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Whicker’s World Foundation launches inspiring Funding Award at Radio Festival
Whicker’s World Foundation launches
inspiring Funding Award at Radio Festival
- Whicker’s World Foundation launches the Radio & Audio Funding Award (RAFA) at the Radio Festival, the annual celebration of all things audio at the British Library. The festival brings together a full media scope of leading figures from the UK’s audio industry.
- Supporting authored storytelling in the UK, taking us into new or hitherto unseen worlds, RAFA will help fund independent audio documentary makers.
- RAFA Awards are worth a total of £7,000.
- Submissions for this and existing Whicker’s World Foundation Awards 2017 are now being accepted.
Whicker’s World Foundation will today, at the UK’s popular Radio Festival hosted by broadcaster Paddy O’Connell launch a brand-new funding award – the RAFA – to help aspiring independent audio documentary makers. The awards were created to celebrate and encourage excellence in audio documentaries, and have been generously funded by a legacy left by the celebrated journalist Alan Whicker who died in 2013. Whicker wanted to encourage curiosity, stimulate the senses and empower talent which might otherwise never find a place in today’s highly-competitive industry.
The Whicker’s World Foundation, launched in 2015, has already awarded over £100,000.The award prizes consist of £5,000 for the winner and a runner-up prize of £2,000. The winning pitches will offer new and exciting ideas for audio documentaries, meeting Whicker’s World Foundation criteria of: taking us into a new or hitherto unseen worlds; being personal but not partisan; and with an emphasis on strong original storytelling and development of the medium. Applicants need to supply up to six minutes worth of audio in support of their proposals.Deadline for entries is 23rd December 2016, there is no application fee and candidates can apply online. The best five will be invited to pitch at an event in March 2017 and the winners will be announced at next year’s Radio Festival.Whicker’s broadcasting career began in radio and he went on to join Radio 2 in the late 1990s, adding what Jim Moir, the then Controller, described as “Great lustre to my network”. Alan was an avid fan of radio documentary and told the press he wanted to return to it because, unlike TV, it didn’t ‘dumb down’ – radio and ‘assumed an intelligent audience’. Alan Whicker’s passion continues into new generations with awards such as RAFA, created to empower emerging talent.The panel of judges will be looking for imaginative storytelling, either breaking new ground or taking a familiar path in a new and innovative direction. Valerie Kleeman , Whicker’s partner in life and work for over 40 years, said: “Alan was well aware that he had been lucky enough to start working at a time when serious journalism was respected and presenters given the freedom to fashion their own programmes. He and his colleagues were writing the grammar of what was to follow; they were given support and opportunities and often allowed to learn on the job. He was aware that this scenario is not replicated today; money is scarce and commissioners are reluctant to green light without a celebrity name fronting a subject with which they often have little connection. Alan, who felt the best shot of himself was the back of his head, abhorred this trend. He was apolitical; he sought to intrigue and stimulate but not to influence. He strived to uncover the unusual as well as entertain. Above all he was a writer and observer who wrote and filmed what he saw. At the Foundation we seek to use Alan’s legacy to further his vision and to help those with talent to take the first step up a ladder which is increasingly difficult to climb.“
Jane Ray, Consultant Artistic Director for Whicker’s World Foundation said: “I am thrilled that the Radio Festival are partnering this new funding award for audio. I am a passionate believer in the enduring power of the well made, thoughtfully produced audio documentary. The other day we were contacted by someone looking for a series Alan Whicker had made 18 years ago. They knew the title and could describe the pictures vividly – then remembered they’d actually ‘seen’ radio broadcasts. Those who inspire us to listen, I mean really listen, and take us deeper into understanding the notions and motivations that shape our human story need to be nurtured. If this award goes some way to helping talented independent audio producers realise their documentary dreams Alan Whicker’s legacy will be wonderfully well served.”Roger Cutsforth, The Radio Academy Managing Director added: “The Radio Academy is proud to be partnering with Whicker’s World Foundation on this fantastic initiative to encourage and support new talent in audio documentary making. The Radio & Audio Funding Award [RAFA] is a wonderful legacy of the late, great Alan Whicker and his passion for the medium and will be a wonderful addition to the Radio Festival.”
Francesca Panetta, last year’s runner up for ‘The Dhammazedi Bell’ and multimedia special projects editor at The Guardian said: “It’s wonderful to see this new funding award. There is so much talent out there but few avenues for funding creative audio. I’m looking forward to seeing or more appropriately hearing the results.”
Nina Garthwaite, founding director of In the Dark Radio, added: “While the Internet has opened up new platforms for independent audio production, it’s still not always easy for producers to find the funding to do the work they’re passionate about and you need money to have the time to really explore your ideas. So it’s great that the Whicker’s World Foundation Awards want to support radio makers with a strong independent voice and a desire to develop the medium. I’m excited to hear the results!”
Will Jackson, managing Director of the Radio Independents Group commented: “RIG greatly welcomes this new funding award, which gives the next generation of Britain’s audio documentary makers an invaluable opportunity to join the ranks of Britain’s highly successful indie production sector.”
Alan Hall, previous Whicker’s world Foundation audio judge and CEP of Indie Falling Tree said: “It’s exciting to welcome a new funding award that encourages documentary production to go beyond worlds (literal or figurative) known already to us and, in so doing, to develop the unique qualities of a medium now entering a new golden age!”
Whicker’s World Foundation’s pre-existing awards are also opening entries for submissions today.
The Audio Recognition Award
This is moving to The Radio Festival. This is for a documentary, 15 minutes or over, broadcast or published online in the previous year. It was won this summer by Cathy Fitzgerald’s Little Volcanoes. The award is for £5,000 to the winner and £2,000 for the runner-up. The winners will be announced at next year’s Festival.
The Film and TV Funding Award
This is the primary focus of Whicker’s World Foundation. Each year £80,000 will be awarded to a new director with the most promising pitch for an authored documentary which fulfils the core criteria of the Foundation and can be completed for screening with this award. The money will be paid in instalments to the director’s film company, enabling a project which deserves to reach as wide an audience as possible. This year it was won by Alex Bescoby for Burma’s Lost Royals. The closing date for entries is 31st January 2017 and the shortlists will be announced in May 2016. The first winners will be announced by Whicker’s World Foundation at the Sheffield Doc/Fest Award Ceremony, which will take place on the final night of the 2017 festival, 13th June 2017.
The Whicker’s World Sage Award
‘Retirement’ was not a word in Alan’s vocabulary. He was 83 when he wrote and presented Whicker’s War, a much acclaimed account of his army experiences in Italy for Channel 4. He made his last series for BBC Two, Journey of a Lifetime, in his late eighties. The Sage award will recognise a TV or audio professional who has come to air with an authored story for the first time, a prize of £5,000 will be awarded annually to an applicant aged 50 plus. Submissions of no more than 10 minutes; this can be for presentation but must be their own work. A runner-up will receive £2,000. Keith Earnest Hoult won this award for for Fluechtlinge – Refugee. Keith, a fan of Alan Whicker’s ‘gentle approach’ to interviewing, was inspired to create a ten-minute film about Syrians seeking refuge in a disused airport used for the Berlin Airlift. When he witnessed his friend’s wife Caroline trying to help refugees against a growing backlash he ‘felt the urge to film it if only for her family to reflect on later in life’. Keith learnt his film-making skills at the SAE Institute after redundancy and divorce turned his life upside-down. Judges were impressed that he made this entirely self-funded film as ‘a simple tale of ordinary people helping other ordinary people at their time of most desperate need.’
For further details on the awards and entry forms please go to
www.whickersworldfoundation.com
-ENDS
Notes to editors:
For images, media information and interviews please contact:
Siobhan Connor at Connor PR siobhan@connorpr.com + 44 (0) 7966 177025
For Terms and Conditions and award Criteria please go to http://whickersworldfoundation.com/application-forms/
Join the conversation: facebook.com/whickersworldfoundation
https://twitter.com/whickersworld @whickersworld
About Whicker’s World Foundation
On 7 June 2015 Whicker’s World Foundation, whose principle aim is to give a much needed fillip to authored documentary storytelling in the UK, launched three new documentary awards worth over £100,000 for the promotion of curiosity in programme making, generously funded by a legacy left by the celebrated broadcast journalist Alan Whicker. The launch took place in the Sheffield Winter Gardens led by Alex Graham, chair or Doc/Fest, Jane Ray, Artistic Director for the foundation and Kim Longinotto, multi award winning filmmaker. Entries for 2017 Awards opened on September 26th 2016 www.whickersworldfoundation.com
Radio Festival
Radio Festival is an annual event organised by Radio Academy, a registered charity dedicated to the encouragement, recognition and promotion of excellence in UK radio broadcasting and audio production. www.radioacademy.org
Connor PR, Whicker’s World Foundation, Siobhan Connor PR
ALAN WHICKER COLLECTION NOW AVAILBLE TO VIEW AT BFI SOUTHBANK AS PART OF LATEST ACQUISITIONS EXHIBITION
ALAN WHICKER COLLECTION NOW AVAILBLE TO VIEW AT BFI SOUTHBANK AS PART OF LATEST ACQUISITIONS EXHIBITION
Inside Whicker’s World: The life and travels of Alan Whicker
- Alan Whicker collection on view now as part of an exhibition of material from the BFI National Archive’s Special Collections; ‘Latest Acquisitions’ is free to view in the Mezzanine Gallery at BFI Southbank until October 23
- Items on display include Alan Whicker’s passports, a BBC Audience report for Whicker Down Under, interview question cards for Papa Doc: The Black Sheep (1969) and The World of James Bond (1967), photographs, correspondence, and shooting schedules
- Test your knowledge by taking part in a travel quiz made by the Whicker’s World Foundation – https://whickersworldfoundation.com/2016/10/quiz-how-well-do-you-know-whickers-world/
- Submissions for Whicker’s World Foundation Awards 2017 are now being accepted
As well as caring for one of the world’s richest and most significant moving image collections, the BFI National Archive also holds world-class Special Collections of scripts, posters, designs, photographs and other documents, including the archives of some of Britain’s most important film and programme makers. This exhibition presents highlights from some of our exciting recent acquisitions including the papers of Oscar-winning costume designer Jenny Beavan, television journalist and documentary-maker Alan Whicker, and S John Woods, the man behind many of the best-loved Ealing Studios posters. The exhibition is open now and free to view until October 23rd 2016 at BFI Southbank, Mezzanine Gallery, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XT.
The BFI National Archive is now home to the archives of pioneering investigative TV journalist, Alan Whicker, donated by Valerie Kleeman, Whicker’s World Foundation. The collection contains meticulous records of one of the most enduring and influential careers in British television history, spanning the late 1950s into the 21st century.
This is an extensive and significant donation covering the entire career of a world-renowned broadcaster, and represents a unique insight into the production methods of a master documentarian. Alan Whicker’s name is a by-word for brilliantly crafted and revealing studies of people and places, whether exploring behind the scenes of the Miss World competition, interviewing Papa Doc in Haiti, or exposing the lifestyles of the hippies of San Francisco, with an enquiring mind and a sceptical tone. This unlikely figure, clad in Gucci tie and blazer, found his way into the nation’s hearts as he went where his audience was unlikely to follow.
The meticulously kept Alan Whicker archive spans the years 1938-2014. It includes a school report from 1938, documents relating to his war career and letters, photographs, extensive production files, audience reports, interview notes and questions (including Whicker’s hand-annotated question cards) and transcripts of every TV programme he made, along with some, as yet, unidentified films. The archive gives an insider’s view of some of the key events, social trends and personalities of the 20th century, while fully documenting the changing world of television reportage across more than five decades.
Around Whicker’s World in 13 Guesses
Test your knowledge of Alan Whicker’s Life and Work by taking part in our quiz
https://whickersworldfoundation.com/2016/10/quiz-how-well-do-you-know-whickers-world/
Submissions for Whicker’s World Foundation Awards 2017 are now being accepted
The Funding Award
This is the primary focus of Whicker’s World Foundation. Each year £80,000 will be awarded to a new director with the most promising pitch for an authored documentary which fulfils the core criteria of the Foundation and can be completed for screening with this award. The money will be paid in instalments to the director’s film company, enabling a project which deserves to reach as wide an audience as possible. This year it was won by Alex Bescoby for Burma’s Lost Royals. The closing date for entries is 31st January 2017 and the shortlists will be announced in May 2016. Entrants must be aged 35 years or younger on the closing date for applications. The first winners will be announced by Whicker’s World Foundation at the Sheffield Doc/Fest Award Ceremony, which will take place on the final night of the 2017 festival, 13th June 2017.
The Whicker’s World Radio and Audio Funding Award (RAFA)
For 2017 we are introducing a new Funding Award for Radio and Audio documentary projects in association with the Radio Academy. This is for a documentary, 15 minutes or over, broadcast or published online in the previous year. The Whicker’s World Radio and Audio Funding Award (RAFA) has a £5,000 first prize and £2,000 runner up award. The deadline for this award is the 23rd of December, with the best pitch being announced at a special event in March 2017.
The Recognition Awards
In addition to our funding awards there are two further annual prizes to recognise completed work: the ‘Audio Award’ and the ‘Sage Award’, the latter of which is for the finest industry newcomer over the age of fifty.
Alan worked in radio before TV and was snapped up by Radio 2 in the late 1990s, adding what Jim Moir, the Controller from 1996 to 2003, described as “great lustre to my network”. Initially Alan’s radio programmes revolved around re-visiting his most memorable encounters from Whicker’s World: from the ‘Ten Pound Poms’ to Margaret Rutherford’s transsexual adoptee who ‘gave birth’ to a mixed-race daughter in South Carolina. He went on to create a radio history of television called It’ll Never Last.
Whicker’s World Foundation will award an annual £5,000 prize for the best audio project of over 15 minutes in length, broadcast in the last year. A runner-up will receive £2,000.
The Whicker’s World Sage Award
‘Retirement’ was not a word in Alan’s vocabulary. He was 83 when he wrote and presented Whicker’s War, a much acclaimed account of his army experiences in Italy for Channel 4. He made his last series for BBC Two, Journey of a Lifetime, in his late eighties. The Sage award will recognise a TV or audio professional who has come to air with an authored story for the first time, a prize of £5,000 will be awarded annually to an applicant aged 50 plus. Submissions of no more than 10 minutes; this can be for presentation but must be their own work. A runner-up will receive £2,000. Keith Earnest Hoult won this award for for Fluechtlinge – Refugee. Keith, a fan of Alan Whicker’s ‘gentle approach’ to interviewing, was inspired to create a ten-minute film about Syrians seeking refuge in a disused airport used for the Berlin Airlift. When he witnessed his friend’s wife Caroline trying to help refugees against a growing backlash he ‘felt the urge to film it if only for her family to reflect on later in life’. Keith learnt his film-making skills at the SAE Institute after redundancy and divorce turned his life upside-down. Judges were impressed that he made this entirely self-funded film as ‘a simple tale of ordinary people helping other ordinary people at their time of most desperate need.’
For further details on the awards and entry forms please go to
www.whickersworldfoundation.com
-ENDS
Notes to editors:
For images, media information and interviews please contact:
Siobhan Connor at Connor PR siobhan@connorpr.com + 44 (0) 7966 177025
For Terms and Conditions and award Criteria please go to http://whickersworldfoundation.com/application-forms/
Join the conversation: facebook.com/whickersworldfoundation
https://twitter.com/whickersworld @whickersworld
About Whicker’s World Foundation
On 7 June 2015 Whicker’s World Foundation, whose principle aim is to give a much needed fillip to authored documentary storytelling in the UK, launched three new documentary awards worth over £100,000 for the promotion of curiosity in programme making, generously funded by a legacy left by the celebrated broadcast journalist Alan Whicker. The launch took place in the Sheffield Winter Gardens led by Alex Graham, chair or Doc/Fest, Jane Ray, Artistic Director for the foundation and Kim Longinotto, multi award winning filmmaker. Entries for 2017 Awards opened on September 26th 2016 www.whickersworldfoundation.com
PUSSIES GALORE: THE WOMAN WITH A THOUSAND CATS
PUSSIES GALORE: THE WOMAN WITH A THOUSAND CATS
Friday 18th September, 8:00pm – 9.00pm
Channel 5
There are over 9 millions cats in our UK homes, with most owners living with a single feline friend, however for someone just isn’t enough. In this extraordinary one hour programme we meet some of the most fanatical kitty lovers who have taken their love one step further. We meet a woman who can’t stop taking local strays in, a man with a cat tattoo obsession, we get an insight into the world of cat competitions and we visit a unique establishment that allows you to enjoy your food whilst stroking a pussy.
Lynea Lattanzio is the embodiment of a crazy cat lady, she has over 1000 cats on her premises and is still unable to say no to more. What started off as company for the divorced retiree, has now spiralled into taking over her whole existence.
Lynea was refused a cat as a child and has been working hard since, making up for lost time. We visit her Californian home and see her surrounded by her furry family, witnessing just how she manages to keep things ticking. With a thousand cats on the property is it all getting too much for Lynea or will she always be thinking of the many more roaming the streets?
From Crazy Cat Lady to Crazy Cat Man, we meet pussy magnet Andy Richards who has spent the last 20 years of his life dedicating his time to helping cats. Andy, the manager of the East Lancashire Cats charity store and owner of 18 of his own, has now racked up 40 cat related tattoos! We join Andy as he embarks upon his latest design, as he goes under the needle for two more tatts. Will Andy’s cat inking obsession come to an end or will he run out of space first?
Later in the episode we meet up with some UK based cat crazies as we discover the world of the Cat Competition. We follow Sue Miller from Devon, a self admitted cat obsessive, who is taking seven of her eighteen cats to the West of England and South Wales Cat Society Show in hope of adding to her vast collection of ribbons and rosettes. We see the preparation, the judging and the results and find out just how much her little superstars winning means to her. Will the pressures of the competition get too much for Sue or will see come away with more accolades?
In the final instalment of the hour we enter a unique establishment that allows people to eat their lunch and drink a coffee surrounded by their favourite feline. We meet Katie Jane Glazier who has opened up Newcastle’s first of its kind, the Cat Café called Mog on the Tyne! In a café influenced by its phenomenon success in Japan, you can now eat your lunch at the same time as stroking a pussy. Will Katie’s unique business venture be a roaring success or will it be doomed to failure?
-Ends-
Connor PR specialist in TV programme promotion, Connor PR working with Channel 5, Connor PR expert in entertainment PR
Connor PR working with Middlechild Productions on a TV exclusive – Hercules The Human Bear, Channel Five
HERCULES THE HUMAN BEAR
“Human beings differ to animals only in degree and not in kind”
Charles Darwin, Descent of Man
TX: Channel 5, Thursday April 3rd, 9pm, 2014
Produced by Middlechild Productions
Hercules the Human Bear tells the amazing story of Andy and Maggie Robin and their relationship with a grizzly bear that became the most famous animal in the world. A bear that was bought as a cub from a Scottish zoo for £50 in 1976 and lived in Andy and Maggie’s home for 25 years. Hercules grew to be a superstar on the celebrity circuit and through the love and devotion of Andy and Maggie, in their eyes, became human.
In 1976 Andy and Maggie bought a grizzly bear cub from a local zoo, initially to fulfil Andy’s need for a unique wrestling partner. Little did they know at the time that Hercules, the tiny bear cub, would become the worlds’ most famous bear and make them a fortune in the process.
Hercules the Human Bear focuses on the unique relationship that Andy, Maggie and Hercules forged during their 25 years together. With interviews from Andy and Maggie as well as all the key contributors to their story, the documentary reveals the unique story of how Andy and Maggie managed to live under the same roof as the world’s most dangerous land mammal.
Extraordinary archive film footage reveals Hercules adapting to his new surroundings at the Sheriffmuir Inn and learning to wrestle with Andy, without killing him in the process, to the heart stopping moment he went missing in the Outer Hebrides where the hunt for Hercules turned into National and International news. We see how Hercules begins his road to stardom in adverts for products such as Kleenex and Hofmeister Beer, to how his fame got greater and greater to star in films such as James Bond’s Octopussy, making the front cover of Time magazine and even how he caddied for Bob Hope at a golf tournament. Concluding with a trip to the Outer Hebrides where a life-sized statue of Hercules is unveiled and hearing how Hercules touched the lives of many.
World Champion wrestler, Andy Robin, had performed a wrestling bout in Canada with a feared local wrestler – an 8ft black bear called Terrible Ted. The sheer power and strength of the animal shocked and amazed Andy and he began to admire Ted’s natural wrestling ability. The fight lasted only 20 minutes but Andy was hooked. He wanted a bear of his own no matter what the cost.
Combining the testimony of all the key participants, newly-discovered archival film and dramatic imagery, this is the picaresque story of one grizzly bear’s extraordinary journey through human life and the enduring impact he made on the characters he met along the way.
The anthropomorphism (attribution of human characteristics to anything other than a human being) of animals is centuries old and bears in particular have taken on a unique status in our hearts – from Winnie the Poo, Rupert, Yogi and Paddington Bear in children’s fiction to the use of real bears in television series such as Gentle Ben.
Hercules’ story was the ultimate nature versus nurture tale. With no formal animal training, Andy and Maggie Robin allowed a 9-foot 70-stone grizzly bear to share every inch of their lives, from the house they owned to the food they ate. If the experiment were successful they would go on the most amazing fairy tale of a journey, but if it went wrong, like so many times before and since, they would most probably end up dead, mauled to death by the most deadly land carnivore in the world.
The story of wild nature bending to human kindness and understanding, is a genre whose popularity reflects a yearning for an idealised relationship with nature – one that, even having outgrown the fantasies of childhood, we find it hard to shake off.
Hercules The Human Bear is the embodiment of this call of nature. It’s a unique success story where many have failed; it could well be the ultimate example of nurture overcoming nature.
David Sumnall, Director said: “This is a once in a lifetime story. Sharing your life with a Grizzly Bear like Andy and Maggie did will never be done again. They managed to form a completely unique bond with a very special bear. This was largely thanks to Hercules and Maggies’ incredible nature and the fact that Andy was as much a bear as Hercules was human! For anyone who loves their pets, and thinks they might have some ‘human’ in them – this is a must watch.”
-Ends-
Media Enquiries
For all media enquiries, please contact Siobhan at Connor PR. siobhan@connorpr.com Tel 07966 177025
Andy and Maggie Robin are available for interview.
Preview discs are available on request.
Notes to editors:
Middlechild Productions is a genuinely independent production company based in London. We specialise in ambitious, factual programmes produced with passion and to the highest standard.
Creative Director – David Sumnall
David set up Middlechild in 2008 with the help of a development deal from Channel 4’s factual and documentary departments. Prior to setting up Middlechild, David developed, directed and produced a variety of programmes for all the major broadcasters including Jonny’s Hotshot’s for BBC1; Engineering Giants for BBC2; Animal Addicts for Channel Four; Victoria Cross Heroes for Five and Football Years for Sky One.
David also recently co-produced the feature film Cleanskin starring Sean Bean for Warner Brothers.
Director of Production – Paul Goodliffe
Paul Goodliffe has over 20 years in Television Production management . He has been Director of Production for Sky Entertainment overseeing SKY’s production teams and outside contractors to manage their multi-million pound production outlay across a variety of formats. In addition, he has also held senior managerial positions at Virgin Media and Channel Five.
Connor PR and Hercules the Human Bear, Connor PR working with Middlechild Productions, Connor PR expert in TV publicity, Media and entertainment specialist Connor PR