This week, we began to finalise plans to film for the inserts in earnest. We had agreements in place for inserts on Rowan’s Hospice, The University Show Choir, the RAG Week Man vs. Food Challenge and possibly the RAG Week Bush Tucker Challenge.

We had a shoot planned for the Rowan’s Hospice Insert on Saturday, with the Man Vs. Food and Show Choir inserts taping this Monday evening. However, on Friday, it emerged that the permission given by the Rowan’s Hospice people to film at their event on Saturday was being withdrawn over a clerical error in their chain of command. As a result, we took the decision to explore the possibility of producing another showcase insert like the photography and music insert we used in our first episode, in case we needed to fill a whole due to force-majeure.

With some idea of what the show is going to feature coming together, I made a start on the script for the show today. Since some of the inserts are subject to change, I stuck mainly to writing the introduction and outlining a rouge structure for the show – the arrangement of the various inserts and other elements overall. This actually brings up an interesting point.

In our first episode, I placed the regular CCi News Segment in the middle, the idea being to use it to break the show up a bit. A while after our show aired, I became aware of a mandate to place the News at the front of the show going forward, which presents an interesting challenge in preventing the show from becoming a procession of inserts. Because of this change, the need to feature the presenters talking about things between times is increased, essentially, as this is the best way to break up the show with the elements left after moving the news up.

Another new element to consider is the new mandatory “Something Different” segment, a segment created by another group using a bespoke sting to identify it, which uses the relatively nebulous theme of showcasing things which are a little off the beaten path. From seeing it in episodes airing it so far, it seems to me as if it generally comes towards the end of the show, usually as the final segment before the wrap up.

The format of this second episode will consequently see the inserts forming the filling of a sort of sandwich between the two mandatory elements. This is actually pretty helpful, as it makes not using the news in the middle slightly less problematic for me from a structural standpoint, giving the show the clear bookends I would prefer it to have.