Blogs > Special Features > Third Coast Festival 2006
>
A Word from our Sponsors
Posted by: Robin Amer on October 23, 2006 08:54 PM | Comments (2)
T-minus two days till Third Coast and I'm getting psyched. Psyched to go to Chicago, psyched to reconnect with friends and colleagues, psyched to blog, and psyched to check out all the exciting events Julie and Johanna have put together for this year's conference. I spoke to Julie on Friday to get a sense of how things were shaping up for this weekend. Here are some excerpts from our conversation.
Robin Amer: In past years you've talked about your "festival crushes" - the people or events you've personally been most excited for. One year I remember it was The Books. Who are your festival crushes this year?
Julie Shapiro: I feel like I'm a cheeleader for the international people. But I know Kari Hesthamar, who makes radio in the features department of the NRK, the NPR of Norway, and she has consistantly blown my mind with the way she talks about radio and the work she makes. And she's a warm and friendly person. In the European scene she's younger compared to some of the other established producers. We've listened to a couple of her pieces, where at the end, for example, of her profile of Leonard Cohen, you have more questions about him than you did when the piece started. It's not an informational thing. Her work raises a lot of questions, which I think is really powerful.
RA: Which is so different from how it would be if a piece like that were produced in the States.
JS: Especially for a profile of a musican. She's always getting at the human side of things, whether it's a piece about orphans or musicians or crazy kids. She gets really close to her subjects and she transfers that to you.
I'm also really looking forward to Kenny G's breakout session, The Sounds of Madness. He's the currator of UbuWeb. He told me, I'm having so much fun putting this together. It's a portal. He's excited about it. To be perfectly honest, it's not about how to do stuff, it's just an opportunity to experience a lot of weird stuff. It's a survey. We like to reserve one breakout session that's more show and tell.
My crushes are very personal as far as what I'm excited about. If I was working on a weekly show for a station I might be really exicted for Daniel Zwerdling or Nancy Updike. It all depends. Hopefully people can really mix and match do a little bit of both. I'm hoping people feel adventurous enough to go to things that they don't think they might initially be interested in. There are six breakouts this year, three a day. Last year there were just four. We decided we could do it differently this year, and give people the opportunity to customize their experience a bit more. The first thing of the conference and last we're all together, and the rest you choose.
RA: I noticed that this year you're doing something called Group (Radio) Therapy sessions. Can you tell me a little bit about those?
JS: People kept saying, "I want feedback on my work." So we started last year with the close listening sessions. This is all bring your own work. Dmae [Roberts] will moderate. This is really just about critiquing your work. People who haven't had a chance to sit around and talk about work will have an opportunity to get some feedback. They'll be offered once each day. Personally my experience going to the International Features Conference is that being involved in a week long critique is so valuable - hearing what other people are thinking about, developing a working relationship with someone, hearing how they fucntion, having a variety of responses to something, and even hearing directly opposeite reactions. It's really good.
RA: Tell me about the short docs you've commissioned for this year, which are so different from past years.
JS: We have been shocked and delighted about how many people have sent in work. I have to admit I thought it was going to be a bust about two weeks before the deadline. Our plan had been that the archive would grow slowly over the year, but of course 65% came in the last two or three days. We picked four winners along with Matt Madden the cartoonist. That's been really fun. He's brought some really interesting non-radio stuff to the table. Matt and I are going to present the winners together.
RA: Have the winners been announced?
JS: If you look carefully you'll be able to figure out who won. But I didn't want people to hear the winning pieces before hand, and I don't want to draw attention to them. I want people to hear them for the first time in the room, to debut them there. It works out cause they're so short. The session will be full of multi-media, and should be pretty fun, and, we have a special surprise incentive. We want to get to 99 ways by the end of the year. It's not too late. People can still submit pieces by the end of the year.
| 
RSS Feed