idea I had last week about filming the band interview along with the live session to make a weekly podcast. What could possibly go wrong? The omens were good because I was the second to arrive at the studio after our sound engineer Paris, Cassia was next and this week it was Darren’s turn to be late by a few minutes. We had a handsome selection of new music to kick the show off, and I disappeared into the live room to stage manage/get in the way of the filming experiment.

Priory Jones and the Mission’s Paul and Ryan were this week’s guests and guinea pigs in this crazy scheme. My vision was discussed with Matt the photographer and Paris the engineer last week, and I had emailed them both with something like a plan earlier in the week. My intention was to film the live session, then with a longish song being played straight after to give us a little bit of time (about six and a half minutes) to pull the seats out of the store room, get rid of the band equipment, and set up the microphones. Piece of piss. Paris had set up the three microphones that we would need prior to everyone turning up, so everything was shaping up pretty well. I wasn’t sure if we were going to interview as a team or elect one person; I was elected because I know the band having worked with them last year when I was recording sessions for The Sound of Nottingham UK. In preparation for this, I even brought in a change of clothes.

Alas it wasn’t to be. The live session was six songs long, the filming of which filled Matt’s memory card so there wasn’t the room to record the interview. It was suggested that we use my little camera, but like a twat I had also filmed the session so we had no space. I usually have my laptop with me to record the live sessions, which would have solved the problem immediately, but as I have discovered a way to record the sound in the studio for our archives I didn’t bother taking my laptop.

We have a solo performer in next week and so I will be trying it again. To be honest it is a little bit late in the day to have thought of this route, but at least if it works then we can develop the idea. Although radio is a far superior medium to television, there is an increasing amount of visual accompaniment to radio nowadays. For the most part it is for the youngsters who don’t have the attention span to listen to the radio and need pictures, and as NottinghamLIVE is at the cutting edge of the local music scene we need to keep everybody happy. It probably won’t resonate too much with our older listeners as there will be no change to what comes out of the speakers.

I do think the future of radio is part ears and part eyes though, which is why I’m trying this sort of thing out. We have always tried to film the live sessions, the Trent Sound channel on YouTube and Vimeo has quite a good backlog of videos, as does my own (neglected at the moment) YouTube for The Sunday Alternative. I feel it is a pity that we are losing studio based live music in the coming weeks, as it is an area that Trent Sound have always excelled at, certainly more so than any other station in Nottingham. As we aren’t going to be able to accommodate live music performance at Trent Towers (not an actual tower) and will be relying on pre-recorded sessions done at a different studio, a lot of what makes our shows special will be lost.

The idea of having separate filmed content is an idea I’ve been kicking around for a bit now, and I’m actually now thinking about maybe a separate venture in which we attempt ‘telly’ versions of the shows and release them online. Before Darren and I took over presenting NottinghamLIVE we filmed a pilot for an online television channel which sadly didn’t come to anything but at least it proves that such a concept can work. I originally sketched out the idea for an online television type series in 2007 when I attempted to devise The Pod, named because it sounded a bit like podcast. In 2007 this was a bit of a challenge to pitch because nobody really knew what I was talking about. The time is right to think about the possibility of developing on this theme with The Sunday Alternative, or NottinghamLIVE, and putting the shows out both as videos and a separate audio podcast.

This of course relies on the money to get these projects off the ground, which is where the PayPal button comes into good use. I would need to hire out a venue and fill it with musicians and possible an audience, then of course a film crew to record everything and edit together an end product. Not one part of that comes cheap, but I’d be willing to pay everyone else involved and not take any money for myself in order to get it made. That’s how nice I am.

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