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Friday, it emerged that the permission given by the Rowan’s Hospice people to film at their event on Saturday was being withdrawn over a clerical error in their chain of command.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.

We had two major areas to discuss this week. One was the continuing of the planning for the November 23 edition of CCi Live. The other was about choosing a Producer, and beginning to pitch ideas for, our “Commissioned Show”. This a separate show from CCi Live we are making later in the year, based on our own format and ideas. It requires a 20-minute pilot early in 2013, before producing a final 30-minute version for the Faculty’s end of year show.

The producer had to be someone who we could rely on to be around and available for the show at pretty much all times. It also can’t be either myself or Jodie Redwood, as I will be busy producing our third CCi Live which, while shorter than the others (At only 10 minutes), nonetheless airs the same day as the commissioned show pilot in January.

We decided Alex Hull, who had essentially taken up a third-in-command position on CCi Live and our TVTRANS outside broadcast (I am first and second in Command for these respectively, Jodie is the inverse) would be the best choice, and began pitching ideas for a format. My favourite idea for a format is a talk show, but I would want to present such a show, so that is something we’d have to consider later.

Other ideas we are floating include some kind of cooking show, or a talent competition of some sort. With the more pressing issue of producing the upcoming CCi Live episode, we decided t come back to the format question for the commissioned show later.

We decided to abandon the idea of theming the whole episode around charities, for much the same reason I had been concerned about the idea in the first place. We were having difficulty getting in touch withe enough suitable charities, so I opted instead to green light the show choir insert and keep up the efforts to arrange the charity inserts with those we had managed to contact in the meantime, but also opened the floor to suggestions for replacements.

In terms of the charity inserts we are carrying forward, we have contact with Rowan’s Hospice to film a dancing event they are arranging and the Student Union has cleared us to film events involved in their RAG Week initiative.

We considered an insert relating to the switch on of Christmas Lights in the city, which falls relatively in line with the timing of the episode. It’s unlikely we’ll carry this insert forward though as it sounds like there may be a clash with another group’s episode.

In our first meeting on Thursday, we began to plan the basics of how we’re going to put our first episode of CCi Live together. I was nominated to be the producer, so I set about organising our various ideas for content. One of the first ideas we had was to look at the open days around the Faculty of Creative & Cultural Industries, but since we don’t yet know when these would be taking place, we shelved the idea for the time being.

Since I know some Students from other Schools & course within the faculty, I suggested a showcase of work from photography or architecture Students (For example). We agreed this would be one of our inserts since it would appeal to a relatively broad section of the CCi Channel audience and I volunteered to get in touch with my contacts to see if the had anything they’d be interested in showcasing.

Our other insert idea is to interview Mark Sexton, the leader of a new course at the Faculty – BSc (Hons) Computing & Digital Sound -about the course, as a way of promoting it and introducing it to the rest of the Faculty’s students.

I also requested to be one of the show’s two presenters as I have experience presenting and am aiming to develop in this role, since it is my chosen career path. I am also presenting on the CCi Live immediately before ours, airing on the 5th of October.