Silly season: that time of year when people and stories are short on the ground and journalists start pecking at each other in a desperate bit to fill pages and airtime. For freelances, it's down-time; the opportunity to reconsider and reconfigure goals.
On Thursday, lunch in town with Gloria Abramoff who has started a production company with the celebrated documentary maker and generally brilliant broadcaster, Tim Samuels. Tonic Productions has already been re-commissioned to make a second series of Men's Hour on Five Live, and is sitting on a pile of contracts after less than a year of trading. Gloria is an old friend - I met her when she was a producer on Radio London and I was a regular stand-in presenter. She went on to far greater glory running whole departments within the Beeb and entered the private sector a couple of years ago, since when she's been a major force in pushing new ideas on her own behalf and that of others. That's where the lunch came in...
It was an invigorating two hours. We came away dizzy with advice and possibilities - it's odd, isn't it, that no matter how well one knows - or thinks one knows - an industry, the gaze of a third party can reveal ideas and advances (and potholes) that one has missed? Last week's meeting helped us re-evaluate and reshape the idea in line with what is demanded by the commissioners. It has morphed into something far more fun and interesting and sellable. This week's meeting has helped us structure the idea, and to think in terms of our own skills and needs. Where is the point where the two sides start working together for optimum effect? Yikes!
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