The Song For The Year

Colin started presenting in Ireland on RTE’s JMTV, then the critically acclaimed shows PLASTIC ORANGE and THE END before moving to London in 1997 to present for TCC/Trouble. A regular contributor to BBC FIVE Live’s late nights, he is currently the cuddly voice of cbeebies on BBC1/BBC2, and the acerbic tongue on UKTVg2 before that. He has also presented for SkyOne, Channel Five, ChallengeTV, and far too many things cheap and digital.

Colin’s writing and directing have won recognition from the Young Irish Writers, Poetry Ireland, and the Dublin Writers’ Workshop. His first short film ‘BEACH’ was awarded in the Best Film category at Trinity College Film Festival. He has also directed a few low budget pop videos but nothing to write home about…so he hasn’t! 

COLIN WRITES… 

THE SONG FOR THE YEAR was made from my Greenwich back bedroom. Self-financing a documentary of such scope, on this subject, would normally have cost at least four times as much, rendering it impossible to undertake. By 2004 digital equipment had got far better and cheaper, and new light-weight cameras (with powerful desktop editing) offered a freedom that just a couple of years earlier was unthinkable. It now seemed practical to tell stories that would not have been viable before, allowing an intimate highly authored style of filmmaking with one person working entirely alone on material with presumed niche appeal. When Pierce told me of his plan to tour the parlours of Ireland I thought it was the perfect subject to be shot this way.  

THE SONG FOR THE YEAR is finally finished. I ended up learning to use more software than anyone with a social life or interest in the opposite sex should ever know! Only the final sound mix wasn’t done in my back bedroom - everything else down to the DVD covers, and now this website was. Guitarist Kevin Armstrong saved the sound. Kevin, who has toured and written with Iggy Pop, Morrissey, Bowie and a host of others, allowed me into his studio for a week where he mastered the sound as if it were an album.

I am very proud of the film. It has been a pleasure to know and watch Pierce Turner ploughing his independent furrow with steely determination for many years. It makes it easier for others that he is out on the fringes creating music and life, and I am very grateful for the chance he gave me to record this remarkable year. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed living it. 

Colin.

PS. Please buy a copy for all your friends…it’s the only way I’ll get any money back.