Production week 1:

During the first production week we decided as a class what production roles everyone would take in the class. Mary, Joe and I all volunteered to be editor which went to a class vote, after the vote it was releveled that Mary had been chosen to be the editor. I believe this is the right decision as Mary was one of the original people pushing for a food-based station. At first, I asked to be a part of the audio production team as producing is something, I feel very confident doing and believe I would perform very well in this role. Initially there was some confusion with the producers at the show structure had not been finalized.

Around the half way point of the week we decided that I would take the role of producer of the third hour, a more music focused hour of the show. This decision was made after Holly and Rhys had been chosen as co-producer on the first two hours of the show. I had also discussed about potentially taking a role doing visualization but ultimately Mary decided that she did not want to visualize enough of the show to require someone dedicated to the role and Pulama and Gabriel would just share the task of creating visual aspects of the live broadcast. At first, I was wasn’t overly pleased with the role as music show producer as I wanted to focus more on speech content, but throughout the week I came to terms with it. I had also had a few conversations with Jay about the music and we agreed to work together closely to create a nice flow to music in the third hour.

This week we also decided that Joe and Kaylee would be the presenters for all three hours the show, this was a joint decision between Mary, Holly, Rhys and myself. I feel like this is the right decision as they are the best two presenters within the class. Once the presenter decision and my role were decided I sat down with Joe and Kaylee and we brainstormed feature ideas for the third hour of the show. I collected a list of features that we all agreed on. We also spend some time in the studio practicing Joe and Kaylee’s presenting relationship and some of the proposed features. Once this was done, I placed the best features within the first week running order a few days later. Before I made the running order, I met with Jasmine and Riya to discuss the Show Clock for the music hour and then individually created the running order for the first pilot. I have also booked Lucy Agget as a musical guest for the first pilot.

One of the main areas that the producers and presenters could not agree on was who was going to run the desk of the shows, as both Joe and I believe that for a more music heavy show it would be better for him to self tech op the show, but for the first two hours Rhys and Holly had decided that Holly would tech op and Kaylee and Joe would be in the booth. We decided as a group we would do the first pilot with the first hour being tech oped by Holly and the second by Joe to test them both and then make a decision after the pilot had finished.

Production week 2/Pilot Week 1:

This week’s show overall was okay, the main issues the overall show had was that hour 1 and hour 2 sounded like two completely different show. We had expected this as we had planned for a change in tech op between the shows. The main issue here was the levels of bed music and the change in show energy between the shows. For the music hour, I believe most of the features worked as I had aimed to create a highly entertaining fairly fast-paced show with links being focused on food and having food-based games. The only feature I am unsure on is the Musician interview and guest performance, as I believe it didn’t have much relevance to the overall show. I believe I will drop this feature from here on.

After a quick discussion Holly, Rhys and I have decided that Holly with Tech Op the entire three hours to help make the show sound more consistent, and we will also try to work together more to make show flow from the second hour into the third hour seamlessly. This will also help it sound more like one long three-hour show rather than two shows, one two-hours and one one-hour. Having two shows was the original idea but the lack of presenters available made this impossible. To also try and make the show sound more consistent we have decided that Rhys will take the studio producing role for the entire show, Holly will tech op and I will act as an assistant producer/runner helping with anything that needs to be done on the day including collecting guests, phoning guests, getting running orders or setting up any features. Although I am not pleased with dropping reasonability on the day but I believe this will lead to an overall more consistent and better show, and that I will be more help over the three hours to everyone rather than just focusing all of my energy on the third hour. Although I am no longer studio producing the third hour, I will still be setting up the third hour and booking any relevant guests and sorting any competition information.

For next weeks pilot, I have decided to drop the musical guest feature as I believe it wasn’t relevant to the overall show, and I have replaced with a ‘snacks’ feature where we will get Joe and Kaylee trying snacks relating to each week. I have also slightly adjusted the clock and running order removing two songs and allowing more time for speech content.

Pilot Week 2:

This week’s show was a far improvement on last weeks, showing the benefit of doing pilots. The decisions we made last week within the production team have paid off making the shows flow much better and have an overall better sound. Within the third hour, the new feature about snacks worked well and I believe I will continue this onto next week. The only thing lacking in the show was a guest which I had not booked because I wanted to focus on entertainment content. This was the only area that I believe needs adjusted for next week as a guest will even further help the shows flow together.

As my role during the live show day has changed, I believe I helped a lot, during the morning of the show I phoned and reconfirmed all the guests for the entire running order. I also researched and wrote a “cheat sheet” for the competition section with some quick and easy information for the presenters to use. I also spent a lot of time writing/confirming the script for the third hour as there was some miscommunication between presenters and production about how scripted we would like the show. This led to me writing the entire third-hour script during the run-throughs in the morning, which I hadn’t done previously as we had tried to keep it more fluid in the first pilot using bullet points rather than full scripts. From here on Joe and Kaylee will be writing the scripts for all three hours in advance and then Rhys and I will be checking them before the live shows.

In terms of the first live show next week, our roles in production will stay the same and I believe that is for the best. I will also try to book a guest relevant to the Vegan topic for the third hour, we will also try to link the second and third hour together with the competition feature. Again, I will adjust the running order slightly to accommodate more time for a guest.

Rhys gave me contact details for Stephen Conway who is a founder of a Vegan chocolate company, I phone Stephen and he agreed to come on the show in the third hour, he also agreed to send us a batch of vegan chocolate to try during the segment, this ties nicely into the snacks feature which is placed just before the interview in the running order. I also decided to invite Bethany in as a ‘food correspondent’ for the snacks sections as she will be able to give information about what they’re trying each week. I have also worked closely with Jay this week to try and create a more consistent playlist for the third hour.

Live Weeks 1 Vegan:

The live shows went very well, again showing that the two pilot weeks have greatly helped the show overall. I believe the competition game works very well but needs slightly tweaked, so it is not so difficult. Using Bethany as a ‘food correspondent’ also worked really well and enhanced this feature. Riya helped me out with this by putting together a list of Vegan snacks and then purchasing them during the week, she will continue to do this for the following show. My guest Stephen Conway was also very good and it tied in very well with the previous snack segment with Joe and Kaylee trying the chocolate on air. The only section of the show which did not work was the right or wrong feature which had worked in the previous two pilots, I believe this was due to us running out of time towards the end of the show.

In the morning before the show, I double checked Joe and Kaylee’s script for the third hour and made any adjustments and added some questions for Stephen. I also phoned and reconfirmed all the guests in the running order. Once the show had started I kept an eye on timings and helped whenever I was needed this included meeting and greeting Bernarsh Laly who was a guest in the second hour. I also helped organise the snack during the third hour making the feature on air more fluid.

Next week I am going to drop the right or wrong feature to give more time to the snack feature and to a guest. I have also spoken to Rhys about doing a top 5 places to eat feature with a guest at the end of the show as I think this would be a good way to round off each show, so next week I will try to book a food critic or food blogger within London to focus on this. Other than a few adjustments I am happy with the third hour running order and clock and believe the template will stay the same for most weeks here on out. As next week is world food the snack feature will focus on different world foods and will test Joe and Kaylee to try to guess the origin location of the snack item.

Live Weeks 2 World Food:

I really enjoyed this weeks show and think our shows keep getting better and better. This week I removed the right or wrong section I felt last week it did not work due to timings. This was replaced by giving both the snacks feature and the interview slightly more time. I managed to book a London Food Blogger, Paola Maggiulli “The Tiny Italian” for this weeks show to discuss some of the best places to get Italian food in London, I chose to do this because we were trying to focus on a new location around the world in each feature and Italian wasn’t something we had covered in the first two hours of the show. I like this section but again due to time restrictions we ran out of time and had to cut the segment slightly short by skipping the 2^nd best place on the list of 5. Mary suggested that next week we cut it down to the top 3 if I chose to do a similar feature towards the end of the show, and I think I will.

Due to a guest dropping out I had to book Paola very last minute doing it the morning of the show, this didn’t really hinder my ability to do anything else during the morning but I still could’ve spent that time triple checking the script. During the morning I also phone all the guests reconfirming them for the show. I also greeted Jackson Bashford who was a guest in the first hour. I also had to confirm the giveaway as Stuart was on holiday during the week and had yet to hear back from our competition to get official written confirmation, so I followed that up and confirmed that during the morning of the show. Other than that I helped organise the snack feature as well, this week split into two shorter features with a song in the middle.

For next week I am sticking to the same running order template but will aspire to book a guest further in advance as well as having back up guests.

Live Weeks 3 Seafood:

Once again the show this week has improved on previous weeks overall. The running order did not change much, as I believe the format is good and doesn’t need to be changed dramatically at all. Once again I believe the coemption feature worked well and this week it perfectly tied into the second hour with the last interview being related to the giveaway. The main change this week was reducing the top 5 list to a top 3 list, this was to allow the guest to talk in more detail about their choices of places to eat. I believe this worked well this week and helped the show come to a more natural end and didn’t feel rushed. For this week I booked Nicola King from blog ‘EastLondonGirl’ to talk about top 3 seafood places. I also worked closely with Jay and Jason on Friday to work on the placement of songs in relation to adverts and song order.

During the day of the broadcast, I did similar things to the previous weeks, called all of the guests to reconfirm them for the show, I double checked the script was all okay. I also did live timings for the end of hour 2 and end of hour 3 to help Rhys and holly. I had to also update the terms and condition on the website to accommodate this weeks giveaway. And as always sorted the snacks in the third-hour feature.

Next week we are looking to go out on something big. Rhys has taken more control of the booking but I am still sorting the timings and allocating times for the features. I also think on the day I might help Gabriel with a live broadcast of the show as I previously have experience in this. I was also performing all the normal on the day duties with confirming guests.

On Friday we will have a larger meeting and work out the logistics for the final show.

Live Weeks 4 Deserts:

For this week I have taken a step back from setup production of the thrid hour to focus on helping with the overall visualization of the show. Rhys and Holly have taken the role of producing all three hours as we wanted to make them flow as much as possible. Overall, I think the show was very good and very ambitious. I was very happy with the overall live stream/visual aspects of the show as Gabriel and I put a ridiculous amount of work into making it all work. Once everything was set up and running on the day everything went fairly smoothly, which I believe is a testament to Gabriel, Joe, Jason, Pulama and myself who worked to set up the broadcasting the previous Friday.

In terms of the set-up work, most of the class met on Friday to discuss ideas and look at the setup. Gabriel and I showed up early and spend a few hours setting up the computer, multiple cameras and testing some aspects of the audio. Jason and I also helped Pulama with setting up the green screen and organising the set. After the basic greenscreen, set and camera set up was completed we spend the remaining of the afternoon/early evening running tests, adjusting cameras, and trying to sort various technical problems that were plaguing our test live streams. By the time Gabriel, Joe, Jason, Pulama and I left on Friday night almost all of the technical problems had been fixed but there were a few things that still needed to be addressed on Monday Morning.

Once we came in on Monday morning it was a process of double checking everything for the visual broadcast as there were still some teething problems (inconstant audio, and certain websites not hosting the test streams) but we managed to get it all working in time for the broadcast. I also helped with various other things during the morning of the show, phoning and reconfirming guests, fixing talkback and earpieces for the presenters, multiple microphone tests and as always I double checked/changed parts of the script and reconfirmed the running order timings for all three hours after Jay had changed some of the music selections. During the show I helped with whatever was needed which included phoning a few live guests, making sure studio guests were miced up before they had to go into the studio. I also helped with setting up and taking down of props for various the live guests and making sure the set was cleared after guests had been on.

After the broadcast, the entire class chipped in with tidying the room and talking down all the equipment. Gabriel, Joe and I took care of all the Cameras, Microphones and computer cables just to make sure everything was the same as when we set it up. Once that was taken down everyone helped with taking the equipment back to the various store. Overall, the show was a success and the visualized aspects worked as intended which I was extremely happy about due to myself and Gabriel’s hard work during the set up process .