"Painting the Loneliness" on BBC Radio 4's Pick of the Week
My BBC debut is a half-hour programme I co-produced - part documentary, part drama - about Edward Hopper's iconic painting Nighthawks. I conceived the monologues that imagine what the figures in the painting are thinking, and I directed the actors - Michael Dowling (who wrote the script), his wife, Sara Paul, and Jim Frangione (who played two different roles) on location at Haven Cafe & Bakery in Lenox, Massachusetts. Here is the excerpt that aired on Pick of the Week.
The Garbage Man Woot!
How I did it: I stood on the rear step on the passenger's side, holding tight to the back of the truck with my left hand while extending my microphone in my right. (By the way, because context is everything: this profile of hooting garbage man C.L. Taylor aired three years before Hurricane Katrina.)
Chow Traffic Control
People ask me how I did this one, but I feel that giving the answer is like a magician revealing his tricks. I think it might be true that in this segment, The Next Big Thing gave birth to a new kind of radio piece: the phone interview - called a "phoner" in the biz - conducted while reporting in the field. You could call it a "cell phoner."
