Radio 3 presenters in focus

I've spent the best part of the last few weeks with director Paul Lucas making a series of short video profiles featuring Radio 3 presenters. Most of these we're publishing on the website this week.

To misquote Iain Burnside speaking in his video profile about presenting classical music: 'One of the things about making videos of radio presenters is that it's not all easy.'

One characteristic I soon encountered on this project is the reluctance of typical Radio 3 presenters to talk about themselves. Reasonably, one or two made the point that they had not gone into radio to be on video.

The intimacy presenters can engineer on the radio between themselves and listeners is often a highly valued aspect of the job. The anecdotes and passion started to flow when I explained that this project would offer some insight for our audience into the human being behind the radio dial.

Each of us is a rag-bag of our history (most of it chaotic), aspects of which have catalysed our beliefs and passions and may have sent us on surprising trajectories through life. The Radio 3 presenters I worked with on these videos exhibit these facets richly. We challenged a handful of our station's talented yet unassuming presenters to share with us something personal. I hope with these videos we've done justice to their eloquent and spirited responses.

• Andrew Downs is a Content Producer in the Radio 3 interactive team.
• You can view the videos by clicking this link
• The top image is a composite photo of the crew catching up on sleep on the late train home after shooting Tom Service's presenter video at Hartland Quay, Devon. Photo: Dave Tree
• The lower image shows the crew filming with Sarah Mohr-Pietsch at Dartington Hall. Photo: Andrew Downs