Australians at War

A heritage site for the Department of Veterans Affairs through Beyond On-Line. SWU supplied Concepts, Research, Scripts/Text & Audio.

This project required our input an early stage. We were asked to come up with a wish-list of interactive devices and games, which were forwarded to the client for approval. Part of our contract was also to work through documents uncovered by The Great Search and write them up into a web friendly format. SWU also wrote voice over and supervised the recording session for diary entries, poems and remembrances.

Throughout the build, each stage required comment and sign off from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Australian War Memorial. The result is a heritage site that is still referred to as an important source for information on the major wars and peacekeeping operations involving Australian servicemen and women.

www.australiansatwar.gov.au

TheRadio.com.au

The radio portal for Macquarie Regional Radio Network - a site providing a web presence for over 90 radio stations. SWU supplied the Senior Content manager and a writer for the pre-launch phase and the Content Manager/Webmaster role after the launch until November '08.

We started by contacting each station and finding out the sort of material they had on hand. This varied from some stations that already had websites that required a content migration strategy, while others had a web site that was moribund or outdated, to some that didn’t have a web presence. The challenge was to ensure all stations had a uniform standard, within a 90 day turn around. This content gather/creation task took place in parallel to the development of a content management system (Ignition Suite by BlueArc). The result was a launch of all sites nationally within the specified time frame.

After launch, SWU was also asked to provide day to day responsibilities for site maintenance. This included liaison with technical and art departments, creation and implementation of national promotions, administering passwords and supervising access, uploading audio and video, strategic placement of advertising, the creation of mini-sites, sourcing third party content, help desk, local station updates and the effective training of remote network.

In 2008, the ACE Radio Network migrated their 13 Victorian station websites into the portal. The operation took 6 weeks from brief to launch, with no outgoing costs for MRW. This included a week of on-site content “extraction” and a week’s worth of face to face training at individual stations. A great result.

www.theradio.com.au

Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

As a consultancy, we pride ourselves on the ability to take technical and often complicated concepts and explain them in an everyday way. This debunking applies to corporate speak and jargon as well.

To make technical subject matter easy to understand we work from the position, “what is the writer trying to say and who are are we talking to?” From there we may rework the piece or use examples, metaphor and allegory to provide clarity and illumination.

These are the core competencies that our client, the Powerhouse Museum asks us to demonstrate. For over 15 years we have been the 'babel' fish between various curators and the public for many installations at the Power House, Observatory and Mint Museums.

As well as writing and editing scripts, SWU supervises the audio production.

Some of the many exhibits for the Powerhouse SWU has worked on include:-

• Greenhouse Gas Animation (2008)
• Ice Core and Ask An Isotope (2008)
• EcoLogic (featuring Eco Town, BigFoot, Endangered Species, Sustainable House & Biodiversity) (2001->)
• Sport, More Than Heroes and Legends (2003)
• 1000 Years of the Olympic Games, treasures of ancient Greece (featuring Zeus, Coins) (2000)
• Cyberworlds (featuring Cypher/Decypher, Babbage and Ada Lovelace, Convergence, Multiple Interfaces, The Wedge) (1999->)
• Vectra Engine (1998)

Basic Radio Skills (AFTRS)

After fighting for recognition and having the word 'Radio' included in the school's official title, the Radio Department continued to make it's presence felt in the early 90s with a series of 8 training and background videos covering key 'on-air' areas.

• The Radio Studio
• Edit, Cut & Dub
• Announcing & Presentation
• The Radio Interview
• Radio News
• Talking Back (Radio Talkback)
• Radio Writing (Parts 1 & 2)
• Copyright for Radio

With a radio background and first hand experience in many of the areas covered, as well as radio and audio visual writing experience, we were in a unique position to translate often arcane concepts and techniques to the screen. Thanks to the required learning outcomes supplied by radio professionals in the department and the industry along with the expertise of the team under Jason Wheatley in the AFTRS Video Training department, nearly 3 hours of material was produced.

While some of the technical aspects have been overtaken by digital equipment since the production of these programs, the basic concepts are still sound, (in both senses of the word).

In 1992, the series picked up a gong at the ASET Awards (AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY for EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY) First Prize, Category 2.

A truncated version of the original edited preview is available here.

The Frequency Debates: Nibblos (Radio Marketing Bureau)

Hypotheticals can be a bit hit and miss affair. This was tightly scripted and rehearsed. After lunch and three full takes, to keep things fresh for the panelists, the autocue was changed, and a surprise ending added.

All the responses are therefore real and the result was a vehicle that showed off the best attributes of radio and defined it as a viable and credible advertising medium.

Client: Radio Marketing Producer
Production Company: Black Max
Executive Producer: Ray Heckendorf
Writer: Tony Peterson
Thanks to Bob Logie and Tom Crozier

Check out an edited sample of the program

Pacific Power: Do The Write Thing

Plain English is a bit of a Step Write Up hobby horse. People who start talking in jargon immediately make our bullshit detectors oscillate. Double talk is also an impediment to more efficient, leaner organisations and departments.

This generic video made for Pacific Power features actor Henri Szeps and an at the time up and coming stand up comic named Peter Burner.

Do we hate jargon and clichés at Step Write Up? We hate clichés like the plague.

Check out an edited version of the program