I turned up at Skyfire at about 6.30pm and met with the Red Frog crew who were well underway with setting up a water station and playing some card games with the teens. It turned out that I actually knew a lot of the Red Frogs from primary school, including James the co-ordinator who I was going to interview.
This was good news as it meant I was able to relax and didn't stress about the interview but not so good because I think I got too casual with the questions when it became time to interview him. I had planned on just interviewing James and then leaving before the fireworks, but he was really busy getting things organised and didn't have enough time to chat until after the fireworks had finished.
So I hung about and watched the fireworks and the Red Frogs do their thing, chatting to some of them while they were having a break and getting the background story on how the organisation started and why the individuals decided to volunteer their time. This was good because it made me understand their goals for the evening and gave me a larger picture of Red Frogs initiative.
Finally James had a few minutes spare so I interviewed him, but we couldn't get a quiet place to sit so the recording has lots of distracting background noise. In hindsight it would have been better to interview him the next day after Skyfire where the quality of the sound would have been much better. He was also distracted by everything going on around him and kept turning his head away from the microphone so his voice is much quieter than mine on the recording. I have learnt a valuable lesson to adjust the level to the talent, and not just my own voice.
As I mentioned previously, I think the interview turned into more of a conversation between friends rather than a newsworthy interview, and his answers were un-expectantly long and before I knew it the recorder was ticking past 4 minutes before I felt I really got into the interview.
I approached some Police on duty, introduced myself and asked if I could ask them a few questions, but they said no because they didn't have authorisation to talk to journalists and suggested I talk to their Media Unit instead. They did say "off the record" that there had been a few underage kids sent home but that the final figures would be released to the media later that night. The Canberra Times reported on Sunday that 24 teens were taken into custody but no serious charges were laid.
I also talked a group of drunk teens, but none of them wanted to be recorded- they just wanted to steal my equipment. Classy bunch of kids.
Editing the story has been quite simple, just topped and tailed and edited out some irrelevant information about almost being hit in the head with a beach ball towards the end of the interview.
This assignment was much tougher than expected, definitely a very steep learning curve, but I have come away with new respect for radio journalists that have to do those sorts of interviews every day.
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