The power of a pitch

I am a master at finding diversions. Last Friday I was looking for a route out of a long editing project. I ended up spending the afternoon at the Open City Doc Fest in a building in Chinatown.

On a whim, I bought a ticket for Audio Playground. I have to admit I hadn't come across Sarah Geis before so I had no expectations. I was immediately hooked by this quirky presentation; Sarah told us about an unconventional date she had recorded which involved attending a seminar about freshwater fish. Her manner was unabashed, carefree, revealing and inspiring. If I hadn't lost the page of optional homework she set us, I would be doing all 6 tasks. For now I will be trying the first two, as soon as I identify my victims. I need to write a radio show for a one person audience, and then plan an outing with a friend that we could record and edit into a programme in 2 hours.

The next event on the festival programme was a nail-biting live pitch session for the Radio and Audio Funding Award, set up as a legacy from Alan Whicker https://vimeo.com/129776242

Jane Ray welcomed us and introduced the judges, Jane Mote, Sarah Geis and Steve Titherington.

The Radio and Audio Funding Award is the only annual, global and free-to-enter non-fiction audio award around. I loved the fact that the finalists have to pitch live in front of attentive strangers and probing judges.

There was something about Isis Thompson and her pitch for ‘Stokely in Cuba' which made me think, you're going to win this.

Her plan is to make an audio guide for “those of us who need a little help going from being clued-up and woke, to being up and out of bed and actually useful”. I can't wait.

The runner up turned out to be ‘Biker Radio Rodcast’, a couple of genial chaps from New Delhi: Shirshendu Banerjee and Arvinder Singh. These men don't even own motorbikes but are very eager to talk to people who do.

Look at their faces, they clearly love what they do.

The moment that set Isis, Shirshendu and Arvinder apart from the other great pitches was the second they made eye contact with the rest of us. They owned the platform. They weren't perfect, they were powerful and plausible. They were able to evince (yes that is a word) our interest and I know that their final documentaries will be stupendous.

The Radio and Audio Funding Award is awarded annually to an emerging storyteller from anywhere in the world with the most promising pitch for an audio documentary which meets the core criteria. They'll be looking for entries again in 2019, why not have a go?