Thursday 20th October 2016

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make the lecture on this day but we were put into our groups and had to make a decision on what genre of music our radio station was going to be. The group decided on Soul/Funk which I was happy with, and then from there a Facebook group chat was created to we could all discuss roles, ideas, and when our meetings were going to be.
It was decided that Eliza would be head of music because she has the most knowledge on the genre and really enjoys listening to it, and Simon was to be the Editor. The rest of the group roles hadn’t been discussed at decided at this point but we all had to have a think about what roles we wanted to do for our show.
As I said, I wasn’t present on this day but Ellen got me up to date the following day with what decisions had been made.

Monday 24th October 2016

Today we had our first group meeting where we had to decide what roles everyone was going to do. It was fairly easy to decide the roles because everyone in the group wanted to do something different which was good. It was decided that I would be part of the news team alongside Ellen; however, because there is so much work to do for ads, we would also be helping out with them. I was pleased with this decision because I had originally wanted to be on the advertising team, but because nobody really put themselves forward for the news team I decided that I would do that, but help with advertising on the side.
We have all decided that we will all help each other out where needed during the weeks building up to the show and on the day which I think is good because it means everything will get done on time and everyone will be working together.
In our meeting, we also decided that we all had to come up with 2 advert ideas for the ads team to potentially create .

Thursday 3rd November 2016

In the morning we had a session about the OB part of our show where we figured out how it was going to work and what had to be done. I think this proved to be helpful for everyone, not just Natalie (our OB presenter/producer) because we all got to see how everything might run on the day.
In the afternoon we had a group session which mainly consisted of brainstorming and coming up with ideas for ads, branding, and features. Eliza also set up a Google drive folder where everyone can upload the work they’ve done and also see what everyone else has done.
Eliza and Simon also started to curate a playlist and so far I think they have around 50 songs which is great.
Myself and the ads teams also had a quick meeting to decide what other adverts we could create and then we assigned 5 adverts to each person for them to start writing the scripts. The scripts had to be written for Thursday 10th November so we could then start voicing some of them and deciding how each one was going to sound.
The news brief from myself and Ellen also had to be done and uploaded to Google drive by Thursday 10th November.

Monday 7th November 2016

We had a meeting in the morning and although some people couldn’t make it, we still discussed what we could. We had the discussion about whether or not it was more appropriate for our social media handle to change the suffix of ‘_Radio’ to ‘LDN’ to fit with the local London station ethos.
Simon also played us some beds that he had found and then we discussed what they could be used for.
I also started writing one of my adverts ready for Thursday which is proving to be harder than it seems. Its quite difficult to get information into an advert with it being overwhelming for the listener to the point where there’s so much information being thrown at them and that they tune out. The advert I started with is London’s Hyde Park Winter Wonderland. I found it was difficult to get started; however, once I was in the swing of things it got slightly easier.

Thursday 10th November 2016

Today we had an all day production meeting where we got a lot of work done which is great. Ellen had written up the news brief and sent it over to me to have a look at and edit it if I needed to and that will be up on Google Drive soon. I had all my adverts written up by this point, but last minute the ads team decided to take advantage of Simons cold (poor Simon) and use him to voice a short advert for Lemsip. I quickly drew up a script which Eliza helped me fine tune and then straight away Bernice and I went into the studio with Simon where he did around 4 takes of the advert script. As the Lemsip ad was my advert, I uploaded the audio into Adobe Audition and started to edit. As the advert was only short it took me around half an hour to complete. Eliza, Simon, and Bernice all listened to it and then gave me some advice for what bits to tweak which was helpful. I uploaded the final Lemsip advert onto Google Drive yesterday so that’s our first advert done! From there, myself and the rest of the ads team decided to colour code the main 15 adverts we were going to make, and then in a different colour the potential extra adverts. I also started to write the advert briefs for my 5 adverts.
Myself, the rest of Ads, and Eliza then had a discussion about how the adverts would sound. We decided that we didn’t want all the adverts to sound scripted so some would be read from a script, and others would sound more theatrical. For example, have two people having a conversation or something to make it sound more fun.
The social media team also managed to create their first promo video and GIF for the radio station which looked really good and that’s already up on The Groove Facebook page. Simon and Eliza updated and finalised the playlist as well which is great. Everything seems to be coming together.
For next Thursday I have to continue doing the ad briefs, and then I also have to decide on sound effects and voices for my adverts so myself and the rest of the ads team can start recording more voices straight away.

Monday 14th November 2016

Today we met up again before our afternoon lecture to discuss what we were going to do that day. The ads team decided to just keep finalising scripts and finding people to voice our adverts. Natalie managed to get 2 adverts voiced, one in which I was part of, which was good because it means we’re all well on our way to getting the adverts done in time.
Rather than doing voice overs today, I started to write my advert briefs and decide who is going to voice my adverts so when I go in on Thursday I can get started with recording more voices so I can begin to actually create the adverts.

Thursday 17th November 2016

Today we all came in to get some more work done. Eliza wanted myself and Ellen to do a news run through at 3pm so we had the morning and some of the afternoon to get to grips with Burli again and practice writing news stories to time. When we weren’t focussing on the news we were both also doing ad stuff with the ads team.
In the morning, I started writing a few news stories in Burli and then at around mid-day I got Pheobe and Bernice to voice two of my adverts in the studio. So I recorded the audio, uploaded it into audition and started to focus on creating the adverts. The adverts I was working on today were Winter Wonderland and Dogs Trust. I began editing the Winter Wonderland advert first, and then at 3pm myself, Ellen, Eliza and Mark went into the studio to practice doing the news. After we finished up with the news run through, we all went back to doing our own tasks. Yesterday I managed to complete both my adverts, find music beds and sound effects, and upload them onto the Google drive.
So far I have complete three adverts and written the advert briefs to go with them. Next week Eliza aims to try and do a pilot show so we have to ensure all the adverts are at least roughly edited. Myself and Ellen also have to write two soul news articles each for The Groove’s website for next week.
Everyone in our group is working really hard and I think we’re on track and doing well at the moment.

Thursday 24th November 2016

Today I improved on the Lemsip advert and myself and Ellen also did a proper news run through in the studio.
As my Lemsip advert was only 12 seconds long, I decided to make it longer so it was around 30 seconds long. I added to script and decided to add more to the beginning of the advert. I then got Simon to record a few different takes and then began editing again. Alongside the extra voice over clips, I also added some sound affects. The editing didn’t take too long; however, I did struggle to get the advert up to 3o seconds.
In between recording and editing, myself and Ellen did a news run through. We wrote the news and then at the top of the hour we would take it in turns to present it, and then we would go and write the news for the next hour. This was really helpful because it meant we had time to practice writing the news in an hour and also had a chance to practice presenting the news properly.

Thursday 1st December 2016

Today was the pilot show so myself and Ellen spent the morning searching through newspapers and online websites for news stories. We started writing the news stories an hour before we went on air so the news was as new as possible for when we went on air.

I think Ellen and I did well on sticking to the 2 minutes; however, based on the feedback we got at the end of the show, the news segment needs to make some minor changes which won’t be too hard. The whole show went well considering we started half an hour late and the clocks were off, so I think on Thursday when it comes to doing the real thing we should much better with the timings and keeping on track.

Tuesday 6th December 2016

Today we met up to have another go at doing a pilot show. Ellen and I took onboard the feedback we got from the last pilot show and decided to switch the news up a bit. We decided that only one of us would read the news; however, we did both write it. This went well and I think it sounded better than having the both of us present the news. It sounded more professional and like what you would actually hear on the radio. The pilot was beneficial because it meant we got to keep practicing writing the news and getting it to 2 minutes. We had more time to figure out which bits of stories could be cut out or added in to stick to the timing. This pilot also meant we had another chance to practice presenting the news so we wouldn’t stumble our words as much during the final live show.

We only managed to do two news bulletins because we both had to be somewhere at 4pm, but I think we covered everything and I’m feeling confident for Thursday.

Thursday 8th December 2016

Today was the day of our final live show. 6 weeks of work was now down to 2 hours of radio and it’s safe to say most people were feeling nervous. I was feeling pretty relaxed about the whole thing because I knew that if there were any problems, the presenters and producers would work through it. Ellen and I decided that I would read out the news bulletins, and she would read the travel updates at 3.40pm. I thought this was fair because we both writing the news, and we both had a chance to go on air.

The 2pm news bulletin was fairly easy to write as there were a lot of new news stories online. I was quite nervous to go on air though as I was essentially starting off the radio show. I did stumble my words a bit bit during some of the news stories but I think that was just down to nerves. When it came to writing the 3pm news, we decided to take on board some of the feedback from the pilot and include a wrap. This was quite difficult to do because we didn’t have a vast amount of time to be able to write 6 news stories, some with clips as well. Ellen managed to get that done whilst I continued on writing up the other news stories. The second time I wasn’t feeling as nervous when I read out the news because I’d already done it before. I did try to read the news slower (as requested by Eliza) but as a naturally fast talker I found this quite difficult. We still managed to stick to the time though so it went well. For the final news bulletin at 4pm, myself and Ellen were a bit more stressed. There weren’t many new news stories coming in, and also Ellen had to focus on writing the news for 3.40pm so that meant a large chunk of that final hour she spent on the travel updates. We still managed to get all the news stories done, some with clips, for 4pm but the pressure was definitely on to find good news stories that hadn’t already been repeated. When I read out the final news bulletin I feel like I didn’t stumble over my words as much (at least I hope I didn’t!) which was good.

By 4.02pm the show was over and everyone was feeling both excited and relieved that everything was over. Everyone did such a great job today, and any hiccups were dealt with really well. I’m really proud of everyone in my group because they all worked so hard throughout the last 6 weeks and it all paid off today. Eliza was great at keeping everyone on track and I think without her pushing us to stick to deadlines the show wouldn’t have gone as well as it did.

I’ve really enjoyed this module as it meant I got to work in a team and we all worked so well together that, even though it was stressful at times, I still had fun.

Well done, The Groove!