Niamh Bagnell has been running ‘Sunday Scrapbook‘ at the 4.00pm slot on Lffey Sound for some time now and has welcomed to the mic so many poets, scholars, artists, commentators… Life’s too short to continue this list! Her easy relaxed manner has encouraged them to reveal much about themselves and their preoccupations. Listening to the programme over the while I am struck by the way that, as well as being entertaining radio, it has become almost a ‘confessional’ for people engaged in various creative endeavours, a chance to reveal influences and motives and take stock of developments so far.

Niamh is moving out of the slot for pastures new and I hope I can continue her style of interviewing and allowing people to open up and give our listeners a quck glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes while the poem, the play, the film, the painting — or whatever artefact — is being assembled.

My first programme had as guests two film makers, Richard (Richie) Conroy and Eimear O’Kane. Richie, together with Mark Hodkinson, has written over 70 hours of TV and in 2006 set up ‘Snowluke Pictures’. He has lots of cresdits to his name by this stage but maybe is best known at the moment for his series of short films about ‘Fran’, a wannabe football manager, whose hapless aventures are aired on Setanta TV and are also available on DVD. Health Warning: If  you don’t want to split your sides, don’t watch this video!

Eimear is an IFTA nominated film producer with several successful productions to her name and it was very interesting to get a producers ‘business / commercial’ view of the film-making process. Apparently, being ‘creative’ and ‘full of ideas’ is essential to the business of making films… but is not enough! Eimer was able to clue us in on the importance of budgeting and accounts in the whole process, as otherwise things can get quite messy (Why didn’t our last government have people like her in it?)

I thought it a well-rounded programme giving an insight into the complexities of film-making. But I hope you don’t get the impression that it was a ‘heavy’ discussion. Our guests were full of good humour and anecdotes about their adventures so far in the world of the big (and small) screen.

You can download a podcast of the show the Radio Archives site at http://www.sundayscrapbook.blogspot.com It will take two or three minutes to download and there’s a bit of music at the beginning before the ‘Divine Comedy signature tune. Be patient. It’s worth it.  You can also catch up with ‘Fran’ on Setanta TV and also on DVD.

Once again a thank you to our guests, and also to Niamh for all her help in easing me into my new role as ‘Sunday Scrapbook’ host on Lfffey Sound FM.