Thursday 20th October

This was the day we finally got to find out what groups we were going to be in, what genre we wanted our show to be and what roles we would be taking.

When we were in the group there wasn’t too much debate on the genre, everyone just wanted to make sure that we were all keen to keep up the motivation for Gospel, which we were!

However when I came to picking my role I know I wanted to do a presenter role but with something a bit different, so that’s why I was up for being the OB presenter.

Monday 24th October

This was our groups first meeting outside of class.

During the meeting I nominated myself to take minutes for everyone so that we all had a log of what has been said and what we needed to do and focus on.

James our editor set us all tasks to do for next time we came back together. Mine was to work with Matt the OB producer to get in contact with a few gospel acts.

James also set us all up on Trello so we can keep an eye on what we are all doing.

Thursday 27th October

In class this is the week when we learnt about to how set up do the OB kit. It was a slow start but when we eventually got going I was able to communicate well the presenters in another studio and my producer in the next room.

Through this lesson I’ve got in mind that I’m going to get a really nice cue and short interview with the artist/s for the actual broadcast so it add to the performance.

Thursday 3rd

This Thursday we were in our own little groups (OB for me) where I found artists to email and get in contact with.

I found a spoken word artist who would fit in really well, especially as we are focussing on Premier Gospel as he featured on there as an UP and coming artist and did an interview about his Gospel influences. I got in touch via twitter and he responded almost instantly and seems very keen to get involved which was good new!

I then did a quick sketch to design the layout of the room and how we’d like it for the OB on the day.

After working in group we got together and shared our ideas and what we’ve come up with, during this I took minutes again for everyone which I added to Trello.

Monday 7th November

Here was just a quick meeting where a few of us just updated James with where we are at, me and Matt go in contact with the Westminster Gospel choir who we might be using for the practise run.

Thursday 10th November

So the Thursday just gone was our playlist meeting to discuss what songs we wanted in each category (A, B, C and Gold) to finally find the station sound.

In this meeting I contributed ideas and thoughts on certain songs and said what they should be categorised by.

After we shuffled a few songs around and got rid of a few I got together with James to let him know the latest on Banwo the Poet and other artists we’d got in contact with.

Monday 14th November

On Monday we had a quick informal meeting to discuss mainly moving people around to help others out. I said that I don’t mind helping out with adverts. Sam then gave us adverts to script and bring back to her for Thursday. I had to script ads for keeping your house safe at Christmas, Asda and O2. The meeting on Monday was a pretty quick one just to update James with how things are going.

Thursday 17th November

Today was a very busy day, I was getting a lot of people to record the VO’s for the adverts and making and organising files so all the VO’s and SFX would be organised when it came to us all editing them. I ended up editing a couple of ads then sent them off to James to be checked through.

Friday 18th November

I carried on from the day before work so just edited some adverts, gathered SFX and got VO’s and carried on casting and writing a few for scripts.

Monday 21st, Tuesday 22nd and Wednesday 23rd November

These three days were very busy for me. I was editing a lot a adverts, recording a few VO’s and making sure they all got sent to James. We tried to get everything roughly done and edited before Thursday. However I have an idea that these edits are not going to be the last, they are most likely the rough cut and will need tweaking a lot.

24th November

Today was a very important day for our group, especially for ads as we had a meeting with Matthew. Before the meeting I had to make sure everything I edited was on the Google Drive so that it was accessible to everyone. All of the adverts were right for the station however the voices need changing on most of them so show a range of diversity and the gospel audience. After the meeting I sat down with people and managed to find some voice actors for the other people to contact as it’s getting closer to the actual date I’d like to be focusing more on the OB now. James agreed with me on this so I have now taken a step down from the adverts for the meantime but will be there to help if I’m needed.

Monday 28th November

On this day I started to help Matt on trying to get in contact with people for the pilot as the choir we had lined up cancelled on us. This was getting a little late now because we’d been in contact with the choir a few weeks before, we thought we definitely had them, that’s why I was put on adverts to help out. However, I managed to email round some artists that I found  through twitter, One managed to actually get back to me in the evening with his number so we could possibly arrange something for the actual show (Triple O). I will be following that up in a few days time after he’s got chance to look round his contacts.

Wednesday 30th December

We still don’t have any gospel artists that has confirmed that they can do it tomorrow, I have messaged someone from university to see if she will be able to do it at such short notice. I’ve let Matt know I’ve messaged her but also to keep messaging around too. I’ve let people know about this in the WhatsApp group.

People that I contacted

Becca Folkes – email

Raph The Message – email

Guvna B – email

Faith Child – email

Triple O – email

Presha J – Twitter dm

1st December – PILOT

Luckily, Sofia was able to come in and perform for us today at such short notice, which we were all very grateful for!

As for the pilot itself, Matt prepared a script an questions for me that I edited so it was easier for me to see/read aloud. I then ran through with Sofia of the running order, just to give her and idea. At 12 we let the audience in which was just a few first years and people from the other group.

it was meant to come to me at 12:25 but they were 2 minutes early which through everyone in the music room really off as we were mid practise and doing a level check again. However I managed to fill the time with general question about her.

However, the feedback and the end of the pilot really helped in terms of changing it up and improving it. The first bit was that we needed to give the room something other than “the studio” which I completely agreed with; secondly, was that it needs to be shorter there’s too much time away from the studio without the main presenters, which I feel can be done if we rearrange and come up with something in the middle and thirdly was that if we are going to have an audience and decorate the room, I need to talk about it and get the audience involved.

Afterwards, I spoke to James and Matt, I suggest that we keep the segment name to ‘premier gospel’s live music moments’ but call the room something simple like “The Hub”. James suggested to me that it would be good to cut it down to only 2 songs, not 3 and in-between the two songs have an extended interview part or a song. I feel like a song would be better as we can take it from the idea of it was a song that inspired them or means a lot to them, then that means we have to through back to the studio for Curtis and Molly to talk about. As for the audience, we are going to get them mic-ed up so they won’t be off mic and also I’ll acknowledge the decoration in the room, and the fact it will be live so that gives a reason for people to go to our Facebook page.

Wednesday 7th December

It’s the day before the actual show and I’m getting my last bits together, I’ve listened to some of the artists songs, she’s performing two originals, and  managed to write some questions and a rough script. I’ll go through tomorrow morning with Matt to make sure I’ve not missed out anything.

Thursday 8th December – LIVE SHOW

As soon as I got in I helped set up the music room and then went through my script with Matt had wrote and combined the two. So an hour into the show Matt revived and email of the act cancelled on us 40 minutes or so before she was meant to be on. I initially had a little panic but made sure everyone was aware of it, so what we did next was edit up with performance and interview from the pilot for a back up. Then as I was editing the script Matt and Afia managed to grab a music student that was about at the time so I could just slip in a few facts about her as soon as she arrived in the music room. Everything when alright after that, apart from she decided to cut one of her songs quite short and she wasn’t much of a talker but I didn’t everything I could to fill as much as I could. I also managed to get the audience involved and made sure that I called the room ‘The Hub”.

Overall I’ve really enjoyed this module and felt like I’ve learnt a lot and come along way, especially with editing adverts which I think I ended up doing a decent job on the ones I did which before this model started I felt like I wouldn’t of even had the confidence to try and attempt it because I wouldn’t know where to start. As for the OB I really enjoyed the rush of it all and it’s really important that everyone is communicating and make sure you have backups that are ready for the day.