Sparkyg's Weblog

PLAYLIST

sparkyg — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:02:58 +0000

minutes 6 -11

sparkyg — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:17:38 +0000

Meeting six: 30/03/09

Attended- Chuck, Owen, Adam, Jason

Absent- Dani, Mark

Discussed- We went over how everyone got on with last weeks action plans and this is what each person said.

Chuck said that he had a couple of things to add to his blog but over all he was happy with it. He still needs to find the relevant people to interview as well as contact the ones he has decided on.

Adam needs to catch up on his blog as he has fallen behind on it due to him being ill the week before. He has contacted MSP Iain Gray, who is the leader of the Scottish Labour Party, by email and is waiting for a response from him. We encourage Adam to call him instead because we have found in the past that emails are not generally replied to and you have a better chance with a phonecall. He would also like to contact the SNP Education minister and wants to do this through the holidays. He has narrowed down his package to “How Scottish Independence would Affect Students” after taking our advice that the topic of Scottish Independence was just too big to cover in the time given.

Jason is pleased with his blog and feels he is up to date with it. He has contacted 2 out of 3 of his interviewees so far and is looking to get another 3 to interview. He believes that the more audio that he collects, the better chance he has of getting the answers he wants. He wants someone from the Scottish Unionist Party to interview and will try to get a hold of them during the holidays.

I feel my blog is good however not detailed enough and I am finding it difficult to update all the time as it doesn’t come to mind to write down every single detail although I know I should be doing just that. Still not got a hold of Julia Mackel however if push comes to shove I will get a phone interview with her. Same goes for Jane Harrison the doctor. She seems to be busy and doesn’t have the time for an interview. I may need to find another doctor at this point. I am still on the lookout for someone who is doing or done weightwatchers for an interview and the group suggested I attended a weightwatchers group and see if anyone would be willing to do an interview. I will do this in the holidays.

Action Plan- These are to be completed for our return to college after the two week break-

- Keep updating the blogs/diary

-Complete any last research

-With the research finished, prepare a selection of questions for the interviewees

- Get at least 1 interview recorded and aim for more

-Finalise any Interviewees and make sure all of them are contacted by this point and willing to give an interview

Meeting 7: 27/04/09

Attended: Mark, Dani, Chuck, Jason, Owen

Absent: Adam

Discussed- We talked about how everyone is getting on with their packages.

Chuck is still trying to arrange interviews at this point and is finding it difficult to track anyone from the gathering down.

Mark has secured first interview hoping to get vox pops this week.

Dani is still trying to arrange interviews also and has sent various emails.

Jason has emailed a lot of people but had nothing back. We talk about how it is better to phone people rather than email.

Action Plan- Keep updating blogs and also get at least 2 interviews recorded.

Group Meeting 8: 11/05/09

Attended- Mark, Dani, Jason, Chuck, Owen

Absent- Adam

Chuck has arranged an interview with Lord Sempill.

Mark is preparing for vox pops.

Dani still emailing.

Jason has been working on his blog and also trying to get interviews through calling.

Action Plan-Confirm interviews, still get interviews and keep updating blogs.

Meeting 9 – 18/05/09

Present- Dani, Owen, Jason

Absent – Mark, Chuck, Adam

Progress –

Owen

Done 2 interviews with a nutritionist and a doctor.

Slightly worried about background noises

Still trying to get third interview set up

Jason

Done 1 interview with an economist

Had another interview but was cancelled, will arrange again

Had an interview last week but studio wasn’t working so will be done this week

Audio collected from John Swinney MSP

Dani

2 interviews collected

two more arranged

• Packages finished for Monday 1st June.

• Script and jingles to be made on 1st and 2nd June

• Our time to do the hour programme is 3-4pm on Tuesday 2nd June

• Guest – to contact ronah brankin

• Group worries about Adams frequent absences. Plans to borrow the most relevant package from other group in case of Adam not completing his package.

Action points

All audio collected

All logging sheets filled in

Meeting 10 – Monday 25th May

Present – Owen, Chuck, Dani

Absent – Sparky, Jason, Adam

Updates

Chuck

Chuck needs two more interviews. Is rather nervous but is still contacting many people to ask about interviews. Chuck is unsure about who he can interview as his topic is hard to find the organisers.

He is looking for people in charge of advertisting and organising the event

Owen

Has 3 interviews and vox pops

Just needs to edit these

Dani

2 interviews done, 2 later on today

is going to stand comedy club tonight to possibly collect vox pops and actuality

Group mention that Sparky is finished his package and that we are not sure about Jason. We have made the disicion to cut Adams package and replace it with Callums.

Callum is investigating how the credit crunch will effect nightclubs in Edinburgh but this is also relevant to the whole of Scotland.

Group phone Adam to ask about is progress but there is no answer.

Group discus worries about lack of attendance for the final meeting and they will contact Jason and sparky to talk about the script.

Guest

Group have been tryng to contact potential guests but have had no luck so far

Meeting 11: 1/06/09

Attended- Mark, Dani, Chuck, Owen

Absent- Jason, Adam

Discussed- We talked about how far everyone is and began to put the finishing touches to the 1 hour magazine.

Mark has finished his package and is now helping others to finish theirs. He has also begun writing the script for the 1-hour show but really wants Jason to help him since he is presenter. He says he needs to update his blog as well.

Chuck has got all his interviews and finished editing them all. He needs to write his script and wants to get Jason to read it. He also needs to update his blog and needs to find music to go with his package.

I have finished editing my interviews and I am currently putting the finishing touches to my script. I am unsure of who to do the voice for my package as Jason is not in today therefore I am thinking of getting Dani to do my voice as my package is mostly made of up female voices therefore I will make it purely female. Also since Jason is the presenter for the 1 hour show, the two wont clash.

Dani is still editing interviews although she has got all audio. She also needs to make sure our guest comes in, as we were finally able to get a guest. Our guest is Councillor Alec Rowley who is a member of the Labour party. She is trying to find sound effects for package as well.

We also talked about the questions we would ask Alec along with what the final roles were for tomorrow. They are as follows-

Presenter – Jason

Script- Mark(working closely with Jason)

Producer – Dani + Owen

Jingles/music – Chuck

Desk operator – Chuck

Inserts – Mark

Protools and computer– Owen

THE AFTERMATH

sparkyg — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:36:42 +0000

in my eyes we had done well, it was well put together and well presented, looking back now i realise that my theme tune i made was destorted and not at a broadcasting standard, which i am disappointed in, also are levels for the show where a bit crazy jason was spiking which could have been spotted by owen who was monetiring, also are individual packages where at different levels, some really low and some really high.
i felt are producer didn’t performe that well on the day or before hand, i expected leadership and a kick up the arse if anything went wrong instead hardly a word was said and some of the major decisions where left to other people in the group, i felt she had no idea of what stage people where at with there packages and i felt i could have told her i hadn’t started the script or jingles an hour to go from 3pm and she would have believed me, in the show she nit picked the questions and i believed in jasons ability to change what he needed to change with the question.

i feel i am being very critical of her, but thats what i expect of a producer and apart from getting a guest and having good questions i felt she did not perform.

i also felt are preproduction was a joke and we had such great plans to do it weeks before hand, i know i am also guilty of not finishing my package early anough, but i am so sure if i hadn’t finished early then we would have failed, because with out a script there is no show.

apart from these factures i felt we where good and as i said on the day if we had to do it again as a second show we would have nailed that one, due to time and new knowledge.

my advice to some one doing this would be get that package out the way and everything else will fall into place.

THE 60 MINUTE SHOW

sparkyg — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:19:08 +0000

as soon as it went 3pm i was right on time with the theme tune, it played and jason began the script we sat alex in with him so he could hear the packages clearly and then later give his opinion.

in the back we where all uptight but everything was going like clock work and by the time we got the interview we where all calm and relaxed, i had my stop watch on my i pod and began recording when the interview started so we could get the correct time we needed, which was 12.30 minutes, alex got to the 3rd question and was on 6 minutes it was going fine and reall slick with good answers, but then we started to jump the gun and started antisapatin what alex would say and we started cutting questions, i believe we cut 3 out of 10 and suddenly the interview had to stop we had ran out of questions and alex had not went on for long anough about the last question, we were on 11 minutes for the interview and now a minute 30 behind, we tried to get jason to slow down a bit but that didn’t help much and by the time we where on the last link we had 40 seconds to fill, so we told jason to adlib and talk about the packages from today and also thanking the guest, he did as best he could and we went into are 1.16 outtro i thought we might just get it but we where 3 seconds early.

we where gutted especially that this was are only real mistake.

PREPRODUCTION FOR 60 MINUTE SHOW

sparkyg — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:00:26 +0000

we had now sorted out are new roles and everything was in place as far as the ‘crew’ we now needed a guest, jason and dani where on the case and where back and forth with ideas and results, we wanted a politician that would fit with jason and callums package of recession and general political chat, dani tried to book a midlothain councillor, she had no luck, jason was very positive with a teacher of politics at edinburgh uni, he also couldn’t do it due to the timing. so dani turned to her dad who is the labour leader of the fife councils, he would work perfect for what we needed, i felt like we where cheating a little with it being danis dad Alex Rowley, but later on i felt it was just a well thought out weapon in are group, it was a bit of luck that he was her dad and we used that luck.

it got to the monday before the tuesday show and nothing was ready, i was the only one finished my package the rest of the group where still doing theres and actually they all finished them on the day of the show, i thought this wasn’t good anough, but there was nothing i could do, the script was now left to me and i had to try my best that i did, it took me most of the day to do it and found myself tearing my hair out trying to think of good links, i was constantly on the phone and back and forth trying to find out about people packages and how they would fit into the script and dialogue, i was constantly having to think of ways to refrase sertan bits of info from peoples package e.eg in my one i say 2000 people are dieing in scotland every year from alcohol abuse, thats 50% that 10 years ago. so i reworded this by saying the double the amount of people are dieng.

i had to do that technique over and over because i didn’t have muxh to go on, i also tried to put a bit of jason in it, which was that of humour and seriousness so after owens package on scotlands diet i got jason to say “thats it tomorrow i start my diet” then straight into a jingle, this worked and brought out a slight bit of character in jasons presenting style.
when it came to questions i let dani handle that and she did well getting questions she knew her dad would answer and also give some good knowledge on which was also to do with are packages.

i was now finished the basics of the script and awaited jason to finish it, i realised the jingles hadn’t been done, chuck was still working on his package so i took over and got it done i wasn’t messing about with it and i got a theme tune, sting and outtro done in 20 -25 minutes, i decide to use conor the tutors voice to give a feel of maturity and a sense of proffesionalism. i used a news beat which was quick and jazzy, this fitted in well with the ‘bbc radio scotlands’ theme .

once jason was finished his package i let him add his own toucheshere and there, to make him more comfortable, we then went for timings on the script, we got an average of 3.10minutes for jason to read out the script at a good pace with out the interview, we also now had all are packages and had a total time of 48 minutes for the packages and jingels and presenter put together so we now knew we needed a 12.30 minute interview to be safe, we went over time with it because we had a 1.16 outro that could be cut out after 10 seconds so we had really 1.06 minutes to use.

i got jason to read the script through 6 times and make him comfortable, which i felt he was and he feel he trusted me and he commented more than twice that he thought the script was good.

it was now an hour away from the shows start time of 3pm, dani and owen went to print the scripts and myself, jason and chuck set up the studio so that it would record to mic’s and audio coming from are m box 1 and it was to be recorded on m box 3 with a protools file, we set this up in seconds and began tests on every aspects, we played the inserts, we recorded jason and we got jason on the guest mic, we the tested talk back on both ear phones, we then did jasons levels and also did a rough idea of alexs levels so when he came in we wouldn’t be messing about.

soon after that we got the scripts and started doing dry run throughs of his links and how it would sound to him, we then were joined by alex the guest and we all said hello and breifed him on the show and question we then got his levels before the show and then we remembered the mini disc, we had to record the show on md for back up we asked conor and he got us one it was no 14.50 and where ready to go.

SCRIPT AND RECORDING

sparkyg — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:27:00 +0000

i now have all the interviews and voxx pops edited and ready to go, i started to write my script and really wanted to put some feelings through it and with out being in your face, i also wanted to be slightly judgemental in the way of making people think ‘is that me?’

i felt my script was good and had some nice play on words aswell as havinga nice ending with the line “things have to change no matter what the cost” with fading out piano which would give a really memorable feel.

i had to find some one to present it and i felt there was only one man who could give it doom and gloom with a feeling of ‘this is serious’, that man was callum beucanon who has a really low basey voice, he also had a cold so he was on fine form and really added to the feeling.

so i set up the studio had no problems and recorded his audio, it was 1 take stuff and i went straight to edit it together, it came together easy it was just missing a good doom and gloom song, i went on the hunt through the computers libary and found a radiohead song called ‘video tape’ it had this epic piano solo at the start which i looped and originally put for the entire package i very quickly realised this was not right and decided to fade it completely out when julies interview starts, i felt her peice needed no added help for emotions.
once i had sorted that i put the songs natural ending onto the loop which faded out slowly and mixed with callums line it would be powerful.

i then was finished and put a master fader on to check all levels, i tweeked a few volumes here and there and the levels where at a broadcastable level.

the package was now finished and i regard it as some of my best work, which means alot due to fact this is the area of radio i am least fond of ‘documentry style’

i feel it does work because it is like a story, we have a gripping start and emotional middle and a conclusive ending, i feel it could be played on many stations.

VOXX POPS

sparkyg — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:10:20 +0000

i had no idea what the question should be for the public but i knew it had to show are vunribility and sheer blindness to the affects of alcohol, so i had just done my interview with Gillian and she had told me the government guidlines on how many units if any you should take. i thought i could ask this and knew i would not get people knowing the answer and this would lead well into gillian telling us, it all fitted together.

so i went out with my zoom and asked that question and the responses were exactly as i had predicted, they didn’t have a clue and even people laughed at it and 2 people said the must well exceed it. this was what i needed, i edited it down to 45 seconds and had my first link to my factual interview.

2nd and 3rd interviews completed

sparkyg — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:04:25 +0000

i went to see my first interviewee Julie simpson on the 27th of march, she stayed in leith and was at an area which was close to my bus route, i went into her home and was treated in a friendly manor, she did seem nervous but i reasured her this was not a big deal and not many would hear it.
when we got to the interview she pulled out a peice of paper like a pre planned monalouge, i cringed at the thought and felt this was going to make my emotional peice robotic.
and i was right to begin, she said her name wooden and stiff and began to try and relax her by asking her questions about her emotions and trying to get her into that mind set, in no time at all she had loosened up had forgot about the paper.

julie gave me a 13 minute interview which i could have used nearly every peice, but i cut it down to 3.3o, it was so powerful, it felt like a short story but told in far to realistic fashion that made you really think, Julie and one point speeks of suicide and begins to cry, all though i was nearly chocking up myself i felt this was perfect for what i needed, i even decided to use it at the start of my package as an opening line.

i then on the same day went to see Maggie who was based near the trainstation and once again maggie had a peice of paper ready to read, she ended up reading it all the way though and it answered my questions in full and really gave a feeling of change and hope it was great and the very last insert of my package.

i did all my recordings and editings on my own equipment and found no problems, all levels were perfect and julie’s interview had about the best qaulity sound you could get with out being in a studio.

2nd and 3rd interview confirmed

sparkyg — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 15:52:51 +0000

it had got to the point that i had really lost the plot, i would phone people and get nothing, no one wanted to do it and most didn’t even pick up the phone.

i knew now that i had a factual interview about alcohol i also needed an interview that would be an emotional story from some one who has been an alcoholic and also i needed an interview with some one who could bring conclusions to my package, which would be through talk of change and things that are happening in the government to change.

so i began by phoning alcoholics annoymous and being direct, i simply asked if they had some one who has been sober for year and who was once an alcoholic, i got a nice man called Paul tell me he would find some one for me and get back to me as soon as possible.
he phoned me roughly a week later telling me about this women JUlie simpson who has been through it all, he gave me her number and i got in touch.
i spoke to julie and told her my intentions of the interview and told her i would like to hear what made her drink, her lowest moments and relisation of being an alcoholic and also how she got out of it and he she has recovered.
she asked for a rough outline of questions so i sent them to her.

i also had to get my other interview about change, i phoned a women called Maggie murray who was from ‘action on alcohol and drugs in Edinburgh’ this i was sure would be the interview i was looking for, but unfortunetly i got her voice mail, then she got back to me and she got my voice mail, it was back and forth like this, until i finally got her after phoning constintly.
we arranged a date and she like julie asked for the questions, i abliged and had confirmed 2 interviews.

1 hour magazine show (brief and roles)

sparkyg — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 15:30:18 +0000

in summary we were to make a 1 hour show that included 6 of are 6 to 8 minute packages and also include a guest.

are team is called ‘girls aloud’

are original roles that were decided are :

Mark/Jason presenting/ script writing

Adam producer

Owen monitoring

Dani desk

Chuck jingles and inserts

Jason and I were more than happy with our roles and felt we make a good team and could bang out a good script.
Adam put himself down for producer, he was confident about it, but the rest of the group put that down as a question mark to whether he would end up with that role, but for the time being we left it and hoped he would step up to the challenge.

Owen was happy and so was Chuck, I felt comfortable with Chuck doing the jingles, because he does his best work when he feels passionate about something and Chuck is very passionate about jingles etc.
Dani was a bit of a worry, she got the role of desk which was not her first choice, but she said she would also rise to the challenge, but I felt she would try and get out of it if she could.

As time got closer to the show, i decided that i was not needed as a co-presenter, because the feel we where trying to go for was one of seriousness and proffesional and my voice is a bit chirppy and bubbly which doesn’t really fit, it would have worked with are original plan to get 2 guests in and one be on entertainment, which would have fitted in with me, but we didn’t and i felt it was not needed.
also we decided that adam wasn’t up to the job of producer, he had showed no leader skills and had left us even wondering if he would finish his package so we decided to give him the role of inserts and dani would take the producer role and chuck would do the digi desk, unfortunetly adam pulled out of the course so that meant i went onto inserts, we felt this wasn’t a problem that he was gone, because we were operating as normal, he wasn’t doing anything for the group and to be honest he felt like a spare part which we could live with out.

with adam leaving that made it 100% clear that we where short of 1 package for are 60 minute show, so we went with callums from the other group, he was doing his on ‘ would the recession affect night clubs and pubs in edinburgh’ this fitted in well with jasons package and also gave us a natural area for the guest to fit into.