Blog 1 – 02/02/2018

We were organised into groups today and then as a group, we decided the play we wanted to do and named ourselves Fantastic 4 + 1.

The following team and roles are:

I made a Google Drive and Facebook chat for all of us so we can easily communicate. I have put essential documents in the drive (such as the script and team details) and I have that we all read the script religiously to ensure we understand the story, and to also make any notes of changes we would like to make. The aim is to meet as a group and discuss any changes with the script editor.

Blog 2 – 09/02/2018

My group spent today going through the script and deciding what changes we would like to make. The script editor will be contacting the writer with the changes we would like to make and hoping they will have a positive response. I also added some important documents into our Google Drive folders such as a pre-production and post-production to do list and forms that need to be filled out during this project.

Blog 3 – 16/02/2018

Today, we went to the studio and worked on the microphone set-ups for different scenes. I found this very useful as it will be the studio I will use when we record for real, and I have not used that studio much before. For our script, we worked on the scenes where the 2 girls are in the car and also the scene where they murder Jack. With the car scene, this session gave us a good idea of which microphones we would like to use for the car scene and also how we want to go about the sounds of the murder scene.

Blog 4 – 23/02/2018

Unfortunately, there is not a lot to update this week. The script editor has not been in regular contact with Peter, so we did not receive the script changes today we were promised. This is because Peter had some questions that he did ask but never had a response. Lucy has stepped in to keep in contact with Peter as she has built a rapport with him and is reliable to getting back to him within a decent amount of time. Our team met with Matthew and Jeremey today which was very useful with regards to what documents need to be completed prior to recording and what needs to be done next week. Over the past few weeks, I have been adding documents to the drive that need to be filled out and completed, which I do believe is the production coordinators job, however, I feel like I have had to take on this responsibility as it needs to be done.

Blog 5 – 02/03/2018

We received the script on Monday and Peter has done a great job on the changes. I made a list earlier in the week which consists of sound effects needed for when we edit and piece together the audio drama. Unfortunately, our recording was cancelled due to the weather, which is a little irritating as the group picked that week as it suited us best. It has now been rescheduled to 16th of March.

Blog 6 – 09/03/2018

Yesterday our team met up to discuss paperwork and finalise anything. The people that attended were me, Lucy and Stephanie. I had created an agenda on our Google Drive folder so that the meeting can be organised and would not take a long time to get through (as we are all very busy). We found out Zineb had not contacted the new actors/actresses so I ended up emailing them as we needed them confirmed for today. As of today, all the actors are confirmed, however, they have not been told about their expenses for travel, which I asked Zineb to sort out today. I am concerned because the actors all have my phone number, even though I will be in the studio on the day so I don’t know why I’m now taking care of the production coordinator role. I am also concerned about how the expenses are going to be paid as I don’t have any spare money to give out to the actors, that I am willing to wait a few weeks for to get back, and some of the other members of the team have no suggested they are willing to put any money towards the expenses.

Blog 7 – 16/03/2018

Today was the recording of ‘Best Friends Forever’. Didn’t get off to a great start because I did arrive a bit later than I had hoped. However, I went over studio schedule and timings that Lucy had sorted and I was happy with it. I had printed out a copy of the script for myself earlier in the week however, it was pointed out that Stephanie had made a few errors (such as deleting names of the actors needed for each scene and some names were spelt wrong), so Lucy had printed new copies.

When the actors were ready to start with our audio drama, I was keen to get it done. I had set myself up in the studio and created a range of folders to keep all the audio organised. I had decided that I would prefer to have separate audio files for each scene/ take so that it would be easier to deal with any problems. For example, if the computer crashed, I would have all previous takes saved already (and at one point Adobe Audition did crash which involved having to restart the computer). It also meant audio would not take as long to save as the file sizes would be smaller. I decided I would have the audio saved in a range of places to ensure backups if something went wrong. I saved all files to my USB (because my personal Westminster account would not have enough storage space for all the files), I put all the files on our groups Google Drive and I also emailed the files to myself, Matt and Lucy at the end. It’s important to ensure as many backups as possible because if the files were to be lost or damaged in any way, we would have somewhere where we could get the audio again. I was very nervous at the beginning and had to ask for help, however, once we had started I became more comfortable driving the desk, and rather enjoyed it too.

After we had finished recording, we were very happy with the outcome of it. The actors were really good and I look forward to sending them the finished product. Before the day was over, we ended by attacking a cabbage with a knife to get the sound of the scene where Annie and Kay stab Jack. We tried using 2 different mics, and the cabbage does work well when making a sound for a stabbing. We also recorded more than what we needed for this sound effect to ensure we have the best audio we can.

I am looking forward to the editing process because we will get to play around with different sounds and bring the script to life. Lucy, Matt and I have decided to take a little road trip on Tuesday (As we have the pop-up station on Monday) to record interior car sounds, car door sounds and sounds of being at the petrol station. I have also decided to find ready-made sounds as a backup in case recording the sounds ourselves do not work. I will also be working on deciding which takes are the best to use for the final audio drama, which will be time-consuming, however, is probably one of the more important parts of the editing stage.

Blog 8 – 23/03/2018

Myself and Lucy started editing this week. We started by taking a trip in my car to get some sound effects for the car scene and when they get to the petrol station scene. We also searched for loads of ready made clips and also got some audio for the radio news bulletin about the murder and the radio in the background. We began by going through the different takes and deciding which ones sounded best. With some scenes, we took certain lines from different takes and put it together because there were some lines which sounded better than others in different takes. We are editing the scenes individually, in the same order which we recorded them in as it’s better to clamp together similar scenes (for example, the 2 police scenes, the car scenes and we will do scene 7 last because that will be the most complicated and take the longest amount of time.

So far, I am very happy with the progress we have made, and I look forward to continue editing next week.

Blog 9 – 30/03/2018

Myself and Lucy have continued to edit each scene individually. Zineb had been asked to complete as much as possible of the paper work to submit, but have not yet seen any progress made.

All that is left to do is edit scene 7 together, put all the scenes together and create the intro and outro for the final product. Charles Carroll had voiced the intro and outro for us, and music was chosen.

Blog 10 – 09/04/2018

I edited the intro and outro to add the music last night. Lucy and I finished editing and submitted at around 2 pm, just in case there was any problems. The table below shows who was involved in the editing and listening process and who also had an input with the drama after recording.

The day we were due to submit the final programme, Zineb had started filling in the paperwork, however, was not completed to a good enough standard and also had many grammatical errors, was described as a humorous drama and gave away the ‘plot twist’. Therefore, I completed the paperwork and Matt completed the PRS for the music we used in the drama.

I have compiled a list of everything I did during this project:

Contacted actors

Studio manager on the day

Made an organised Google Drive folder and created/ completed the documents

Attended and had an input in meetings – created the meeting agenda

Completed post production paperwork for submission

Edited the audio drama together, with Lucy’s assistance

Recorded and found SFX

Organised the audio files and made back-ups

Kept a communication log