The Butchers Apron

0:00 Foreign hello children hello here is this morning's story are you ready then we'll begin hello can you hear me yeah I'm Emma Gibson. And I'm Nadine and together we are the butcher's apron so who are we we're literally just two mates who like radio there's not much more to it.

1:20 But we were interested in making our own content our own radio and our own podcast and giving people a voice really where the BBC might not care to so we met ages ago we both do other things I make art. And I'm a cultural researcher.

1:33 And I make books and other things like that. And we have two main reasons for starting the butcher's apron one we love radio but not much of what we loved was actually made in this country and because all the best stories were the ones we told down the pub and retold again and again and we wondered where they lived what was their legacy so we started out with a plan it's pretty shoddy to make a podcast and use some of the connections that we've made along the way we've learned a lot about storytelling and we're going to share it with you in six easy lessons number one know the tools of your trade so don't record your radio show on your iPhones no matter what you know no matter what the the reviews say so when we started out we had no idea what we were doing we record all of our interviews on our iPhones shaky hands and roped in our partners our friends and other people who just hung around to give us a hand to get going so a cautionary tale from this early period is that very famous people will say yes to interviews and you should be prepared when they do we had to panic order spyware from the internet when Professor AC Grayling agreed to a phone interview and I hid under a duvet in my flat trying to cancel out the ambient noise of the the train track and like barking dogs and stuff so here are the results of that debacle hello is this professor grayling indeed hello this is Nadine from the butcher's apron thank you for speaking with us it's a great pleasure why were you moved to make the good book well a very long time ago there's no point in playing you any more of that because it's you can't you can't hear it so you can see how important it is for such amazing conversations going on to know how to capture them properly and now this did get better and we have since spoken to some of our real life Heroes and told some great stories from kit Williams who made the Masquerade tournament Prize winner Jeremy deller Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy yeah too many intervention.

3:48 So I'm just gonna stop trying to mention they've all been successfully captured but not without some other difficulties which brings us to lesson two always get permission.

4:02 So in the early days through wild and free and we got in trouble a lot we got kicked out of the Greenwich Observatory on our first show we got trapped in the dianetic center for Scientology and Tottenham Court Road do not ever go in there bad ever took a long time to get out but worst of all we've got nearly sued twice by this guy so here is the infamous Bishop Sean Manchester he specializes in exorcisms and he has a bit of a reputation for never giving interviews without issues so we thought he'd be perfect so we're going to play you our first ever encounter with him I am actually the right Reverend Sean Manchester Bishop of Glastonbury primate of the Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ or Ecclesia apostolica yazel Christie which is an English Catholic jurisdiction is this forum an actual radio station or or is it for a podcast or what exact a podcast and is it yourself I'll be talking to yes I am as you might appreciate a traditionalist a traditional Christian and I hold to the old ways and the old order of things and but I don't stand on ceremony it's just that when I have had contemptuous interviewers and they have fallen foul of ofcom what a nice guy yeah no no the skull yeah that's the real one he says yeah. So even though we did get permission to use the interview in a podcast we might have accidentally interviewed his arch rival as well with made him really crafts so after 17 emails three edits two threats of legal action and our refusal to change the show anymore he went away.

5:55 But we still worry about it every day I worry about it.

5:58 But we put the episode out. Anyway. And this made us realize that the way you tell a story can be really powerful so on to lesson number three so a picture I mean this.

6:10 This is a cliche but it's true so a picture is worth a thousand words it's not good enough to get the best story you have to present it in the best way and are those previous two examples were you know bad examples don't do that by virtue of this medium in radio you have this amazing opportunity to get right into people's heads it's a really intimate space so make the most of it paint the picture to illustrate we are going to we are going to share a clip of raw audio from our communion show.

6:43 This is the promo shots depicting our heads floating in space eating communion Wafers obviously so this clip is of Dr David Barrett explaining what he misses about his old religious faith and this clip is what the audio sounds like before any Soundcraft so have a listen if I'm walking through a town on November evening I pass by Church I was lit up inside I can hear an even song inside that still tugs At Me Now somebody's singing the choir singing or just people singing to him and through the the lit Church windows on a Mr November evening that sucks at me even though I don't share the beliefs anymore so you know.

7:28 That's kind of moving but this same clip with a bit of Soundcraft a bit of you know some some dead air where there where it's necessary has a totally different feel so if you will please could you close your eyes and listen to what the same piece of audio sounds like when after we've gone to work on it if I'm walking through a town on November evening I pass by Church and lit up inside I can hear an even song inside that still tugs At Me Now somebody's singing requires singing or just people singing him and through the the lit Church windows on a misty November evening that sucks even though I don't share the beliefs anymore so that layering of Soundcraft makes kind of a mundane report it kind of lifts it it allows you to get involved in the person telling the story and that all happened when we started to work with proper producers and we built a team up.

8:44 And we stopped trying to do everything ourselves which brings us to lesson number four stick to what you're good at so we learned halfway through our journey to be a specialist and work with Specialists so we built a team of editors producers Sound curators Radio nerds and they all. Actually told us the same thing.

9:02 But the best bits of our shows are when we just spoke and went on our own little investigative missions unscripted and vibrant Living Color we might have taken this a little bit too far when we decided to do a show on Hunger I was the first woman in Britain to attempt to eat the biggest breakfast in the UK and the dean's so gross if you starved herself for three days so we're going to show you the promo video that we made for that show thank you foreign you get it free if you finish it no one does but this leads us to lesson number five which is always bite off more than you can chew so rising to the occasion is a great way to learn things.

10:43 And this is exactly what happened when selfridges commissioned us for their Festival of imagination they asked us to capture and broadcast all the amazing speakers they had lined up for the festival in a show that was itself amazing and we said fantastic that's what we do that's what we do and we actually had never done that never done it so so this is what happened anyway it's just a couple of minutes the most visual form of art precisely because you can't see it like reading I guess or reading should I start yeah okay imagination you unlock this door with the key of imagination imagination you can do it if you believe you can I won we formed the butcher's apron on a whim about two years ago by accident maybe yeah we specialize in unexpected adventures in audio come with me and you'll be in a world of we've been commissioned by selfridges to produce six shows for the Festival of imagination for the start of 2014 selfridges is becoming a portal into their creative minds imagining we came in substance in the middle of the night and we watched a lot of Big Valley men drag lumps of what looked like would never become anything into a pile in the middle of a stuck white room so it's going to be a caravan then it was going to be something else and something else we landed on this idea of a shed and now we're we're making radio from it it's like so yeah that was good yeah well as you can see we've come a really long way so last lesson is that the story your story is the best one so have fun it's the thing we've learned more than anything is that the thing you tell your kids about all of this in the future has to stand up against all the stories that you tell on the radio so we do have fun and we take our family everywhere with us willing or not and the results are happy lives for us.

13:04 This is us at Latitude Festival we just made their official podcast last month it was one really good example of this. And we did I'm gonna play a speak preview yeah I'm gonna do it because I know we're running over a little bit.

13:18 And then you all go and download it on the first of September good okay.

13:21 So this is what it sounds like and all the sound in it is from the festival itself cheering hello my name is John Ronson hi I'm Bob and Roberta Smith my name is Luke Kennard my name is Liv albertine yeah foreign I'd like to point out that. That's a funny mirror it's not that's a normal mirror my child doesn't look like that well. That's it. That's our story thanks for listening search us on the internet we've got a student at Newington if you want to make radio with us come and say Hello thank you