If you are in Norway you might have heard about the 60 hour continuous hymn book sing through coming on NRK2 at the end of November. If you are outside of Norway it may come as something of a surprise.
The event is bringing hundreds of choirs and thousands of people from all over Norway and indeed some folk from abroad. One of those will be Tim Prevett, a Masters Degree student from The University of Salford near Manchester studying documentary production. Tim is researching and filming for a documentary about Norwegian Slow TV.
“Last year I was thinking that there had to be a different way of doing a TV documentary, some other way to give a different experience for the viewer. Then I heard of what NRK had been doing since 2009 with what we now call Slow TV, or Sakte TV as the Norwegian word of the year for 2013 would have it.”
“The hymn book project is the latest incarnation of a documentary style which has come to be called Slow TV. It started out with a 7 hour train journey from Bergen to Oslo in 2009 with a number of other projects which have included live knitting, a fire and a five and half day continuous televised boat trip along Norway's coast. This 'Sakte TV' allows televised events to unfold at the pace in which they happen. No speeding up, cutting out or slowing down.”
“As I’ve learnt more about it the more I have felt this is a format of TV which can add something very different, something very positive into the mix of what we receive from our broadcasters. Having filmed in Oslo and Bergen in August my attention now turns to Trondheim.”
Tim will be filming behind the scenes at “Salmeboka Minutt for Minutt”; he adds, “I’ll be recording content for my film and interviewing participants and public in English. This is a one off opportunity and I am so grateful to share in this as part of my studies. Not only have I learnt so much about this area of media but about Norway. I will be back!”
Tim’s film will be completed early next year, and in the meantime he is blogging about Slow TV at www.slowtelevision.blogspot.
Slow Television -The Slow TV Blog
Cool stuff.
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