62. Exploring with the BBC
Hi,
Well, Em_UX and I were going to do a full report on our explore, which the BBC happened to attend.
However as a thread was already been started by a sharp eared urbexer back in October 2011, it never got done.
I got an email this week saying due to the success of the first airing (2m listeners) they would be repeating it this Friday (27th January 2012) just before The Archers (receiving 5m listeners, their most listened to non-news item).
So here’s the storey of what happened:
I receive on average between two and five “contact from your website” emails a day. Most of them are silly: “How do I break in to X” etc. I always reply to every single one, as silly as they are - every day. However in June I received one that looked the same, but was different. The difference was that the email address ended in @bbc.co.uk
I was intrigued. After we’d had two or three general email exchanges about urbex, I was invited to have an interview with an executive producer at Broadcasting House in London: I talked to them for an hour, non-stop. They had clearly done their research, and were extremely clued up on urbex in general.
They stopped me after an hour and said “We absolutely love the way you talk about urbex. We’d be like you to be the sole subject of a radio show about urbex photography.
Err…
I asked for some time to think about it.
I know there’s a massive school of thought that urbex doesn’t need any publicity. I have even subscribed to it for years. I started to think seriously about it. Specifically I thought of how a public awareness had shaped other ‘out there’ hobbies, like Parkour: 5 years ago you’d have thought some asbo chav was jumping on you bin, now you’d appreciate the artful side.
I had a play on Google, not like I normally do, but with more simplistic terms that I’d expect someone new to the hobby would use. Two of the first results that came up were appalling. One features screen grabs of some ‘urbexers’ eBay accounts with objects taken from buildings, alongside screen grabs of the reports featuring the objects themselves. Another offered “A forum for UK urban explorers who also enjoy breaking up crap stuff”. No really.
I reluctantly decided to say yes. I didn't want these people to come close to representing what we do as a hobby.
The BBC rewarded me by adding a massive element of authenticity to the documentary. They could record an interview with me at their warm studios in London, and add the sounds in later. But no, they agreed to come on an explore with me, in deepest darkest Suffolk. The only stipulation was that we must have permission. Not something I’m used to doing, but I managed to source an email address and fired off an email outlining what we wanted to do. To my surprise the reply came 20 mins later, granting full permission.
“Peeling paint is better than porn”
The next three month was a torrent of several hundred emails, mainly involving the BBC legal department, along the lines of me not getting the Beeb’s best producer and presenter locked up. I spoke to Virusman26 (who has posted some amazing reports on here) who done a BBC ’inside out’ episode a few years back to ask his advice, and how they portrayed what he actually said. It is also the second series of the programme, so I listened to the first series, to see how they portrayed the subjects.
So the big day came, and due to the unique way the BBC is funded - I had to pick them up and give them a lift. Inevitably I got lost on the way (it was Suffolk). What I didn’t realise is they were recording from the moment I picked them up, and I was surprised this was included in the final piece. We arrived at the site and done a couple of pre-prepared questions.
We carried on round, although after a couple of buildings, they decided we should return to the first one for a sit down interview. “Just sit on the floor Adil” the producer barked, it’ll be more relaxed” But he was not happy at that “I’ve got 3 days in London in these jeans, and I‘m on Lorraine Kelly tomorrow” I managed to find him an old PC tower to sit on, and pulled myself up a barrel. We done probably an hour interview about urbex, some nice easy anecdote, some harder questions on ethics (all of which were included!). Unfortunately throughout the interview my barrel was slowly deflating, this must have been about 20 mins as I’m not completely on the floor yet.
The site wasn’t actually that great, and it was stiflingly hot, so we called it a day and all set off. Somewhat relieved it was all over Em and I were casually chatting in the front of the car, when Em winked at me and flicked her eyes down, and I knew that she’d seen the producer flick the mic back on, so we shut up.
We then had to put our 100% trust in the BBC to edit it. We wouldn’t get to hear it, or authorise anything until it went live. They recorded us for around 4 hours, and were editing it down to just 15 mins. I spent more than 15 mins “Umming and arghing” and swearing, so just hoped they’d use my wittiest charming self. In the end it was somewhere in the middle.
But I'm really glad they included bit's like me replacing the board on the door after moving it etc.
I know there’s still a large proportion that will hate me for agreeing to do it, maybe even think I should have let them go with the 'smashers', but theres no way I'm going to apologise, or defend my decision.
The BBC page is here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015mvs4
Just in case it gets taken down, or you’re lazy, here’s a screen grab:
Listen to it on UrbanX player!
Well, Em_UX and I were going to do a full report on our explore, which the BBC happened to attend.
However as a thread was already been started by a sharp eared urbexer back in October 2011, it never got done.
I got an email this week saying due to the success of the first airing (2m listeners) they would be repeating it this Friday (27th January 2012) just before The Archers (receiving 5m listeners, their most listened to non-news item).
So here’s the storey of what happened:
I receive on average between two and five “contact from your website” emails a day. Most of them are silly: “How do I break in to X” etc. I always reply to every single one, as silly as they are - every day. However in June I received one that looked the same, but was different. The difference was that the email address ended in @bbc.co.uk
I was intrigued. After we’d had two or three general email exchanges about urbex, I was invited to have an interview with an executive producer at Broadcasting House in London: I talked to them for an hour, non-stop. They had clearly done their research, and were extremely clued up on urbex in general.
They stopped me after an hour and said “We absolutely love the way you talk about urbex. We’d be like you to be the sole subject of a radio show about urbex photography.
Err…
I asked for some time to think about it.
I know there’s a massive school of thought that urbex doesn’t need any publicity. I have even subscribed to it for years. I started to think seriously about it. Specifically I thought of how a public awareness had shaped other ‘out there’ hobbies, like Parkour: 5 years ago you’d have thought some asbo chav was jumping on you bin, now you’d appreciate the artful side.
I had a play on Google, not like I normally do, but with more simplistic terms that I’d expect someone new to the hobby would use. Two of the first results that came up were appalling. One features screen grabs of some ‘urbexers’ eBay accounts with objects taken from buildings, alongside screen grabs of the reports featuring the objects themselves. Another offered “A forum for UK urban explorers who also enjoy breaking up crap stuff”. No really.
I reluctantly decided to say yes. I didn't want these people to come close to representing what we do as a hobby.
The BBC rewarded me by adding a massive element of authenticity to the documentary. They could record an interview with me at their warm studios in London, and add the sounds in later. But no, they agreed to come on an explore with me, in deepest darkest Suffolk. The only stipulation was that we must have permission. Not something I’m used to doing, but I managed to source an email address and fired off an email outlining what we wanted to do. To my surprise the reply came 20 mins later, granting full permission.
“Peeling paint is better than porn”
The next three month was a torrent of several hundred emails, mainly involving the BBC legal department, along the lines of me not getting the Beeb’s best producer and presenter locked up. I spoke to Virusman26 (who has posted some amazing reports on here) who done a BBC ’inside out’ episode a few years back to ask his advice, and how they portrayed what he actually said. It is also the second series of the programme, so I listened to the first series, to see how they portrayed the subjects.
So the big day came, and due to the unique way the BBC is funded - I had to pick them up and give them a lift. Inevitably I got lost on the way (it was Suffolk). What I didn’t realise is they were recording from the moment I picked them up, and I was surprised this was included in the final piece. We arrived at the site and done a couple of pre-prepared questions.
We carried on round, although after a couple of buildings, they decided we should return to the first one for a sit down interview. “Just sit on the floor Adil” the producer barked, it’ll be more relaxed” But he was not happy at that “I’ve got 3 days in London in these jeans, and I‘m on Lorraine Kelly tomorrow” I managed to find him an old PC tower to sit on, and pulled myself up a barrel. We done probably an hour interview about urbex, some nice easy anecdote, some harder questions on ethics (all of which were included!). Unfortunately throughout the interview my barrel was slowly deflating, this must have been about 20 mins as I’m not completely on the floor yet.
The site wasn’t actually that great, and it was stiflingly hot, so we called it a day and all set off. Somewhat relieved it was all over Em and I were casually chatting in the front of the car, when Em winked at me and flicked her eyes down, and I knew that she’d seen the producer flick the mic back on, so we shut up.
We then had to put our 100% trust in the BBC to edit it. We wouldn’t get to hear it, or authorise anything until it went live. They recorded us for around 4 hours, and were editing it down to just 15 mins. I spent more than 15 mins “Umming and arghing” and swearing, so just hoped they’d use my wittiest charming self. In the end it was somewhere in the middle.
But I'm really glad they included bit's like me replacing the board on the door after moving it etc.
I know there’s still a large proportion that will hate me for agreeing to do it, maybe even think I should have let them go with the 'smashers', but theres no way I'm going to apologise, or defend my decision.
The BBC page is here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015mvs4
Just in case it gets taken down, or you’re lazy, here’s a screen grab:
Listen to it on UrbanX player!
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