Production Week 1
In the first week of pop up station, we had decided on the most suitable subject for the pop up station, which was Cookery. Once that was established we then decided what roles would be suitable and I had chosen to be in two teams: Sales and Outside Broadcasting. For the pop up station I have two different roles; one being part of the sales team and the second being part of the outside broadcasting team. These are two very different roles which means different targets for each.
Sales
Firstly with the Sales Team I have been to meetings with Stuart and Mary and also with Kaylee and Mariola. What my sole focus is for the weeks up to the pilot episode with sales is to send emails to companies with Stuart. Then as a group there was a decision that we target the smaller companies. I have also outside of university called up local businesses around Harrow to see if they would like an advertisement on our radio show. Further on in the week my plan is to go around local markets to see if I can get some more advertisements. I am also awaiting a call from Box Park Wembly if not then catch up with them.
Outside Broadcasting
To start the production week we decided to go to Box Park Wembly, to scout out food stalls and also to see if there were any challenges that we could do. The vast amount of food stalls around gives us a variety of different types of food we can go too. I went to talk to Bombay Burrito and asked them if we could talk to their manager, I got given there details just waiting upon a response. I also asked what the spiciest sauce they had, which we all tried and knew it was probably the best thing to do. I also went on beforehand TimeLondon to see what exciting new places or hidden gems, there were that would make the OB team interesting, instead of chain restaurants.
I have started to contact many of the places for the weeks and had a response from the first vegan pub in London, I will keep up to date with that. What i will be doing during the week is contacting the places and ensuring that there is something interesting about them.
Production Week 2- Pilot
Outside Broadcast
This week consisted of contacting more places for vegan week as our original vegan week restaurant had dropped out due to circumstances with licenses. I called many places throughout the week but Billy is the one who got Redemption Bard. As I didn’t go to the vegan week outside broadcasting I instead wrote the script for the questions for vegan week to send to the content producers.
Sales
This week as I didn’t attend the outside broadcasting, myself, Billy and Stuart decided on what briefs would be done by who. I chose to do Orbital Comics, Casbah Records and Nordic Bakery. This week I concentrated on getting voice over actors and even friends of mine who work in theatre to do the voices for the adverts ensuring they have the right sound.
Production Week 3- Vegan
Outside Broadcast
In this week, I did not go out to the outside broadcasting. I instead helped others with their roles. I helped the news team with some of the packages in their news bulletins. I did all three packages for each hour. We still hadn’t heard back from Bombay Burrito and Box Park which myself and Phoebe had spoke to prior and had a face to face meeting but nothing. So we decided to start calling places to ensure we had something for World Food Week, as I was not at the outside broadcasting. Throughout the day I also helped people out by buying coffees for the presenters and the content producers.
Sales
Stuart in the morning prior to the show starting showed me how to programme the adverts and I helped him to add up the adverts to ensure they were the right amount of minutes.
I did some more editing to adverts after getting more voice overs actors, we decided at the end of the show to change voices as they didn’t match, so this week will consist of getting new voices for Casbah Records and also change Subway voices completly.
News
This week I got told by Mary and Bethany that it would be best if I did the news reporting for the rest of the shows due to my confidence and style.
Production Week 4 – World
Outside Broadcasting
This week was more of a struggle as we knew we would not get Box Park and Bombay Burrito. We also didn’t want to get another generic restaurant so nothing Italian, Indian cuisine. I then researched into Lebanese food as that being my favourite cuisine and I contact Levant Restaurant which is somewhere I have been before so I know it is good. When contacting the restaurant I was given directly to the manager who then said she would love to contact the owner Tony Kitous. Tony Kitous is not only the owner of Levant Restaurant but also the owner of the chain of Lebanese cuisine, Comptoir Libanais. This was exciting, so I got given a direct personal number and I called him and he was down for the interview making the OB more exciting and not too generic and random restaurant.
This Week I also wrote the question for the OB team to ask Tom Kitous as originally if I wasn’t presenting the news I would have been producing the world week so made sense for me to write the questions.
Sales
This week I was in charge of doing the order for the adverts.
Production Week 5- Seafood/Fish
Outside Broadcasting
This week Billy and Phoebe went to Ollys Fish. As we had not yet confirmed what we were doing for dessert week, I took up the initiative to start calling places instead of emailing as there were no responses to the emails. I looked up and researched into ice cream and the most interesting ice- cream parlours there are in London that the listeners would not know about. I came across Naked Dough which is the first cookie dough place to open in London. I got in contact with one of the co-founders Hannah, and she said that she would be on board with the interview.
Sales
We still had to chnage many voices on the adverts so i got in contact with voice actors and started to re-edit and chnage scripts so they were not too wordy this week. This week consisted of editing the new adverts and getting the new voicers and even changing the Beds on the adverts to fit the station.
News
This week I presented the news, 2 of the bulletins live! This was a scary experience as I was scared that because prior, I had pre-recorded 10 minutes before each bulletin went out, that I would mess up. I made an error with one of the numbers but otherwise I did the two bulletins live and it was a good feeling. The reason for the live news was because the recording equipment was not working and as we did not have time, Bethany and I made the decision to go ahead and live record the bulletins.
Production Week 6- Dessert
Outside Broadcasting
Harriet and Pheobe went to the last outside broadcasting for our pop up station. They had difficulties with the equipment but it sounded great still.
Sales
With all the new changes to the adverts, we felt that as a team we had finally completed them to the standard everybody wanted them! I was proud with how they all turned out especially the new voices and getting rid of the whispering on Nordic Bakery!
News
This weeks news was not as exciting and news breaking as previous weeks but presenting the news was still enjoyable.
All in all, over the weeks it had been difficult and challenging but I enjoyed the teams I worked closely with and also joining a new team half way through.