Category Archives: Television

Out Of The Silence TV documentary

Poetry, PortfolioTelevision, Television

It was a great pleasure to be interviewed by writer, Anne McMaster for DoubleBand Films’ hour-long documentary ‘Out Of The Silence’, directed by Jane Magowan and produced by Jonathan Golden. It explores women writing today, and in the past, in Ulster-Scots.

Anne and the crew came recorded me at home in Ballycastle where I delivered my poem, ‘A Heerd Tha Sodjer On Tha Radio’. This poem originated in my kitchen and is set there so what better place to do it?

Wendy Erskine, Dawn Watson and Jan Carson also feature in the documentary. The work of the late Frances Molloy was a discovery for me, prompted by the recording. Her novel, ‘No Mate For The Magpie’ (1985) and short story collection, ‘Women Are The Scourge Of The Earth’ (1989) are memorable, visceral and inventive. As was that of the acerbic, eighteenth-century writer, Olivia Elder.

Anne McMaster’s latest book, ‘Martha And The Vardo’ is out recently. Available from gaddagarvagh@gmail.com.

NVTV profile of my Ulster-Scots poetry

Blog, Poetry, Television

Liam Logan interviewed me for a programme in his 8-part series on Ulster-Scots writing, ‘A MIGHTY MALLET’ made by Belfast cable channel Northern Visions (NVTV).

The series showcases the work of the Rhyming Weavers or Weaver Poets, working-class writers of the late 18th and early 19th century in the north of Ireland, who wrote in their vernacular and were influenced by Robert Burns. The programmes feature the work of James Orr, Samuel Thompson, Hugh Porter and John McKinley, David Herbison and Sarah Leech from Co Donegal, the only known female Irish weaver poet.

Liam Logan has added three contemporary writers in Ulster-Scots: Angeline King, Gary Morgan and myself.

The half-hour documentary on my work can be viewed here:

You can find the rest of the series at nvtv.co.uk Go to “on demand” and then “language”, “Ulster-Scots” . Continue reading NVTV profile of my Ulster-Scots poetry →

BAFTA Cymru win for Green Bay Media

Awards, Blog, Portfolio, PortfolioTelevision, Prose, Television

At the BAFTA  Cymru Awards in Cardiff on 13th October, Velindre, Hospital of Hope, a series following patients through treatment for cancer, won the Award for Best Factual Series.

Commissioned by ITV Wales, the series was made by Green Bay Media and was the company’s final production prior to joining forces with Wildflame Productions

Continue reading BAFTA Cymru win for Green Bay Media →

ACS & DOCS Cardiff University

Portfolio, PortfolioTelevision, Teaching, Television

Another fascinating group of people on my workshop for academics about involvement in tv documentary on 1st March.

This three-hour session for Cardiff University Graduate College covers what an academic needs to know about how tv documentary gets developed, commissioned and made and how academics can contribute successfully and enjoyably. Universities commonly offer training in how to engage with news via sound-bites but seldom on what it means to be involved in long-form output or series.

The feedback was uniformly excellent.

Continue reading ACS & DOCS Cardiff University →

Crabb Deal on Broadcasting in Wales is not secure yet

Blog, Commentator, Industry, Television

See IWA Click on Wales blog page 9th March

Crabb Deal on Broadcasting in Wales is not secure yet

When Stephen Crabb, the Secretary of State for Wales, stood up on 27 February to proclaim a (fragile) cross-party consensus on further powers for Wales, he did so only hours after Ofcom, the media regulator, had closed its consultation on the future of public service broadcasting. Ofcom’s review and the Crabb ‘consensus’ represent potentially important milestones for broadcasting in Wales.

What the premature St. David’s Day agreement (a Sunday announcement was never on the cards) had to say about broadcasting, unsurprisingly, made no headlines, but it laid down an important marker for the coming debate on the BBC’s Charter and for the need to deepen Welsh involvement in media policy. There is a huge amount at stake both for viewers and for our television production industry.

Apparently, all four parties are now agreed on proposals that the IWA has supported and promoted for some years past in various publications, and in the evidence that it submitted to the Silk Commission by the UK’s Changing Union project in which it has been an active partner. It did so again last week in its response to Ofcom’s consultation document.

Mr. Crabb’s Command Paper says there was consensus around the following Silk Commission proposals: Continue reading Crabb Deal on Broadcasting in Wales is not secure yet →

ACS and DOCS – Academics and TV Documentary-making

Blog, Media, PortfolioTelevision, Teacher, Teaching, Television

ACADEMICS AND TV DOCUMENTARY-MAKING

 A WORKSHOP for CARDIFF UNIVERSITY GRADUATE COLLEGE

11TH    February

book-a-workshop-new

This is the fourth year I’ve presented this 3-hour workshop. I designed it as a contribution towards bridging the gap between the media and academia. I believe it still to be an unusual offer amongst university training because media training offered to academics is usually in the area of short-form and news-related input, not in long-form documentary. Between these two forms there are significant differences in working practice for journalists and, from the academics’ perspective, the skills needed to have a happy time as a contributor to a documentary are different to those that will produce a snappy sound-bite.

Academia and the media are two worlds which can intersect very fruitfully. However, when they don’t understand each other’s priorities and practices there are sometimes tears before bedtime.

The workshop is designed to examine key aspects of both worlds: what do they value? what do they want? what are they for? Where do these overlap and where must one recognise that they differ? Continue reading ACS and DOCS – Academics and TV Documentary-making →

DNA CYMRU series gets underway

Blog, Producer, Television

8pm St David’s Day our new series on the history of Wales begins with an introductory programme. The series examines the potential of ancestral DNA to contribute towards the understanding of the past.

I have been very struck, while working on it, by a dual theme that emerges: Continuity  and Change. Humanity values both of these. Continuity promotes stability, the mastering of skills, the memorialising of the past so that it can feed the future. Change calls out new skills to integrate with established ones and it means encountering people and attitudes that challenge conclusions drawn from hard-won experience.

The material in the series has made me consider the relationship between the body and what we use the body to do; between ‘the givens’ of our lives – our physical inheritance – and the choices we make about our lives – our culture and our approach to life.

Continue reading DNA CYMRU series gets underway →

Academics and TV Documentary-making

Teacher, Teaching, Television

Cardiff University Graduate College:

Workshop Design and Delivery: Academics and TV Documentary-making  11th February 2015
 Feedback: from last year’s workshop:

  • Ø  Useful for anyone investing in the media side of research, also interesting just to see how research can be translated into TV
  • Ø  A really valuable workshop if you like to be engaged with media
  • Ø  A great opportunity to understand how academics can engage with TV documentary production
  • Ø  It teaches/introduces the basics of academic – TV partnership
  • Ø  Worth doing if you are interested in how your research can be used in TV
  • Ø  An excellent way to prepare yourself for making a documentary incorporating academic knowledge/sources

Expertise Exchange

Industry, PortfolioTelevision, Television

Initiator and Organiser:   24th October 2013

                                                                 a joint RTS / Cardiff University School of Journalism (JOMEC) event 
                                                                                                                                                                                   
Contributors:
  • Professor Justin Lewis and Llion Iwan, Content Commissioner, Factual and Sport, S4C
    Consumerism, the hidden driver behind all TV production?
  • Professor Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Ashok Ahir, of Communications Agency, mela; former Head of Politics, BBC Cymru Wales
    Impartiality and representation of opinion on TV news
  • Dr Cindy Carter and Huw Foulkes, Broadcast Journalist, Ffeil & Newyddion 9, BBC Cymru
    What TV news provision does the younger teen audience want?
  • Dr Ross Garner and Mike Talbot, Series Editor, Wales This Week, ITV Wales
    Producing the ‘Mainstream’ in Wales
  • Professor Jenny Kitzinger and Erika Hossington, Series Producer, Casualty, BBC Cymru Wales
    How can TV drama represent family experiences of long term ‘coma’?

 

Dr Cindy Carter, Llion Iwan, Dr Ross Garner, Erika Hossington, Prof Jenny Kitzinger,
Ashok Ahir
Prof Justin Lewis, Mike Talbot, Angela Graham, Huw Foulkes
An enjoyable and thought-provoking event resulting in 3 on-going partnerships:
Prof Jenny Kitzinger and Erika Hossington: a potential new storyline involving coma next year for ‘Casualty’.
Dr Ross Garner and Mike Talbot: collaboration on producing tv in Wales for the mainstream.
Dr Cindy Carter and Huw Foulkes: collaboration on News for young teenagers.

“There are now plans to reflect adverts off the moon,” said Professor Justin Lewis as he argued that all television is ultimately driven by a  hidden consumerism. That was just one of the many insights gained as the Wales Centre paired academics with television professionals for one-to-one dialogue and debate at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies.

Karin Wahl-Jorgensen reported that the BBC is still trapped in a two major party world when it comes to political reporting, while Jenny Kitzinger told us that the portrayal of people in a coma in hospital drama is not only wrong but actually misleads the public. Other subjects discussed included news provision for the younger teen audience and an attempt to define what the ‘mainstream’ means within commercial British television.

Mike Talbot from ITV Wales said that cage fighting and cuts to council services were both current and mainstream, but that only one was really popular with audiences. So which programme offered true public service broadcasting? As the academics would say – discuss!   Tim Hartley

  Ashok Ahir during the discussion