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It feels cold and autumnal today. But I quess September is just one week away so perhaps we need to adjust and let go of the idea of Summer. Largely it was just an idea.
September 1 is one of my favourite dates in the year. Its the day we set up Athena Media back in 2003. So its our 8th birthday. Which seems mad. We don’t feel that old. My nephew Adam turns 8 in a few months and he said 8 is different - 8 is grown up. So I quess we must be grown up as a company. We’re still small and perfectly formed. But its good to know that on this September 1 we’ll be filming with one of our favourite people - Mark Pollock, the adventurer and motivational speaker, who is in rehab after a major spinal injury one year ago. Mark inspires us because he refuses to be limited by his physical life. Its tough, frustrating and hard but he sees more than most of us who still have working eyes. And I am sure that he will out-reach most of us despite his broken back and wheelchair. Life is about what we do with the cards we are dealt not about the ones we don’t get. Its how we face the day which counts.

Athena Media is now happily living in Adelaide Chambers and exploring the delights of Camden St cafes. We’re in the midst of several big radio projects including wrapping up our documentary on Fighting Words which is called ‘Word of Mouth’ about the creative writing centre in Dublin started by Roddy Doyle. It goes out on RTE Lyric fm later this year and 2011 has been a good year for our connection with RTE Lyric fm as our 26 part music series High Fidelity is reaching its endgame. We’ve recorded and edited 20 episodes and next Monday night showcases episode 16 a Jack L special on movie composers. Its been wonderful fun working with Jack and Julie Feeney and a great focus for our work. We’re also in the midst of a big series on the fall of the Soviet Union called Death of an Empire which is being presented by Seamus Martin, the ex Irish Times correspondent in Moscow. Seamus and producer Laura Haydon have been recording in Moscow this month and we’ll continue with more recordings in Dublin and beyond in the coming months. The series goes out over Christmas/New Year on RTE radio 1 so we’ll keep you posted about transmission times and dates when we get them.
Our other big radio baby is called ‘Made in Ireland’ with Ella McSweeney and that is a 13 part series for RTE Radio 1 which starts in October and goes into the Today with PK Show. We’ll also be re-editing the content for RTE Choice, the digital radio channel so you’re bound to be able to hear some of it.
Other radio projects in the pipeline include a series for BBC Radio 4 which we’re currently in development on and which will be very exciting if it happens. We’ll let you know.
Our training workshops continue with the new twitter half day workshop ‘twitter business’ and we’re also running our social media workshop - call Lisa and Niall for bookings and details on 01 4883350.
But back to September 1 - our shoot with Mark is for a new Capital D feature for RTE TV which goes out in mid September and focuses on Mark’s rehabilitation training as he works to re-build his independent life again post the accident. Our videographer Barry MacNeill will once again be behind the camera and edit desk .Barry was behind our recent ‘Drimnagh is Good’ feature and he is also editing our Belmayne documentary and just did a beautiful short introduction to the piece. You can check out our work on vimeo www.vimeo.com/athenamedia.
So we’ll be celebrating on our eight birthday with a great story - which is how we like to do things anyway. Inspiring stories told well. What more could a birthday bring?