Week 1:

This week we finalised our roles and responsibilities, and got into small working groups to brainstorm ideas in our designated areas. My role is Producer of the Music show , ‘Press Play’.  This meant that I spent time with Callum, who is presenting the show, discussing feature ideas and developing a rough clock. We decided that we wanted to create quite a commercial sounding show, with short snappy links that left most of the talking to the music. Within the show there will be two features:

Grand Theft Audio:

This is an interactive feature, in which we post a poll on our twitter page with the option to choose between 2 tracks selected from the Grand Theft Auto soundtrack. The track with the most votes will play out the show. This feature will be introduced early on in the show, and referred back to during following links, so that we can make the most of the time we are on air to gain as much interaction as possible on the twitter poll. We will then use our final link to announce the winning track, say our goodbyes and then play the winning track to end the show.

Rage Quit:

This is another interactive feature, in which we ask the audience to send in their funny ‘rage quit’ stories , this can either be in the form of a tweet or a video / audio message, which we will then read / play out during the show.

Rough Clock:

Below I have inserted a rough clock that we made up to represent the general structure of the show, as you can see the purple sections, which represent music are definitely the more weighing portions of the show – this is a conscious decision that we made, as we are a music show and as mentioned above, we wanted to create quite a commercial feel. Especially as the two shows either side of us rely wholly  or partially on speech, so our show will act as a nice break between these shows.

The orange sections of our clocks are links – the majority of our links will be no more than 1 minute, however as you can see there are also a couple longer links included, which will be where our features sit.

We have decided as a group to have 4 advertisement breaks per hour, ours come at quarter past, half past and quarter to the hour as well as going into the news..

Week 2:

This week Callum and I spent time on some work we are doing with the online team. James and Dan approached us last week about doing an online chart feature once a week, in which Callum counts down his 10 favourite tracks from a specific game / game series. This will change week on week so we will end up with four episodes each focusing on a different game. We have decided to focus on Fifa, Guitar Hero, Singstar and Saints Row – we chose these games as we thought that it gave us quite a wide range of genres to work with, and each chart would have quite a different sound. We have decided upon and rated 10 songs for each game – and have organised with James and Dan to recored them in front of a green screen on Tuesday 20th February.

I have also published a short paragraph about the show to the google drive, to be used within the remit / as a description paragraph on the website.

Lucy also approached us about including another feature into our show, we have not yet got a name for it or finalised the details, but it will see Callum touching upon the top three games in the gaming chart at the moment – and playing either the hooks of a lead track from each of the games, or the full track of the game rated number one, however we are concerned that this may be too similar to our Grand Theft Audio feature in which the winning track plays out the show – so are going to spend time brainstorming other possible ways to include the games chart within our show.

It was also decided this week that we would have 3 advertisement breaks per hour instead of 4, which meant that we would no longer have ads going into the news. This change along with the added feature meant that we needed to re-jig our clocks a little bit  – I have inserted the revised clock below.

Something to note about the clock, for sections where there are large portions of music together (i.e. after the 1.45pm advertisements) – Callum will throw forward / introduce tracks , we have decided to leave these sections out of the clock as they will be very short. However they are very necessary as our show will cover a range of genres, and when switching between the genres some songs will need to be sold in.

Week 3:

Monday 19.02.18

In this weeks lesson  Callum and I finalised the scripts for the online chart that we are recording with James and Dan. We also went into more detail with our clock as we stared to catagorise our tracks into A, B and C list, obviously we will not have full control over this as the music team will create our log, however it will be useful to show them beforehand so that they have a clearer idea of how we ant the show to sound and where we will need to position songs that will need selling or sharp genre changes. We also started to pull together a rough plan / running order for the pilot, by finalsing details for our features, and we are at a point now where all we need is our music log in order to be fully prepared.

We also had some positive meetings with Eliza our station manager and Tom the module leader, about the direction of the show and we all really agreed that although there is going to be a commercial feel and the music will do most of the talking. The huge range of music will mean that we really need to sell tracks in and add context, particularly touching on their links to gaming. This will just help to add a little something to it so that it doesn’t just sound like an iPod on shuffle. Another way we are trying to achieve this is by breaking our clock up with features and competitions, as you can see from the rough clock above, there is something going on in each quarter. For example, our first quarter has our into link as well as a throw forward and explanation of our feature Grand Theft Audio, then in our second quarter we have the feature Rage Quit, in our third quarter we have the competition, and in our final quarter we announce the winning track from Grand Theft Audio and do our final link. So although there will be a lot of music it is broken up quite logically.

Tuesday 20.02.18

Today I met with James, Dan and Callum in the green screen studio to shoot the online chart content. I had printed out all of the scripts from our drive folder so that they were handy throughout the filming as we were working to time and only had around 30 minutes to record all four charts. The filming seemed to go really well and the scripts sounded good, o i am looking forward to seeing what James and Dan do with it

Callum, Eliza and I have arranged to meet Friday morning for a run through, depending on whether we have our log by then – this will allow me to create a much more accurate clock and running order as we will be able to time links an features and figure out what does and doesn’t work. we were hoping to do this in Mondays lesson but were unable to get into the studio as lots of our working groups within the station needed it.

So during the time between now and the pilot I aim to have had a run through with Callum, finalised the clock and running order and communicated with the other two shows to ensure that there is no overlay in content or music.

Week 4

This week Callum and I met up on Friday for a run through, we had planned all of our features and links so these were reflective of the content that we would use during the pilot. however we were still yet to recive our Log (two days before the pilot) so were unable to practise with the real music and instead had to use songs already in myriad for smoke purposes etc. Despite that we were both pretty happy with how the run through went, we were able to fit in both features and the competition and run exactly to time, so this left us feeling positive about Mondays pilot.

Following the run through I sent a few tweets to the online team to schedule for when we were on air, one of which was the poll for Grand Theft Audio feature and the other was advertising the Rage Quit feature and calling listeners to send in their own funny stories. I also clipped the Hooks of the 4 tracks we had selected Grand theft Audio and uploaded them along with the full tracks to the Google drive ready to be loaded into myriad.

I was also allocated an ad to make during the week, my advert was for ‘Illusion’ which is a clothing company based in London. I was able to get this professionally voiced and edited it together ready for the pilot show.

Pilot Music Show

On the whole Matthew and Eliza seemed happy with ur show, it ran the smoothest of the there shows and ran to time. The main feedback we received was that we need to chat to the caller a little more during the Rage Quit feature, and also include a few social media examples. Callum and I were really happy with the feedback and everything that needs improving feels really doable. The majority of our negative feedback was based around presenting slip ups i.e. the way to enter the competition. However I think that this is reflective of the fact that we received our log less than an hour before our show, and Callum was called in to desk op for the talk show so was only able to see the running order for the first time at 1pm, when our show went live. Therefore week ones show should hopefully run a lot smoother as we will have our log and therefore running order in advance.

Week 5 

This week I created the playlist for our show, one of the main concerns with the music last week was that there wasn’t enough diversity between games – so this week the music team asked us to choose our own music (from the playlist they had created) which they would later schedule for us. As well as this, I worked on the running order, as we had our music confirmed much earlier this week I was able to do a much more in depth running order – in which I had researched all of the tracks along with their gaming relevance , and was also able to include the Ins, Outs and Endings.

Matthews feedback about our features last week was that ‘Rage Quit’ needed to include more conversation between Callum and the caller, and there also needed to be more of an arc to the story they were telling. This meant that we spend a little more time with the production of this element, in which we pre recored that call so that we were able to brief the guest and edit it into something a bit sleeker.

I also gathered the hooks and full tracks for Grand Theft Audio and normalised them to -6 and imported them into myriad ready for the show.

This is the final clock that I developed for the 1st weeks show.    Clock:Week 1 

1st Show

Our show aired at 2pm this afternoon, we had a little technical difficulty to begin with, however Callum handles it really well and it didn’t seem to be too noticeable, and more importantly didn’t throw him off too much. This meant that I had to make a few changes to the running order during the show so that we would run into the ads on time.

The final link of out show came from studio 4 as Callum was doing a two way with Natalie, I stayed in studio 6 to manage the desk from that side.

Overall we were happy with the way that the show ran – although there are definitely aspects that we would like to improve.

Toms Feedback

Toms main concern was with the diversity of music, as the majority of the tracks were pretty poppy, which he felt made the show sound more like just a music show, rather than a music show with a gaming focus – and I agree. Over the next week I will need to produce a new playlist for week 2’s show, however I think that this will mean adding some more music to the database and the entire selection is very heavily pop based and the majority of tracks are from either GTA or FIFA. So this will be a discussion that we need to have with the music team as I am very keen to make the music a lot more diverse in terms of genre as well as game.

His other concern was about the GTA feature – which he felt went on for too long and would have been more effective if it had been settled immediately by a caller. This is something that can easily be achieved in next weeks show, and will also eliminate the problem of having two social media calls to action overlapping i.e. GTA and the competition.

The general jist of the feedback was that we really need to push the gaming element of the show and take it away from purely being the music.

Week 6

This week I created the playlist for our show again, I was cautious to include a diverse range of games, genres and musicians throughout the playlist, as the initial feedback we had was that the show relied a little too heavily on pop music and the games GTA and Fifa. Therefore I included some instrumental original soundtrack stuff as well as some jazzy soul bits from games such as Fallout. As well as this Callum and I worked on changing the GTA feature up a little bit – as some other feedback from last week was that the poll treatment of the feature went on too long, and that instead, it should be introduced and  resolved all in one link.

I have also worked on making the running order more detailed, as I have included ins and outs for all the songs and tried to incorporate some more opportunities to throw forward to other content in the show, or link to online content.

Show 2

This weeks show did not go as well as the first weeks show, although we had acted on all of the feedback we had been given, some of the changes just did not work. For example, the use of original soundtrack / instrumental songs did not really fit with the show or the music around it – Toms advice on this was that we need to find another way of including OST pieces and whilst keeping the playlist fairly ‘poppy’. As well as this, the GTA feature seemed to be a bit long winded and didn’t really have much purpose, the advice around this was that it needed to be much snappier and have more pace. Which in fact, was the overall feedback for the show.

Week 7

This week music are created the playlists for the shows, in order to prevent any overlaps in tracks between the three shows. I was a little concerned as the music team have been consistently unreliable in the past weeks as we have only been provided with our logs on a Monday morning, despite the playlist being done for them and given to them on the previous Tuesday. Therefore I was slightly worried that we would receive our log late and not have much time to plan and run through the show. On Monday evening, after the 2nd show, I provided the music team with a short brief of what we wanted on the show, which summarised – was just a diversity of games, and quite a poppy feel.

Lucy instructed the Music team to have the logs done by Wednesday, however I did not receive the Press Play log until Friday evening, and this came from a member of the digital team who had stayed late in the studio with Lucy completing the logs and normalising all of the tracks and ads as this has still not been done, and none of the producers were aware of what they were going to be playing.

When I sat down on Saturday morning to research the tracks in the log, I found that five out of the twelve tracks we were playing, were from the game-  ‘Just Dance’, which was frustrating as I had specifically asked for a range of games, and overall we only had around 4 different games in our log. This meant that Callum and I had to spend time moving the log around and importing new tracks.

This week I completed the running order and clock, researched all the tracks, came up with a talking point for the show, and sourced some beds and branding to help with the pace of the show.

Show 3

This weeks show was an improvement on last week, although there are still some things that don’t quite work. Tom ws happy that we had decided to go for a pop based show, as we mentioned it in our tagline and it helped to give a bit more context as to what the show is really about. He also liked the improved branding and pace of the show and noticed that we were throwing forward to features more. However there are still issues with our features, both Grand Theft Audio and Rage quit seem to have come to a head and become a little boring and pointless – and this is something that we were noticing in the studio as we were live. Particularly with GTA, we sped it up a little and made it snappier as last weeks feedback suggested, however this meant that it lost ant sense of jeopardy and in turn its point really.  Therefore the main aim of the coming week is to re work both of our futures and make them a bit more entertaining.

Week 8

This week I have been messed around by the music team yet again, I was expecting to receive my playlist on Wednesday – I did not however receive even a draft until Friday – this is getting quite tiresome as every week so far it has been late and there has been issues with the tracks. This week one member of the music team sent me across ‘the final playlist’ for press play and told me that it had been scheduled, I then planned the entire show around these tracks, researched them all, made notes of the In’s and Out’s etc. Only to then be told by the other member of the music team that she has re done the whole playlist and all the tracks were to change? although it was already Saturday at this point (4 days after we were expecting the logs). When I then checked this new playlist there was two tracks by the same artist within the same hour? and there were quite a few tracks that I had never even heard of, which therefore did not fit the brief of our show – ‘which is to play the very best pop music from the games you love’, Which I am not surprised about as this particular member of the music team has not communicated with me abut the sound of our show at all across the 5 shows. This meant that I had to completely re work the running order – al because there had been no communication between the two members of the music team , and so neither one of them knew that they had both sent me a separate playlist. Once this was all sorted, I did receive my log, however it again came from a member of the digital team, who had stayed late to do all of the logs for all three shows, including ads and branding, this is not part of his role, yet every week he seems to be the one doing it – even though one member of the music team was actually in uni all of that day but refused to do the logs based on some personal tensions going on between the two members of the music team.