In this blog post I’m going to highlight and discuss the various research and planning and organisation that I undertook to obtain a commission for my Individual Audio Project.

The first thing I had to do before obtaining a commission was to think of possible ideas that I could create for my Individual Audio Project. I had make sure that the ideas were both practical to create, that they were to be produced for a company/organisation of my choice and that they filled a purpose for that company etc. To come up with my ideas, I had a think about what kinds of topics I found interesting and that I would be excited to create audio for. In this thought process, I came up with a few possible ideas that I wanted to do. These were:

       1.  A doc/feature on the Great Train Robbery which would be audio created for the National Postal Museum.

The reason behind the idea: I once watched a documentary on the TV about the Great Train Robbery. It explored and detailed the genius behind the all of the robber’s plans and how smoothly carried out it was. It was documented as the greatest train robbery in history, hence the name ‘the Great Train Robbery’. Until the more recent raid of the Hatton Garden Vault in 2

015 overshadowed it. This intrigued me and I thought that it would be interesting to produce a doc/feature to bring this notorious event to light once more.

      2.  A doc/feature on the Milkman industry for Milk and More.

The reason behind this idea: I’ve always wondered how the modern day Milkmen are still able to make a living given the convenience of consumers buying their milk in other ways such as going to the supermarket. Are their still people today that prefer to get their milk delivered by the Milkman and why? And could the convenience of buying milk in other ways mean a consequent threat or end to the Milkman Trade/Industry? So many questions…

      3.  A collection of 3 podcasts on How to train your dog for Heath’s Personal Dog Training.

The reason behind this idea: Being an all round animal lover and owner of a somewhat mischievous Jack Russel Terrier, I thought it would be a fun and useful idea to create three 4 minute podcasts for people who, like me, wish to tame their mischievous furry companions, will get some useful tips and tricks on how to do so.

AUDIO LISTENED TO FOR INSPIRATION: https://www.acast.com/walkingthedog

      4.  A doc/feature on how to get into Martial Arts and the positive effects that becoming part of a Martial           Arts Association can have on your life/ has had on my life in the 6 years I’ve been doing it (this would be for the promotion of the World Tang Soo Do Assoc.)

The reason behind this idea: I’ve been part of the World Tang Soo Do Assoc. for 6 years now and since joining it has helped me overcome bullying, has improved my way of life and has become such an important part of my life and I think it’d be interesting to create a doc/feature on how people can get involved in a Martial Art and the positive impacts it can have on you physically and mentally.

After getting my ideas on paper I had an elimination process with them. I started to think about what ideas were the most practical and would, once produced, possess a strong relevant purpose. I also thought realistically about who I could go about contacting in order to obtain a commission. This would then enable me to start the planning stage for my audio. Out of the 4 ideas I had come up with, only two were left that stood out to me as being practical and also based around what I really wanted my audio to be about.

The idea for a ‘Dog Training Guide’ podcast collection jumped out at me most and alongside that was the Martial Arts doc/feature. This was because Martial Arts is something personal to me that I have been doing for 6 years now. It became and is still a very important part of my life because it has improved my way of life so much more and I felt that creating a doc/feature on it would be both practical and have a strong sense of meaning and purpose behind it.

Over the past week, I had sent an email to Heath’s Personal Dog Training, of which I have not had a response. However I have also found an alternative which I have contacted since in an email but have also not yet had a response to. I am going to contact them via a phone call and I am hoping to get a commission from them if I contact them in this way. If I do not manage to get a commission from either of these companies I have decided that I will contact the Head of the World Tang Soo Do Assoc. headquarters in North Carolina, Grandmaster R. Boeduin and pitch to him my idea for the doc/feature for Martial Arts. Alternatively I can also contact the Head of UK Tang Soo Do Assoc. Master M. Khan.

I am hoping to have gained a commission by the end of the weekend so that I can then begin planning out the various steps of how I want my audio to sound upon completion, how they are going to be structured and what are the various questions/sounds that are going to be used? As well as this, I will create a production schedule so that I can set myself deadlines to get various aspects of the pre and post production stages done i.e. recording of audio and editing the audio.

In terms of improvement, I feel I could have used maybe some social media tools as I hadn’t used any in my research. In order to improve, I could contact my perspective contacts via their company Facebook page. Also, I need to improve on my time management as I tend to stress and panic easily because I want to produce the best audio possible.

PRODUCTION SCHEDULE SPREADSHEET: