"How would you like to produce an hour-long documentary in 24 hours for a hot London art radio station?," says John. It's about three weeks ago and I'm trying to dangle a greasy slice of New York pizza into my mouth. I don't have great aim with these slices and this doesn't really help. Last time I tried to produce an hour-long documentary it took 3 weeks.
Undaunted, we pressed onward. Like John says, it's what we do. Karina and I worked on getting equipment together and, more importantly, giving our 22 student journalists a little crash course in audio production. To deal with the logistics, we had people sign up for different jobs: some made music for the production, others made personal profiles or first person narratives, and some made vox pops. Here's an example of the last one, a quick-paced mashup of responses I made for our training session.
As ready as we could be, we had to roll with the punches. Our contact at Resonance FM thought he could get us in on press day. As we waited we saw a very knock-kneed Claudia Schiffer walk past, but celebrity spotting would only hold us for so long. Resonance contact nowhere to be found, John tried to elbow us into the festival. Six rungs up the bureaucratic ladder, though, the gates crashed shut on us "amateurs." We'd have to wait for public admission.
As it turns out, take two offered us many more opportunities. We managed to get some reporters in to review the film screenings that we would've missed the day before, for example. And, with fewer VIP buyers, chances are the gallery owners were a little less focused on making sales.
Not that the day was easy. Aside from an equipment handoff and an editing deadline at 9pm that night, we had to fight for people's attention. Frieze, it turns out, really is a commercial venture. Galleries have to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a booth and their patience for non-buying American college students was predictably slim.
Long story short, though, I think we ended up with a great show. Many of our producers had never worked with audio before but ended up with really interesting work. Often the most "naive" questions, like, "what is art?" provoked the most interesting answers. And while editing took a little longer than 24 hours, we've ended up with a rich hour-long collage of music, reviews, critiques, and reflections. Not bad for a throng of yanks, eh?
Without further ado, please listen below. -Terin Mayer
[Above: Strategy session in Regent's Park. L to R: Julian Laurent, Jenny Oyallon-Koloski, Paul Caine, Rachel Teagle, Terin Mayer, Gracie Young, Susan Carlson]
Hi loved your hour audio on the frieze, especially Paul Caine's piece.
How did you create your page with the 22 students with 4 moving images? I am trying to create a group portrait project and I like the style of it!
Rachel (Fine Art student)
Posted by: Rachel Lee | February 12, 2007 at 05:24 AM