I'd like to commission a 60 minute (roughly) programme to air on a fictitious radio station, the name of which will be decided by the students. The programme title will also be decided between them.
This 60 minute programme will focus positively
on life at Bluecoat Academy as seen by the students who are commissioned to
produce the elements being broadcast. It will contain a distinct mix of
material which would appeal to students, parents and teachers and will be based
primarily in fact. An element of artistic license can be used to achieve a more
professional sound, effect or to add drama. The target is to inform, educate
and surprise through creative use of audio and treatment.
Each student will be responsible for 7.5
minutes of output and there should be an even spread of subjects creating a
cohesive programme flow. There will be guidance on some required elements eg:
One ‘calling to account’ interview, events listings, news reports etc and one
or more producers may wish to split elements of their output across the whole
show.
It’s important that each section represents
something of the Producer. There’ll be an element of group working to decide on
style and context across the hour plus opportunities for extra input and
creativity. We can also take into account future ambitions so that what is
taken away may be useful for their careers or at least give a taste of what may
be involved.
Potentially, two rounds of commissioning may
be necessary. The first will be a pitch of a treatment designed to sell their
idea and the second will be a return once any comments have been acted upon.
Despite looking rather wordy here on the blog, it outlines our task and gives us a good idea of what we will be doing. At first glance, I am interested by the fact that "each section represents something of the producer" - this means that we will be able to personalise our project and make it "our own".
In more generalised terms, the brief outlines that we will be collectively devising and creating a 60 minute factual radio broadcast aimed specificly at students, parents and teachers at the Nottingham blue coat school and should have a general slant towards life at the school. More specificly, Ed`s brief says that we will be able to add drama with the use of heavily produced sections of our broadcast - with the use of voice acting and sound effects. This in particular is exciting since it will allow us to be especially creative in our own sections of the broadcast.
In addition, I feel that it is important that we consider the fact that all of our parts will need to fit together into a broadcast as a whole - and therefore, the broadcast will be more professional if our separate parts can link together somehow in order to produce a more wholesome effect.
Working With Ed:
Since we have now spent 4 hours listening to Ed and gaining advise from him, we now have a reasonable feel of what makes a professional but engaging piece of radio. Aside from the technical aspect of radio, we have also learned about what makes an effective piece of journalism. Although this appears fairly simplistic, Ed suggested that we should focus on fulfilling the questions "Who, what, when where and why?" when partaking in journalism since this will give us the best possible coverage of the story.
In our first session with Ed, he showed us how to take simple, maybe boring story and create a treatment with the hope of turning it into an interesting piece of radio. Ed picked the recent story of the Mars expedition and gave us some ideas on how to develop the story, some of his ideas are as follows:
- Fill one minute with pre recorded content including effects and music to grab the audience`s attention.
- Include a vox to gain the opinions of others and to add an additional dimension to the show.
- Ask an interesting question "Who would you not go with?"
- Try to "change gear" to keep your audience interested.
Since working with Ed, I feel that my strengths regarding knowledge of radio production were in the fact that, having listened to a lot of radio, I knew of a few techniques that presenters use to engage and interest their audience and as a result, could relate to Ed`s ideas on that front. However, for a weakness, I feel that my technical knowledge of radio production could be greatly increased with Ed`s expertise in order to expand my understanding of the topic.
Naming Our Station:
As a whole, our group have come up with the name "Blue-Spoke" for our station. While loosely relating the name to "Bluecoat", the name emphasises the element of speech on the station and ultimately provides our audience with some prior knowledge about the show before they really even know what it is. In this light, I feel that the name is short, easy to remember and generally very effective.
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In terms of naming the particular show, we reached the conclusion of "60 Minute Mix". Primarily, this name gives a relatively accurate description of the show itself whilst at the same time, grabs the audience`s attention with the use of alliteration - I feel that this point is particularly strong since our show should stick out from the rest.
Mission Statement:
"Our aim is to make a professional, up to date and exciting program that appeals to students, parents and teachers. It will be informative and interesting incorporating our tastes as well as the views and opinions of others."
I feel that this statement correctly sums up our intentions and accurately describes the feel of our show. Perhaps a point not mentioned in our mission statement is the fact that our radio show will be relatively light hearted in order to make for pleasant and relatable listening.
Budget:
Although, in our production, budget is not really a consideration, in professional radio production, each show can turn out to be rather expensive! Since radio stations are funded by the government, recent cuts mean that radio budgets in industry are tighter than before! Therefore, a compromise is required between cost and quality of the show. The budget has impacts on the following implements of radio production:
- Equipment
- Guest Stars
- Radio Licences
In addition, stations with a net broadcast revenue of between £22,951 and £647,620 pay a royalty rate of 3%. Clearly, this must be considered when planning the radio station since the royalties alone could cost an annual total of £19,428!
According to "www.prsformusic.com", a minimum annual fee for each licensed station is £891 - regardless of size!
In order to attain such a broadcast license, you require permission to use a particular frequency of the radio spectrum. If this permission was not explicitly yours, you run the risk of interference with other broadcasters which could ruin the quality of your broadcasts. However, payment is normally a nominal fee and therefore, once paid, will not become a regular part of radio budgeting.
When setting up even a low cost radio station, the cost of purchasing equipment such as an Audio processor, a transmitter, a mixer, microphones, an antenna and the necessary softwares and computer equipment can be extremely high! According to "Radiobrandy.com", the cost of equipment alone can be in excess of £5000.
However, once a radio station is established, revenue from advertising can relieve the pressure from such tight budgets. According to "marketingminefield.co.uk", a single radio advertisement from an external business can bring a rough minimum of £1000 per week of income to your radio station. Therefore, if you play a selection consisting of, say, 20 adverts per week, you may gain a comfortable income of at least £20,000 per week on advertisements.
If, like other radio stations, you intend to play music during your show, royalties must be paid in order to gain permission to broadcast such music due to copyright laws. This must be considered as one of the most dynamic costs of the radio industry - according to "wikipedia.org"
Day 1- Pitch to Ed Stagg:
Yesterday, I was given the area of "School Shows" to cover in my section of the overall radio show - 60 Minute Mix. During my section, I have decided to try to raise awareness of the school productions with the aim of increasing popularity; through what I have seen, very few students take the time to watch school plays and I believe that if they were more commonly known, they may be better attended.
Therefore, I decided to generate a simple treatment outlining my 7 minute segment and generally describing the content of each minute respectively. The treatment, as well as my pitch to Ed are as follows:
Budget:
Although, in our production, budget is not really a consideration, in professional radio production, each show can turn out to be rather expensive! Since radio stations are funded by the government, recent cuts mean that radio budgets in industry are tighter than before! Therefore, a compromise is required between cost and quality of the show. The budget has impacts on the following implements of radio production:
- Equipment
- Guest Stars
- Radio Licences
In addition, stations with a net broadcast revenue of between £22,951 and £647,620 pay a royalty rate of 3%. Clearly, this must be considered when planning the radio station since the royalties alone could cost an annual total of £19,428!
According to "www.prsformusic.com", a minimum annual fee for each licensed station is £891 - regardless of size!
In order to attain such a broadcast license, you require permission to use a particular frequency of the radio spectrum. If this permission was not explicitly yours, you run the risk of interference with other broadcasters which could ruin the quality of your broadcasts. However, payment is normally a nominal fee and therefore, once paid, will not become a regular part of radio budgeting.
When setting up even a low cost radio station, the cost of purchasing equipment such as an Audio processor, a transmitter, a mixer, microphones, an antenna and the necessary softwares and computer equipment can be extremely high! According to "Radiobrandy.com", the cost of equipment alone can be in excess of £5000.
However, once a radio station is established, revenue from advertising can relieve the pressure from such tight budgets. According to "marketingminefield.co.uk", a single radio advertisement from an external business can bring a rough minimum of £1000 per week of income to your radio station. Therefore, if you play a selection consisting of, say, 20 adverts per week, you may gain a comfortable income of at least £20,000 per week on advertisements.
If, like other radio stations, you intend to play music during your show, royalties must be paid in order to gain permission to broadcast such music due to copyright laws. This must be considered as one of the most dynamic costs of the radio industry - according to "wikipedia.org"
Day 1- Pitch to Ed Stagg:
Yesterday, I was given the area of "School Shows" to cover in my section of the overall radio show - 60 Minute Mix. During my section, I have decided to try to raise awareness of the school productions with the aim of increasing popularity; through what I have seen, very few students take the time to watch school plays and I believe that if they were more commonly known, they may be better attended.
Therefore, I decided to generate a simple treatment outlining my 7 minute segment and generally describing the content of each minute respectively. The treatment, as well as my pitch to Ed are as follows:
Pitch Notes:
- - Nobody knows
about the school shows, in my opinion, its a fact.
- -Clearly, a lot of
work goes into the creation of such shows so it would be ideal to use my
section of the radio show to interest people in the school shows and to raise
their profile.
- -Therefore, I
intend to create a section of the show that will engage, interest and cause
enthusiasm among students and parents to increase interest in the school shows.
- -Firstly, to prove
my “accusation”, I plan to vox local students – asking them if they know what
the last school play was – they wont.
- -We could then
take the results to the drama department and ask them why they think this is,
and what they do to raise their profile.
- -Mainly
documentary style, in one go. We originally placed my section of the show near
the middle – I happy with this choice. One chunk
-
Audience will be
mainly students and parents – teachers are normally engaged.
- -On a more
positive side, I plan to interview past students who are experienced with
school shows and ask them about their experiences
- -Locations – spend
time in drama studio conducting interviews and research
- -Unique selling
point – produce the show in dramatic style
- -Equipment, zoom
mic or portable recording device
Basic Treatment:
-
Start with heavily
produced section – edited to engage the audience
-
Introduce the
topic, and what were going to ask, then play the vox about whether the students
actually know the name of the latest school play
-
Talk to the drama
department, why they think students don’t know about their shows and who they
target their shows at.
-
Talk to previous
students- actors or technical assistants, asking them how the shows work and
their experience.
During my production, I aim for there to be a small but visible conflict between views of participants. For example, the drama department may claim that their productions are incredibly well attended. Whilst, at the same time, other students may claim otherwise. Therefore, without even saying anything, this conflict will be evident to viewers and this conflict may only be resolved if students, parents and teachers make an active effort to view the school shows as a result of the 60-Minute-Mix.
Participant Details:
- School students - obtained by roaming the school with sufficient recording equipment.
- Drama Department - obtained by emailing suitable individuals by requesting an interview
- Past-production-students - obtained by emailing suitable individuals, once again.
Since delivering my pitch to Ed, I feel that it went successfully: I personally think that I conveyed my ideas efficiently and as a result, was able to expand on such ideas based on his feedback. For example, he suggested that instead of asking a direct question within my vox, I should ask a more open ended question on order to gain a more generalised response. I feel that this is a reasonable suggestion since this will allow those interviewed to say what they want - as apposed to answering a question that they may not necessarily know the answer to. For next lesson, I will formulate a more detailed plan for my section as well as create emails to invite individuals to speak on the show. In addition, I will create some relevant questions to ask within my vox/interviews which will need to be engineered in a way that will gain the best possible answers.
Day 2 - Planning Continued
I have used todays session to continue to plan my radio show in terms of the initial speech at the begin30ning of the show. This section will introduce themes and issues within the topic and will introduce our audience to our first people interviewed.
Then, the show will continue with a Vox of a focus group asking students about their knowledge of the school shows. the reason I have chosen to include this section here is to maintain balance within the show to give the opinions of students early on so that I can back up my point which is that very few students take an active interest in the school productions. I feel that a Vox will bring variety to the show and will ensure that I include as many different voices as possible throughout my 7 minute section.
Then, to counter the previous section, I will conduct the interview with the arts department so that they can respond to my point and show our audience how they actively encourage students and parents to visit the shows (if this is the case). As it stands, the questions I will ask are as follows:
In terms of the first question, I feel that it is important to find out weather the department agree with my idea that they are not as well attended as they should be. However, if they do not agree, I have ensured that the rest of the questions are totally independent of the answer for question one.
For the penultimate question, I feel that it is worth while finding out weather a good reason for badly attended shows could be due to the fact that younger students or students in general are simply uninterested by the choice of show that is performed. If this is the case, we will need to try and make the choice of show look as interesting and positive as possible in order to boost attendance to the shows among students.
Finally, the last question will give me some ideas of the general choice of show that the school choose. With this information, we will be able base our ideas within those areas in order to theme our radio show accordingly. If we took this a step further, we may be able to tease our audience about future shows that the school will be staging - providing we were able to find the relevant information.
When planning my material, it is important that I consider copyright: If I do use copyrighted material, I should ensure that I log it in a document so that, in the event that it is released publicly, I will be able to gain permission from the publisher to use the clip.
During my production, I aim for there to be a small but visible conflict between views of participants. For example, the drama department may claim that their productions are incredibly well attended. Whilst, at the same time, other students may claim otherwise. Therefore, without even saying anything, this conflict will be evident to viewers and this conflict may only be resolved if students, parents and teachers make an active effort to view the school shows as a result of the 60-Minute-Mix.
Participant Details:
- School students - obtained by roaming the school with sufficient recording equipment.
- Drama Department - obtained by emailing suitable individuals by requesting an interview
- Past-production-students - obtained by emailing suitable individuals, once again.
Since delivering my pitch to Ed, I feel that it went successfully: I personally think that I conveyed my ideas efficiently and as a result, was able to expand on such ideas based on his feedback. For example, he suggested that instead of asking a direct question within my vox, I should ask a more open ended question on order to gain a more generalised response. I feel that this is a reasonable suggestion since this will allow those interviewed to say what they want - as apposed to answering a question that they may not necessarily know the answer to. For next lesson, I will formulate a more detailed plan for my section as well as create emails to invite individuals to speak on the show. In addition, I will create some relevant questions to ask within my vox/interviews which will need to be engineered in a way that will gain the best possible answers.
Day 2 - Planning Continued
I have used todays session to continue to plan my radio show in terms of the initial speech at the begin30ning of the show. This section will introduce themes and issues within the topic and will introduce our audience to our first people interviewed.
Then, the show will continue with a Vox of a focus group asking students about their knowledge of the school shows. the reason I have chosen to include this section here is to maintain balance within the show to give the opinions of students early on so that I can back up my point which is that very few students take an active interest in the school productions. I feel that a Vox will bring variety to the show and will ensure that I include as many different voices as possible throughout my 7 minute section.
Then, to counter the previous section, I will conduct the interview with the arts department so that they can respond to my point and show our audience how they actively encourage students and parents to visit the shows (if this is the case). As it stands, the questions I will ask are as follows:
-
Do you feel that your shows are as well attended,
as you would like?
-
What do you do to encourage students, parents
and teachers to watch the shows?
-
When creating a new show, what target audience
do you aim the show at?
-
Do you feel that this decision reflects the
school community?
-
What genres/types of performance do you tend to
lean towards when creating a production?
Finally, the last question will give me some ideas of the general choice of show that the school choose. With this information, we will be able base our ideas within those areas in order to theme our radio show accordingly. If we took this a step further, we may be able to tease our audience about future shows that the school will be staging - providing we were able to find the relevant information.
When planning my material, it is important that I consider copyright: If I do use copyrighted material, I should ensure that I log it in a document so that, in the event that it is released publicly, I will be able to gain permission from the publisher to use the clip.
Day 3 - Testing Equipment
As briefly mentioned earlier, we will be using Zoom recorders (mobile devices). Therefore, we used this opportunity to firstly, test the equipment but also to test our interview skills and try to find out what techniques work best for us personally.
Interestingly, due to the fact that the zoom microphones have a front and back microphone, we are able to create a 4-track recording and record the interviewer and the person interviewed cleanly and simultaneously. This will ensure that my recordings will be as professional and high quality as possible and as a result, the radio show will be professional also.
Finally, I have sent an email to Mr Mansell and Mr Collins requesting an interview from them with regards to their school shows. The email is as follows:
Dear Sir,
During my creative media radio production course, I have decided to produce a section of the show relating to the awareness of the school shows through the school. It would be great if I could record an interview with you to gain your thoughts on the subject, what your department does to promote the shows and why your shows are a success.
If this would be possible, please reply to this email with any available time slots you may have inside the following few weeks.
Thank you for your time,
Sam Turner
ii feel that my strengths lay within setting up the Zoom devices so that they record high quality audio with surround sound so that the sound quality is as high as possible.
In terms of a weakness, I feel that improvement could be made within my interview techniques: I should manipulate my questions in a way that will get the answers that I want from the interview. If I was to do this successfully, the radio show will have more direction and will flow specifically in the way that I want it to.
Day 5:
Today, I have been putting yesterday's interview knowledge into practise. Having devised a set of questions, I have begun to Vox students of the school to ask them of their knowledge of Bluecoat's shows and plays. I have decided to interview as many students as possible in the same room - therefore, the reverberations and background noise will be continuous throughout the Vox. Using the side rooms, as I am, the students may feel more comfortable in a slightly smaller space and therefore will sound more natural on the final broadcast.
in terms of strengths, I feel that my interview questions are consistent throughout interviews and as a result, the vox will sound organised and balanced. Also, this means that we may start to see some trends within the answers as soon as I have completed some more interviews - this will at least give me something to talk about during my section of the show.
In terms of weakness, I feel that I should work on making my interviews more interesting and more comfortable for the people that I am interviewing so that I get the highest quality answers that I possibly can.
Day 6 (Content acquisition):
Since my last entry, I have been spending time inside the school recording studio recording my two narrations for my radio show. I was recording my introduction as well as a section towards the end. A slight problem I had was that I had to set up the recording system before moving into the recording room. While this worked well, trial and error was required when getting the correct levels for my recording. Clearly, if the levels were too low, the recording would be inaudible and if the levels too high, distortion would occur. However, doing this only took around 5 minutes to perfect and as a result, my production schedule was not hindered.
In addition, I have also interviewed Joshua Wing and Mr Mansell (Head of drama) about their school productions and have some very interesting information with both of them. I ran into a few issues when dealing with the zoom recorders; despite fully charged batteries, the batteries ran down completely after around ten minutes. As a result, my interview with Mr Mansell resulted in using my iPad to record the second half of the interview. While this was an effective solution, the quality of the iPad's recording is slightly inferior to that of the Zoom recorder. However, the audio is still clear and audible and will serve my purpose. To improve next time, I will either bring my own personal batteries or recording equipment so that I do not have to count on unreliable equipment during recording.
on the whole, I feel my strengths were in my interview techniques; I feel that my questions provoked interesting and valid answers during my interviews. With some editing, I feel that shortened versions of my lengthly interviews will prove interesting to listen to for the audience since both interviews include valuable information for parents and students.
as mentioned above, a weakness lies within my relying on equipment that may not perform correctly when called upon. Therefore, this is an area for improvement in the future.
File Storage:
In terms of file storage, I feel that it is important to know what content is within each file - especially when there are many files as there are in my vox! For convenience, I have created a folder for each minute of my production and placed the recorded content into each folder respectively. This will mean that locating the files will be much easier in the editing process and will make the post production process far easier.
For the vox in particular, I found that some of the people I interviewed gave a less relevant or sensible response than others. In order to find the best clips, I have classified each Vox file in terms of the quality of the response:
"H" - High Quality
"M" - Medium Quality
"U" - Unusable or irrelevant quality
For my other files, I feel that relevant naming will be enough to see me through the edit. I feel that such practises are professional and completely necessary in order to ensure that the process is as smooth as possible; sifting through unnamed files can be very time consuming and may result in reduced quality of the final product.
Day 7:
As briefly mentioned earlier, we will be using Zoom recorders (mobile devices). Therefore, we used this opportunity to firstly, test the equipment but also to test our interview skills and try to find out what techniques work best for us personally.
Interestingly, due to the fact that the zoom microphones have a front and back microphone, we are able to create a 4-track recording and record the interviewer and the person interviewed cleanly and simultaneously. This will ensure that my recordings will be as professional and high quality as possible and as a result, the radio show will be professional also.
Finally, I have sent an email to Mr Mansell and Mr Collins requesting an interview from them with regards to their school shows. The email is as follows:
Dear Sir,
During my creative media radio production course, I have decided to produce a section of the show relating to the awareness of the school shows through the school. It would be great if I could record an interview with you to gain your thoughts on the subject, what your department does to promote the shows and why your shows are a success.
If this would be possible, please reply to this email with any available time slots you may have inside the following few weeks.
Thank you for your time,Sam Turner
Hopefully, when both members of staff reply, we will be able to schedule their interviews early next week so I can record a short interview for both people.
ii feel that my strengths lay within setting up the Zoom devices so that they record high quality audio with surround sound so that the sound quality is as high as possible.
In terms of a weakness, I feel that improvement could be made within my interview techniques: I should manipulate my questions in a way that will get the answers that I want from the interview. If I was to do this successfully, the radio show will have more direction and will flow specifically in the way that I want it to.
Day 5:
Today, I have been putting yesterday's interview knowledge into practise. Having devised a set of questions, I have begun to Vox students of the school to ask them of their knowledge of Bluecoat's shows and plays. I have decided to interview as many students as possible in the same room - therefore, the reverberations and background noise will be continuous throughout the Vox. Using the side rooms, as I am, the students may feel more comfortable in a slightly smaller space and therefore will sound more natural on the final broadcast.
in terms of strengths, I feel that my interview questions are consistent throughout interviews and as a result, the vox will sound organised and balanced. Also, this means that we may start to see some trends within the answers as soon as I have completed some more interviews - this will at least give me something to talk about during my section of the show.
In terms of weakness, I feel that I should work on making my interviews more interesting and more comfortable for the people that I am interviewing so that I get the highest quality answers that I possibly can.
Day 6 (Content acquisition):
Since my last entry, I have been spending time inside the school recording studio recording my two narrations for my radio show. I was recording my introduction as well as a section towards the end. A slight problem I had was that I had to set up the recording system before moving into the recording room. While this worked well, trial and error was required when getting the correct levels for my recording. Clearly, if the levels were too low, the recording would be inaudible and if the levels too high, distortion would occur. However, doing this only took around 5 minutes to perfect and as a result, my production schedule was not hindered.
In addition, I have also interviewed Joshua Wing and Mr Mansell (Head of drama) about their school productions and have some very interesting information with both of them. I ran into a few issues when dealing with the zoom recorders; despite fully charged batteries, the batteries ran down completely after around ten minutes. As a result, my interview with Mr Mansell resulted in using my iPad to record the second half of the interview. While this was an effective solution, the quality of the iPad's recording is slightly inferior to that of the Zoom recorder. However, the audio is still clear and audible and will serve my purpose. To improve next time, I will either bring my own personal batteries or recording equipment so that I do not have to count on unreliable equipment during recording.
on the whole, I feel my strengths were in my interview techniques; I feel that my questions provoked interesting and valid answers during my interviews. With some editing, I feel that shortened versions of my lengthly interviews will prove interesting to listen to for the audience since both interviews include valuable information for parents and students.
as mentioned above, a weakness lies within my relying on equipment that may not perform correctly when called upon. Therefore, this is an area for improvement in the future.
File Storage:
For the vox in particular, I found that some of the people I interviewed gave a less relevant or sensible response than others. In order to find the best clips, I have classified each Vox file in terms of the quality of the response:
"H" - High Quality
"M" - Medium Quality
"U" - Unusable or irrelevant quality
For my other files, I feel that relevant naming will be enough to see me through the edit. I feel that such practises are professional and completely necessary in order to ensure that the process is as smooth as possible; sifting through unnamed files can be very time consuming and may result in reduced quality of the final product.
Day 7:
Now that the majority of my recording is complete, It was necessary to spend some time with Ed Stagg in order to gain some feedback on my work and findings. Having taken this tutorial session, I found that it was very useful in order to aid the development of my project and to ensure that it was as professional as possible.
To begin, we found that the first area of improvement was to be found in the introduction; Ed suggested that it would be beneficial to prove my assumption that only a few students attend the school shows by requesting the show statistics from the school administrators. If this would be possible, then subsequent interviews with Mr Mansell, who claimed that his shows always sold out, would be made more interesting with conflict between stories. An action plan to make this happen consists of two steps:
- Contact school finance department (or an area along those lines) to find statistics
- If my assumption is correct, I must plan a second interview with Mr Mansell in order to give him right of reply.
Secondly, Ed suggested that I should quantify the results of my vox - possibly by giving a percentage of students who said they had never heard of or seen our school shows and, alternatively, give a percentage of those who have. This means that I would be converting my research into solid facts to give a more substantial and accurate report on the situation on my final radio show. In order to succeed in this, I must perform the following steps:
- Count the number of positive/negative vox entries that I have collected and place them into a chart or graph.
- Script a short piece of dialogue for me to read during my radio show in order to report on my findings.
- Record this piece of dialogue whilst in the mean time, remembering to leave space for it inside my edit on cubase.
In terms of strengths in my project so far, Ed commented on my interview skills and that I asked 'good questions' and were able to catch people on their 'back foot' when querying delicate subjects (such as attendance of school shows) For a weakness, Ed suggested that I should limit my conversation fillers (such as 'yeah', 'okay', and 'right') during my interviews so that whoever I am interviewing feels compelled into continuing to talk - and therefore, giving me a more detailed response.
Day 8:
Now that the recording is complete, I am now able to collate my recordings and begin the editing process - using cubase.
To begin, we found that the first area of improvement was to be found in the introduction; Ed suggested that it would be beneficial to prove my assumption that only a few students attend the school shows by requesting the show statistics from the school administrators. If this would be possible, then subsequent interviews with Mr Mansell, who claimed that his shows always sold out, would be made more interesting with conflict between stories. An action plan to make this happen consists of two steps:
- Contact school finance department (or an area along those lines) to find statistics
- If my assumption is correct, I must plan a second interview with Mr Mansell in order to give him right of reply.
Secondly, Ed suggested that I should quantify the results of my vox - possibly by giving a percentage of students who said they had never heard of or seen our school shows and, alternatively, give a percentage of those who have. This means that I would be converting my research into solid facts to give a more substantial and accurate report on the situation on my final radio show. In order to succeed in this, I must perform the following steps:
- Count the number of positive/negative vox entries that I have collected and place them into a chart or graph.
- Script a short piece of dialogue for me to read during my radio show in order to report on my findings.
- Record this piece of dialogue whilst in the mean time, remembering to leave space for it inside my edit on cubase.
In terms of strengths in my project so far, Ed commented on my interview skills and that I asked 'good questions' and were able to catch people on their 'back foot' when querying delicate subjects (such as attendance of school shows) For a weakness, Ed suggested that I should limit my conversation fillers (such as 'yeah', 'okay', and 'right') during my interviews so that whoever I am interviewing feels compelled into continuing to talk - and therefore, giving me a more detailed response.
Day 8:
Now that the recording is complete, I am now able to collate my recordings and begin the editing process - using cubase.
Inside cubase, many different editing tools make it possible to professionally cut and edit sections of audio into manageable sections. The most useful tools to me personally are as follows:
- Arrow Tool: This is the default tool, used for selection, moving and duplicating clips.
- Eraser Tool: Used to erase unwanted clips of audio.
- Scissors: Used to slice single clips into multiple clips so that they can be individually edited.
- Zoom Tool: Used to accurately zoom into sections of the timeline in order to specifically edit pieces of dialogue or music.
When beginning a project, it was rather confusing as to what presets to load. However, choosing the "Mastering" tab and then selecting "Stereo Mixing" option appeared to be a reasonable choice to use. In fact, this preset automatically opened tools such as the mixer, EQ and reverb - ready to use! This was especially useful to me as these three tools were all ones that I planned to use.
When faced with the blank project, I began by creating three audio tracks. In order to ensure a smooth and comprehensive workflow, I renamed each track "Speech1", "Speech2" and "Music". Hopefully, in the later stages of my production, this system should help to keep the project organised and professional - meaning that changes can easily be made and sections of audio are easy to locate. As well as these advantages, this also means that music levels can be independent of the other tracks, meaning that they can be changed to fit the speech content that will be played over the top.Now that the project is set up, I am able to begin the actual editing process. By using the folder system that I established during the recording section of the project, I was able to clearly see the content of each minute of my radio show.
Then, by importing the footage a minute at a time, it was possible to cut down each of my recorded sections so that they equal roughly one minute each. Clearly, it is unnecessary to worry about weather each section was the exact planned length. However, if each section strayed too far from the planned length, the final length of the project may be altered.
One of the key problems I encountered was that although interesting, many of the interviews were far too long - some of them even exceeded 7.5 minutes long! Therefore, it was necessary to select key parts from each interview - enough to fill 1-2 minutes. While this solved the timing issue, it was important to ensure that my cuts were natural sounding: a sudden cut is very noticeable and can be distracting to listeners. Clearly, this is something to avoid.
When all the audio was in place, I decided to add some background music to lengthly interviews in order to make them more interesting to the listeners. The strengths of doing this are that it appears to add better pace and atmosphere to the recording to improve the quality of the overall production. However, the weakness is that if the levels are not correct, background music can sound very unprofessional. If it is too loud, it obstructs the speech and it cannot be heard properly. If it is too quiet, it sounds accidental and appears to be simply background noise. Therefore, it is important to get the balance correct.
nal product. For example, due to my voice sounding too deep on the recordings, reducing the bass and increasing the treble can make my voice seem more presentable; I have done this to my project.
When choosing jingles and background music, I tried to match it to my theme: Drama. As a result, much of the music used in my final edited is what is associated with "show business" and old film (Music such as Jazz or Piano music) I feel that this reflects the mood and style of my section of the show - as well as helping the audience to understand the feel of my show.
I feel that during the editing process, I can present narrative simply with the order in which I assemble my audio footage. For example, in the Vox, I can generate a change of tone by presenting all of the negative responses firstly, which will be followed by the positive responses. This should create a "Change of gear" and should help to illustrate the topic with more power. In addition, mixing levels can help to convey meaning. For example, I can mix certain pieces of footage so that their levels are much louder than those in the rest of the project and, providing clipping and distortion is avoided, this can create emphasis.
On the whole, I feel that my section of the "Sixty-Minute-Mix" has turned out professional and interesting to listen to. Although parts of it are light hearted and informal, I feel that it is still factual and informative to the listeners. In terms of strengths, I feel that my interview questions and editing techniques helped to bring the show together in a way that is easy to listen to and to understand.
However, in terms of weakness, I feel the organisation of my timeline could further be improved so that it is easier to edit, should I need to. Even though the individual tracks are labelled, some pieces of my audio do not fit into either category of "Speech" and "Music". To improve next time, I would possibly create additional tracks to improve my organisation - this should decrease the editing time as well as making the editing process more productive.
In addition, I felt that using cubase did hinder our progress slightly, as a group. Although it is very functional and professional, many glitches make it difficult to use it from day-to-day. For example, lack of synchronisation between the mouse and the timeline made editing frustrating and time consuming - possibly reducing the quality of the final product. Therefore, if I were to repeat the project, I would edit using Adobe Audition - a similar program available in school with the same functions, but slightly useable with the absence of various glitches.In conclusion, I have enjoyed the radio project and feel that I have learnt an awful lot regarding the production of professional radio. I would definitely enjoy repeating this project in the future and feel that results would be even better if this was the case! Working with Ed was an invaluable experiance since his expertise made decision making a much less concerning process.
During the project, I particularly enjoyed using the hand-held recording devices. This allowed much more freedom with recording and also allowed me to record in the spur of the moment - as apposed to having to set up the recording studio first.
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