UMD radio puts show on ice to get town on map
Written By: Christa Lawler | Jan 14th 2013 – 12am.
UMD student Rick McLean broadcasts Friday from a makeshift studio in an ice house on Fish Lake while Sheamus Johnson hooks a CD on his fishing line. They and the rest of the crew, who work at KUMD-FM 103.3, are creating a 1-minute video that will appear in mtvU’s “College Radio Countdown” in March. (Bob King / rking@duluthnews.com)
The music enthusiasts behind KUMD-FM 103.3 have about 1 minute to sell their radio station, their school and their city to their college-aged peers around the country.
They will do it — at least partly — with an ice house.
A small group of The Basement staff from the University of Minnesota Duluth set up Friday morning on Fish Lake to shoot the first scene of an introductory video that will air nationally when they host “College Radio Countdown” on mtvU in March.
“We knew we were either shooting on the shore (of Lake Superior) or in an ice house,” said Sam Ginsberg, the student marketing and events coordinator. “As soon as we heard ‘ice house’ we knew we had to do that.”
KUMD-FM will be featured on the MTV affiliate channel March 26-April 1. “College Radio Countdown,” which is new this year, picks a different college radio station every week to host a top 10 countdown of music that represents the tastes of its school.
KUMD is a public radio station that shifts into student-run college radio The Basement at 9 p.m. It has a staff of about 50 students.
The video production team got the OK to use an ice house for the day from Hi-Banks Resort on Fish Lake Dam Road.
The brown wooden shed is part of a cluster of about six other houses and the crew decorated the outside with a vintage brown and orange “103.3 KUMD” banner.
“We should start calling it the northernmost radio station in the U.S.,” joked Sheamus Johnson, who works in production.
The stark footage the crew was looking for might make it seem like an Alaskan outpost.
The scene starts with a winterized DJ Rick McLean, who hosts the jam-band show “Finding the Groove” on Friday nights.
He splashes his way through the water-topped ice toward the ice house.
Videographer Cloey Walsh took the back view and Olivia Franti captured the side angle and encouraged McLean to splash more as he walked, to make it funnier.
McLean flings the door open and squeezes inside to spell Ginsberg, who sits at a card table topped with KUMD-FM’s original sound board — an old-school system from the 1960s with a few thick nobs.
Vintage records were propped in the background, lanterns hung from the ceiling and Johnson hunched with a pole over an ice-fishing hole.
His big catch: A CD.
McLean settles in at the microphone, slips into the headphones, has a steaming hot drink at his side and says the introductory statement:
“This is 103.3 KUMD Duluth Public Radio broadcasting from the frigid waters of Lake Superior.”
Ginsberg said a lot of the other schools represented on mtvU are from warmer climates, which influenced the group’s vision.
“Let’s go the extreme opposite,” he said. “Start as drastic as we can.”
Walsh said she watched videos made by every other featured college radio station and didn’t see much humor. She wanted to make sure KUMD’s video was funny and got across a point in a limited amount of time.
“Duluth is a tiny town and it’s in a place that is difficult to get to,” Walsh said. “It’s beautiful, but it has undesirable weather. But there is something about it that draws creative people here.”
The crew will continue filming next week, including scenes on campus, at the radio station and around town.
MtvU does not air on local Charter Cable, but the video will be available for streaming online.
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