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Its been an amazing month of sport and I was lucky enough to be in the ExCel stadium for Katie Taylor’s gold winning bout. It was heart-stopping. We made a TV documentary with Katie Taylor some years ago and got to know her quite well so it was particularly moving to see her finally reach her life-long ambition. I am back in the Olympic Stadium in early Sept, Sept 7th, for the Paralympic Games and this time to see Derry sprinter Jason Smyth compete in the final of the 200m. He is the second fastest man in Ireland - just a flicker behind Paul Hession who represented Ireland in the Olympic Games and Jason does it with under 10% vision. He is a stunning athlete and we’ve got to know him because of our latest TV documentary Beyond Limits which goes out on Setanta Ireland, starting August 27th and runs across the period of the Paralympic Games. Beyond Limits is presented by Mark Pollock and tells the stories of seven of the elite athletes representing Ireland in the Paralympic Games in London. Jason is just one of those inspiring characters and we’ve created a vimeo promo channel www.vimeo.com/channels/beyondlimits
Sport has dominated our Summer with our winning women series on the women athletes at London 2012 which we created for Newstalk breakfast and we’ve a new full hour documentary wrapping up that story going up in late September. Its been really interesting to meet the returned Olympians and get an inside story on what happened and how they experienced London 2012. Everyone we’ve talked to has made the point that Sonia did a truly superb job in building a team spirit and providing the athletes with real support. There’s a Presidential ceremony for the athletes and Sonia O Sullivan in September and it certainly provides the opportunity to get the home welcome right this time.
While Sport made our Summer as we move into September and Autumn we’ve got some new obsessions including a big history series Lockout 1913 for RTE radio1 for the 100th anniversary next year. Its this time of year August 26th which marked the beginning of the Lockout so we expect our history series to be on air for the anniversary year and we are already recording and collecting audio content. History has become part of our bag (with sports and art) since our New York winning ‘Death of an Empire’ series earlier this year and we hope to do more in this genre in the coming period. Besides history we’ve a big arts and music project starting which will dominate September. Its Wide Open Opera and the story of Ireland’s newest opera company and its first production Tristan & Isolde at the Grand Canal Theatre at the end of September. Its for RTE Lyric fm and Wide Open Opera, like Lockout, Beyond Limits and Winning Women have all been supported by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland Sound & Vision Scheme. Increasingly the fund is one of the biggest supports to documentary-makers like us and without it a lot of amazing content and stories would not be told. This year our direct RTE Radio commissions included Death of an Empire and the Media Show but sadly we’ve yet to get a second series with the Media Show although there is talk of a return to it by next Spring. RTE like all major broadcasters is facing significant funding issues and getting commissions for documentary and factual content is a tough business.

Our Summer has been dominated by sports and outstanding Irish people. We’ve been producing the radio feature series Winning Women on the Irish women athletes in the Olympics for Newstalk and we’re just about close the long edit on our TV documentary “Beyond Limits’ on the elite athletes heading to the Paralympic Games at London 2012. One of the really delights of our work is being able to move from one genre of story-telling to another. This year we’ve made the award winning history series for RTE Radio ‘Death of an Empire’ as well as the current affairs “Media Show’ and we’re now working on a radio documentary on Ireland’s newest opera company Wide Open Opera. It certainly keeps our minds busy getting to know and understand such diverse topics and subjects. Winning Women gave us the pleasure of meeting women like American Tori Pena who is Ireland’s first woman pole vaulter. Tori comes from Irish-Mexican descent and get to represent Ireland because her granny is from Ireland. We met at Morton Stadium in early July when she defended her national title and she’s someone Irish audiences will love getting to know and to watch during the Olympic Games. We were also also filming that day with sprinter Jason Smyth, who has less than 10% vision and is double gold medallist in the last Paralympic Games. Jason was trying at that Morton athletics competition to become the first Irish athlete to compete in both the Olympics and Paralympics. Sadly he narrowly missed the qualification time and came second to Paul Hession the Irish sprinter who will represent Ireland in the Olympics. Jason, who comes from Co Derry, is a stunning athlete. One of the fastest men in the world and second only to Paul in Ireland’s history as as a sprinter.
Beyond Limits has been an incredible journey. Its a documentary for Setanta Ireland supported, like Winning Women, by the BAI Sound & Vision Scheme, and goes out August 27th just days before the games start. It features world champion hand cyclist Mark Rohan, tandem cyclist Catherine Walsh, teenager champion swimmer Darragh McDonald, runners Michael McKillop and Jason Smyth as well as equestrian competitor Helen Kearney.
have a look at the promo for the documentary and let us know what you think. We’ll be posting more details in the news columns of our web site as August progresses.