Littlewich Ways Launch - by Debbie Bennett

Back in September, I blogged abut the community radio play project I'm involved in - Littlewich Ways. On Friday we had our "official" launch party in the local pub, accompanied by a big-screen production (yes, I know it's radio, but bear with me ...), much alcohol and nibbles.

You can see the results here on our very own Youtube channel, set up by yours truly. Or via our blog page/website at www.littlewichways.co.uk. Or just click below...


It's been nearly two years in the making. When you think that at the start, few of us had any idea what we were doing, I think we've come a long way. We're not professional scriptwriters, actors and technicians. All of us have day jobs and do this purely for fun.

When we decided to use Youtube to host our efforts, we realised we'd need something visual. Youtube is a visual medium and we needed a picture, or pictures, on-screen while the audio track was playing. So we decided to add a single picture per scene, to add a visual "clue" to the setting as well as something to look at. Finding pictures wasn't easy - a single image per scene that would repeat for every scene in the same setting. We debated what types of house each of our fictional families would live in and did most of our own photography, then added a sponge filter to everything to attempt to tie it all together somehow. My daughter had the brainwave of using some drone footage taken by a neighbour last summer and put it together as an opening sequence (the white house is ours!). And I had a very steep learning curve in getting to grips with Adobe Premiere Pro to grasp the basics of overlaying and editing sound and image files.

So we're nearly thirty (roughly 15-minute) episodes in, with two out there and live. We're about to start recording episodes 3 and 4. We've covered the sublime to the ridiculous with everything in-between.

And they still haven't let me kill anybody.

Comments

Wendy H. Jones said…
This si fascinating. Thanks for the insight to the production process.
Umberto Tosi said…
I'm inspired. It's a delight! Thank you for showing us such creative possibilities in such an entertaining and informative way.
Lydia Bennet said…
Fantastic Debbie, you'll leave the Archers in your dust! What a great project! Speaking of drones, and in line with recent posts here about credit and copyright of pix, I just learned that drone pictures are illegal to sell or possibly, share, unless the 'pilot' has done a course and got a licence. A local photographer had to do that as he can't sell images he took before he knew about this. Just thought I'd pass that on in case any of you are thinking of 'droning on' this weekend!
Debbie Bennett said…
I think I've heard that too re licences. Seem to recall John saying he wasn't able to sell any footage.

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