Denver Loft Sessions Gain Steam of Denver 8 TV

Tim Wenger | April 1, 2014 | 0 Comments

by Tim Wenger

pictured: Branded Bandits

Denver 8 TV, our local Denver municipal access television station and video service provider operated by Denver Media Services, has launched a TV show highlighting local musicians. The show, entitled Denver Loft Sessions, began airing in February of this year with new episodes bi-weekly, debuting a new episode on the first and third Fridays each month.

The station and its operatives, including CIO Frank Daidone, wanted to provide the service not only for the musicians they bring in but for music and culture fans in the city who might enjoy the programming. “It came to be out of a need for this entity and the city to reach an audience that was beyond the C-Span and public affairs programming,” said program director Allen DeLollis. “The city is involved in a lot of different arenas. The music business in Denver is seen as a growing and viable economic generator. To tap into that and tap into that audience, that’s where it was created from.”

Each selected band is invited down to the studio inside the Denver City & County Building to do an intimate thirty minute performance followed by an interview. The footage is then edited and compiled into an interesting and personable format complete with professional imaging and presentation to be aired on Denver 8 TV.

Their first tapings began in November, allowing the staff to have a backlog of bands to air on the show. “We try to get ahead and bank a lot of things so that we can have programming that we know will be there so that we can keep going,” says producer David DiManna. DiManna, whose background includes music and show production, handles much of the back-of-house work for the show.

“There’s a person we work with here at the city, but he’s real connected with bands,
says DiManna. “He knows a lot of bands, he parties with them. That’s been one hydrant of feeding us. Also, since we launched our Facebook page, that’s where we get probably 80% of our response.”

Bands contact the crew through the page and through email. DiManna then sends them a standard response of requirements and what they are looking for. “We launched it about a month before the show premiered with some teaser clips and snippets of the show, sound bites from the interviews,” drector/editor Bill MacAllister. “We’ve been populating the Facebook page every week. Right now, we are airing bi-weekly so during that week leading up to the new show we post some more teasers and snippets of the interviews.”

Bands must have video of themselves to be considered for selection. “They’ve got to submit to us video clips from a performance,” says DiManna. “It can be from a club or whatever. We don’t accept thematic music videos.” The material performed on the program must be original material. Once selected, the band is scheduled a time to come down for the performance and interview. The shoots generally take place on Saturdays. Once aired, the band featured is free to use the footage for promotional purposes.

In addition to working on the Denver Loft Sessions, the video crew from Denver Media Services is responsible for filming at all Denver-run parks, meaning that they get to film all of the stars that hit Red Rocks Park & Amphitheatre each year. “One of the things that people may not know about us is that, when you go to a show Red Rocks, 90% of the video that you watch on the screen, those are our crews,” said DeLollis.

“I’ve been doing shows up there for almost seven, eight years,” said DiManna. “We did 72 shows last year.”

DiManna and the crew hope the Denver Loft Sessions will continue to grow in popularity and sustain momentum for years to come. “We’re certainly hoping that it’s going to keep trucking along and keep going,” he says. “I have an inventory right now of easily close to fifty bands who we’ve been in touch with. We want to cater to the artists that play Denver and Boulder.”

Episodes play at the following times (MST):
Friday @ 8:00 pm and 11:30 pm
Saturday @ 10:30 am & 11:00 pm
Sunday @ 9:00 pm
Tuesday @ 3:00 pm
Wednesday @ 12:30 pm