"Thank you for taking the trouble to edit so expertly: I
seem almost articulate - no mean feat"
Well that's what the good man Mr. Morrison wrote in an email
after we had sent him the link to his interview (and he granted
permission to print)
Personally I think he was being über-gracious, since he could
not have made the interview more pleasant and easy. There is in
fact quite a bit more of the interview (him talking about the new
Jackie Kay book for example) which I do hope to edit soon and post
up onto the site. If you are reading this in mid-June and there is
still only one interview, please please send me a reminder.
Those of you with a sensitive ear however, will have noticed
that there is a change of microphone halfway through the interview.
How did this happen? How could someone with nearly 30 years
experience make such a basic error? Where did all that BBC training
go? Well she is asking herself the very same question. Many
marketing people (and indeed a few friends) might scream
"Never apologise, never explain" However here at TIO, we tend
to go for a more "Wear you heart on your sleeve"
approach which is why I'm prepared to tell you what
happened. When I picked up the back-up camera, into which
Blake Morrison's microphone was plugged , I thought I was spooling
forwards to clear the DV tape in order to record some cutaways.
You've no doubt guessed the next bit… Yup, too busy talking
about Wolf Hall, or Amanda Craig or the Orange Prize for Fiction and I
spooled backwards instead of forwards, thus wiping all his sound
from the first crucial five minutes.
Well of course the plan is hire a camera crew so that one can
concentrate on making the interviews even better. The publishers
meanwhile seem determined to get as much free publicity as possible
and are determinted not to help. So we are working on
locating that elusive sponsor or apply for funding. Just as soon as
we've moved the pigs from the tarmac.
Fortunately I had backup sound recording from a distant
microphone. Did you really want to know all this? Does the
listener really give a toss? Well whilst I would like to know,
I certainly feel better for the telling of it.