Production Week 1 – 20/01/2020

This week we got given the brief and a general overview of what was expected from us for this module. We then put together a number of random topics and drew them out onto posters. From this we started to slowly narrow down the topics we wanted to do. After discussing ideas we narrowed it down to a further three so that the whole class were interested in at least one topic. We then went into groups to try and develop the ideas further. The three main ideas the class were left with were Atlas Radio, Theatre radio and Dating in London. Everyone split into teams between the three topics and our task for next week is to develop our chosen topic further which we’ll pitch to the class.

Production Week 2 – 27/01/2020

This week we pitched each of the three remaining ideas we had chosen within our teams. This gave us a chance as a class to develop the ideas we already had further and then this was able to help us pick our final topic for the station. After pitching each of the ideas we decided to go with the Atlas radio which is where explore the different cultures in London through music and speech. However this name was already taken so throughout today we were trying to research another name for the station which was relevant we were also split up into roles and we each voted and decided who was going to do what role within this project. I’m currently in the digital team however this could change for next week. In the meantime we’re all going to try and research a further name for our station ready for next week.

Production Week 3 – 03/02/2020

I was originally going to do the digital marketing and content producer role however I’ve now been moved since last week to Head of Sales. We’ve also finalised our station name this week which is going to be Atlas London Radio which hasn’t been taken, this also narrows our station identity down to a specific area. I’m now emailing as many businesses as possible in order to grant us advertisement for the station and then by doing this we should be able to start producing Adverts for our station next week so we can be as prepared as possible ready for our first pilot show in a couple of weeks.

Production Week 4 – 10/02/2020

This weeks been pretty hectic because it’s the last week before we start our pilot shows. I’ve been mostly emailing as many businesses as possible. I have now contacted around 35 or so and eight have come back to us and confirmed they’re happy for us to go forward and produce an advert for them. I have tried haggling in order to get us some sort of income but unfortunately they’re mostly local businesses so far and therefore aren’t able to put money towards the AD. I’ve produced one Advert so far and i’m aiming to have five completed ready for the pilot next week. I’ve distributed the work out to different people for all the AD’s we have so far and already have around 2 VO’s recorded ready to add effects etc. For next week its all abut getting the full 16 ads commissioned if possible. I’m going to go around to some local businesses to meet the managers face to face to hurry the process up quicker. I’m also looking to produce some idents ready for next week in order to try and relieve the pressure off the branding team.

Pilot Show Week 1 – 17/02/2020 

For this week we had to do a half an hour speech show and then an hour’s worth of a music show, overall for a first run we thought it went pretty well. The main feedback as one of the presenters is we needed to know the music more and have more knowledge so it felt as if it was our show as a pose to having the music picked for us. In terms of Adverts we still don’t have a sponsor yet, i’ve been on the phone to Nandos and they’ve given me an email address to contact them on however we are making great progress with the adverts and currently have around3 made and around 7 commissioned which i can work on this week. I also made some 12 idents for the station as we didn’t have any, so we now have a Scottish VO and and an Irish one too however some of them do say our social handle @AtlasLondonRadio as a pose to just Atlas London however  they were good for the first pilot and hopefully it helped the production team who hadn’t got a chance to produce any at the time.

Pilot Show Week 2 24/02/2020

In terms of the adverts for this week, we have around 5 roughly edited and around 12 commissioned, it’s just a case of handing them out to various people and chasing up for other commissions. There’s still lots to do but i’m aiming to have at least 7-8 ready to go for next week.  I’ve also rang up Nandos again to find out what’s going on with our commission as the local restaurant in Harrow has approved us doing it however we have to confirm it with h.q.. The show was pretty tough today because we underestimated how much music we would need for the whole 2 hour music show however we got through it and are certain we’ll be more prepared for the first main show next week!

Atlas Show Week 1 02/03/2020

In terms of the actual show, it generally went okay. I felt as though there was some slip ups however we had a solid show with content and music along with plenty of new AD’s myself and Claire produced this week between us. In terms of the adverts we now have eight made and are hoping to have more ready to go for next week. The toughest part is just getting stuff commissioned and then sourcing a range of different VO’s for the adverts. I also tried to contact Nando’s again for one final time and they gave me a new email to contact their press team on and i still didn’t get a reply on Monday so then tried Vapiano as a back up, which is an Italian restaurant based in central. They got back to me straight away and said yes to sponsoring us. I’ve since been and visited the restaurant along Great Portland Street and met the manager to chat about what he wants. He gave me some vouchers to give out in a competition we could run and is happy sponsor us as along as we mention them within each show. I’ve already sourced an Italian VO so hoping to have this made into a stab ready for our second show next week along with as many AD’s complete as possible.

Atlas Show Week 2 09/03/2020

This week generally was better in terms of the fact we now have a sponsor, an extra ad made and lots of messages have been sent out to people in order to get Voice overs done for ADS, the trickiest part i’m finding with the adverts is just getting diverse voices as there genuinely isn’t that many that work on a professional basis which is the challenge here within my job role. We do now however have a sponsor along with a live read made to advertise Vapiano and a solid competition which we started talking about on air today. I have also put together the terms and conditions along with the competition which have been sent to the online team and are now available on the website for people who want to read it through. i’m planning to put together some production for next week so that we have a sponsored stab into news.

Atlas Show Week 3 16/03/2020

This week was our final show of Atlas London for reasons we know. Overall, in terms of the flow/content of our presenting it had defiantly improved a-lot. Both myself and Chloe looked up facts about all of the artists and had a quick listen to all the songs in the log for that show the day before just so we were that little bit more, extra prepared. I have to admit i was defiantly more nervous on air in places just because i was trying to pronounce every song perfectly and in some cases i did, but others i still struggled which is something i’ve been trying to work on. I was able to complete two more ads during the week leading up to this show which included a revised edit of the Kingsfield arms AD with a more diverse voiceover along with an AD for the Junction. There was a bit of mis-communication i think so unfortunately the Kingsfield one didn’t get played out however it’s in the final ads folder. I also made some more production for the show, i did a few different sponsored into break stabs with an italian voice over just to try and make the show more slick into adverts. Overall i was happy enough but as we’ve said before there’s always room for improvement.

Week 4 work (After show) 20/03/2020

Further from what happened with the show this week, i’ve organised the sales documents and put together a folder of all the final ads we have (i’m hoping to have a couple more made if possible before the due date) but it’s proving difficult. However i have organised the final ads and put together a separate folder which has all of the scripts we’ve made for every single commission we had approved which came to fourteen all together. I’ve also from this created another separate document within the ADS folder which just highlights everything i’ve contributed personally and describes how i distributed the ad work etc and working with the rest of the team etc and also other responsibilities i took on outside head of sales etc. However overall, from this week i’m aiming to have another 1-2 ads made before the final due date on Monday.

Self Reflection 

At the start of this project, i wasn’t sure which role i wanted to do, i was optimistic for sure and wanted to be station editor or something along these lines however i’m glad i didn’t get this now because i feel as though i would’ve been quite overwhelmed with the work ahead to do along with everything else going on.

i eventually got given the role of head of sales at the start of the project the role suggested i had to sell ad space and get as many commissions as possible and that’s exactly what i set out and try to do. I ended up contacting over thirty different businesses via email and some got back to me straight away, some took weeks on end which was a-lot more tricky. As the first few weeks went on i realised our priorities changed, i still wanted to sell ad space so we could get more funds to go into the budget towards the station but the main priority was to get as many commissions on board with the station to support us so that we would have a great range of adverts that would represent the stations content and overall output.

I also was in charge of sourcing the competition, so this meant finding a business to sponsor the station, and getting them on board to again either donate money or give us a prize to giveaway to the winner to add more appeal for listeners of the station.

In terms of my work when producing and putting together the adverts, i feel that it was okay, however there were points i did struggle, for example the Kingsfield arms advert, they are a local business in Harrow that specifically serve homemade indian cuisine and so i had sourced and put together what i felt was a high quality advert with a strong voice over however based off of feedback from peers, i realised we needed an indian voiceover that would for one, represent the business more accurately in terms of the cuisine and of course the statins identity, because we are about celebrating diverse cultures in London and having too may white male voice overs i think defeated the point of this which suggested i needed to try and represent our brand in a more obvious way.

This wasn’t to say i couldn’t use British voice over artists, but there needed to certainly be a bigger variety which i think was one of my biggest flaws in terms of my role within the project, this is something that if we were to do again, i would try to understand the identity and who are audience our a bit earlier on so that i could judge how we would want the adverts/businesses to sound and be represented in coordination with the station.

I feel that by doing this role, i learn’t some basic, but certainly value small things such as knowing the right way/having that business mindset to have a confident approach when pitching our brand, in other words staton to potential advertisers by using persuasive language etc to entice them to help us and get involved. Also just general things, because i had to script and then edit a fair few Adverts and lots of drafts too, it gave me the opportunity to learn and adapt some of my editing skills such as balancing multiple clips and mixing it all together to make it sound more smooth and professional.

Overall, from pop up station i’ve learn’t that as a team generally, you have to work together no matter how much you might disagree on certain things and put your differences aside and work together so you can create a great product. I think also being more realistic with time.

Because i had never really put together a radio station from scratch before, i had a pretty good idea but not a whole detailed scale of the amount of work there would be to do. Such as little things, small things but defiantly things that bring a great attention to detail such as having top of hour donuts for the station, INTO/OUT of break stabs, Digital content for the website and socials, Terms and conditions for the competition for the website, i was certainly aware and knew these things existed but defiantly didn’t realise how much of an impact they would make on the station and how important these things are in terms of contributing to make a great pop up station.

I did try to make some extra adverts for what would’ve been the final Monday, but unfortunately i lost my phone last week and therefore haven’t had access to instagram or WhatsApp to read messages, as that was a way i’d been communicating to try and get some of the final voice overs.