Week Forty-Six In Which I Shall Film With Sensei Takeda-San

There has been a thread on the Talk Audio Forum boards from a new bloke who has done some TV interview work and is involved in the world of body building. He found my TATV interview style perplexing. It reminded me that there was this one bodybuilder fellow who was offering me advice on the comment system of YouTube on how to speak to beautiful women, as the Swirl Police video clip I did with Michelle Westby and her mate as sexy cops for Dodo Juice was deeply tongue in cheek and he thought I was incoherent with shyness. Trouble is, being a tall AND fat baa-lamb myself, who tends to get photographed with the pretty promo lasses at shows because I am part of their little publicity machine and folks love to see their pictures in the show reports (the ‘˜rapper shot’* is essential!) this really seemed to piss him off.
But condom filled-with-nuts-dude didn’t get it and truly felt he was offering me good advice. He was far too close by to really argue with, so I kinda blocked and moved on. Anyway, the thread dude had a point, as the delivery of my interviews is by a bloke I could refer to as the ‘Amiable Buffoon’.
I may be able to discuss materials science and high end composite applications with doctorate-equipped loudspeaker engineers at Bowers & Wilkins and may well discuss the substrate of a limited edition capacitor within the passive crossover array of ONE solitary model of high end component loudspeaker system by Alpine. I may discuss the nature of sound in air in huge stadia with my chum Big Mick, who loves Dr. Who, The Bill and mixes for Metallica and Led Zep (when they play live, as have) and truly be well able to do the whole ‘˜content’ of most interviews myself. But TV is about the PEOPLE you talk to, not the damn presenter.
As unrehearsed, always one-hit videos, I do have to be a whole crew all at once. Trouble is, I have an inkling of what a director does. Likewise the cameraman and especially the sound bloke with his microphone on a stick. Also the ‘˜being a presenter’ thing is about getting the stuff in you want and once you start people off Doing this, you also have to jump in their flow and throw it in another direction as the overall ‘˜how long is this worth bothering watching’ issue is vital, too. The YouTube analytics are BRUTAL about attention span calling it ‘˜engagement’. They actually graph for you where folks watch and where they switch off.
And thus, I am chuffed to relate that one of my favourite co-stars is coming to see me on Thursday to do some filming about a bit of Alpine-ness and maybe he doesn’t know this yet, but our trip to road test some things will take us to a place where they use a LOT of Alpine and I think I may be able to take him with to see hypercars. I look forward to it.
Adam Rayner On Line Editor