THE START

We were set up into our groups and then we decided on our music genre – we had lots of genres to choose from ranging from latin, to rock and roll and in the end up we chose Jazz.

Next up to discuss and arrange were our roles within in our teams, and all had an input in what we would like to be and helped each other with which role would be best for them. So the roles for everyone goes as follows:

• Editor – Connor Drew
• Studio Producer – Sara Hebil-Motie (Myself)
• Assistant Producer & Head of Advertising – Ginny Mesina
• Head of Music – Ryan Brannigan
• Social Media Producer – Alex Jones
• Imagining Team – Makee Ogbon & Alex Jones
• News Team – Alex Jones & Connor Drew
• Presenters – Stephen Bailey & Shammy Dowlut

Once the roles were finally decided, we then had to come to a conclusion of what music policy and our target audience. We then researched what Jazz FM’s music policy is and what audience they were aiming their station too. We then decided that as a group, as we want to showcase new music in the jazz scene, we put our age range of the audience slightly lower than Jazz FM’s one (Our age range was 35+)

In our second lesson / meeting we then learned about the music playlists and why they were in a certain way – which was very interesting and very helpful. After this we help our head of music as a group with what we should name out playlist. As BBC Radio 1 have A,B and C list (A list with the latest and most popular songs), so for the categories for our genre we discussed how artists such as Etta James, Frank Sinatra, Jeff Goldblum and many more from the Jazz scene own tracks that are absolute classics in the music world. This is where we then chose to have 3 playlists; Anthems – which included artists as mentioned before, A List – which included jazz songs from the more modern jazz scene such as Micheal Bublè, and finally B List – which had the more Jazz from today (so the new jazz or jazz influenced music) such as Ezra Collective featuring Jorja Smith, myself, head of music and the assistant producer decided was the best idea. The assistant producer and I, also thought about how we would construct our show clock and we used the A3 sheet of paper to draw one.

The Middle (Pt.1)

This is the week when we all really thought about what kind of show we wanted how to run it. We started to think about what features, competitions and adverts we wanted to include in our show. Our social media was created – Twitter @Jazz_Show as well as the facebook page. our group were also advised to switch roles by Tom as we had two producers at the time (Myself and Ginny) – which then changed to myself as studio producer and Ginny became Assistant Producer and Head of events. As our editor was in for those days, I made sure that he was kept updated with the new role changes and anything else that went on.

To get an idea with the show structure and how Jazz FM worked. I made sure to listen to the station as much as i could on my days off as this is a station that personally wouldn’t listen to freely. I made a couple of notes about the station from the presenting style, to the adverts, interviews, idents etc. I realised that Jazz FM is quite business focused – baring in mind when I tuned in, ‘Jazz Shapers with Elliot Moss’ on a Saturday morning was broadcasting where he would interview someone from the business industry (A woman who had an interior design/decorating business) and then just asked her who/what her favourite jazz artist is and why then after the interview played her request. However Jazz FM do have a show called ‘Jazz Business Breakfast’, as well as include a lot of adverts for businesses and that particular industry which I thought was interesting. I did mention how, the audience would mainly be business people however we all agreed that as we want the show to highlight new music as well as the classic tracks, business people would be involved but not as the focus of the show.

Also in these weeks everyone was throwing ideas and bouncing off each other and it was great! These are the weeks where we decided what adverts, idents, features etc that we wanted in the show.

For adverts; Myself and the Head of advertising / AP went into one of the studios and we worked together to think about what exact adverts we should do from love honey, to cruises, hotels and more. We then were bouncing ideas from each other about what to write for the scripts and what kind of tone they had as well as making sure that we had a range of adverts that would reach to our target audience. After that session we scripted quite a few adverts to start with as well as create some idents too which is on a separate document.

For features; Again everyone chipped in with ideas for features, then I worked along side Stephen, Makee and Ginny to finalise the feature. That’s when Jazz Bar Requests, Is that Jazz came into action as well as some ideas for competition. Makee, Stephen and myself played around with some jazz clips e.g Amy Winehouse and the 1975. In the next lesson we then tested out the feature with a caller – who was Connor – to see how the whole feature got put together. Jazz Bar requests is essentially a spin off of Greg James’ 10 Minute takeover on BBC radio 1. It’s such a successful way for audience interaction and a social plug also people love when they can get either a shoutout on radio or a song of their choice played on air!

At this time as well, Ryan was adding the music into myriad which was great because it then meant that i could work with the presenters on the presenting style. So then myself and Stephen (one of the presenters) went into the studio to practice some demo links, with the help from Ginny too. We were trying different links – crunch and rolls, music knowledge link and standard back anno links too all in different tones, pitches, speed and volume. I had to eventually tell Stephen to stop speaking fast and  raising the fader up and down really quickly as Jazz FM is not an upbeat fast paced station like Capital FM for example. In the end we opted for the presenting style that was a medium slow pace, with a low (kinda sexy) but mostly smooth voice as it worked best with our music genre. I did struggle when it came to practicing with the presenters as only one of them was there for the majority of the time and it did feel like every time we were taking a step forward, we were also taking a step back too. However with that said, we overcame those barriers, making sure that each presenter was caught up with the other (which was easy since they could easily channel the sexy side of them) and began to get to work ready for the pilot shows.

*At one point for EVERYONE in both groups, we were all unorganised and it was the day after the SRAs when we were suppose to learn about the news – but we didn’t as everyone was late or didn’t come in. Which was a huge set back and as a class we set a code of conduct to follow.*

The Middle (Pt.2)

After that everyone in our groups got it together. I reached out to Robbie who is a radio presenter and a friend of mine and he kindly agreed to be the voice over for our adverts and idents that myself and Ginny scripted. Once I got the VO audio from him and then passed it to head of advertising to edit, that’s when the ball started to roll and production finally started. Makee in the imaging team started edit the idents for the show for which sounded great! Occasionally she would ask myself, Connor or Ginny for advice about them – but she did a great job anyway. We were aware that we couldn’t have the same voice for everything which Tom pointed out as well when we played them to him. So I went to grab a few more people I knew from the TV course to help with the voice overs for the adverts and i’m aware that everyone else did too. We then had male and female imaging.

After that week, we still needed more adverts, so Ginny gave everyone two/three adverts to script / make just to help her out. I recorded my Show trail ‘Jazz with Saz’ and then me a Stephen decided that he scripted some adverts and I find voice overs for them. I also gave advice for adverts when appropriate.

I reviewed the playlist that were in Myriad along with Ginny and Stephen and that’s when we decided together that we needed more songs in each playlist – at least 15 songs per playlist. We then checked each song separately and edited them when appropriate e.g editing the intros, putting them into categories and deleting the silents at the end of the tracks.

As well as this, I was helping out with anyone when I could. For example, Makee, Stephen and I went down to the Music block to see if we could ask around for an musician to help us out but we were unsuccessful so then I told Makee to create a poster to advertise it around university. So then we created that and then it was distributed. The poster was a success as we got a response either two or three days after the posters we put up around campus. As that was happening, Connor and I were discussing about presenters links and just updating with what was happening.

 (THIS WAS USED AS A LURE)

When it came closer to our first pilot, I created the running order which i have to admit was not detailed at all and quite terrible but still gave an impression of the skeleton for how the show was going to go. I then went through the features with the presenters, just so they fully understood it.

Myself and Connor (editor) then took it upon ourselves to build a clock together (in myriad) with A-Track and after a lot of googling and playing around with the system we had a clock ready for our first show – this would then sort out all of the music into a log which had all three playlists. We also added talk breaks in when appropriate just so that the show and building the running order went smooth.

I also got taught alongside Makee how the outside broadcast would work from Tim. He showed us, how it’s all connected from the desk in RP2, to studio 4 and to studio 6 and which faders to put up – he also told us how talk back would work between the two studios. After that I thought that it would be best if Makee was the OB producer and presenter as I would be in the main studio (Studio 6) with the presenters. We then realised that Makee would have to be in RP2 as the presenter and Ginny as AP would be in control of the faders in studio 4.

THEN OUR FIRST PILOT HAD ARRIVED;

We then had our first full run through of the show. We all met up the day before and just had a run down of all what we needed to do. Of course there were mistakes and slip ups as they were inevitable for the first show. For example, I told everyone that the OB would be live at 10 past in the second hour but accidentally directed the presenters to head over to the OB after their top of hour link (which surprised everybody as it was earlier than expected). There was just loads of tiny mistakes that could be easily fixed like not to speak after a sweep for example. I would definitely say that it went better than I thought it would only because none of us had heard the full show put together.

After the first show was done, we had our feedback from Tom. I had made sure that I had taken notes down for everyone which was roughly written in on a bit of paper to which I then typed down on my laptop to then send in the group chat for everyone to see. There was quite a bit to work on.

Pilot 2;

I think it’s safe to say that our second pilot went worse than our first one. This is because none of us really prepared for it or made massive improvements from the previous show. When we were given our feedback, each role had something to work on ready for the final show the next day. For myself as the producer, Matthew mentioned that the paper work wasn’t there at all and the running order was incomplete which therefore ended up with us having a messy show. Which I of course am at fault, because running orders are the backbones for show production and as a producer it should of been completed.

I must admit that felt defeated after the feedback given but everyone afterwards got up and just got straight to work. I created a “producing file’ in the shared drive which included the clocks, running order, I then created a competition read out as well as a social read out – so that the presenters had the social names in front of them as the feedback mentioned how the presenters sounded unsure about what they were saying. I also created a separated running order for the outside broadcasting and asking Makee if it aligned with her script. With the OB we structured it so that it would be *Intro -Song – chat – track from studio – re intro – second song – more chat – then goodbye link and back to the studio*. I also re-edited and uploaded one of the female VO out of break idents which was asked a while back for the level to be louder but didn’t get completed so then i took it in my hands. I also re-recorded my show trial ‘Jazz with Saz’ and edited it (however I didn’t have time in the next morning to upload it), myself and Connor re-recored the Honda competition  AD alongside Ginny as she was the new news reader. Me and Connor also discussed about the ‘Is it Jazz?” feature as we knew that from the previous feedback that it didn’t work so we decided to cut it completely. So as that was cut I then had to rearrange feature so I moved Shammy’s sound track into the second hour after the OB as it made more sense to do so.

When I was typing up the final Running order in detail, I was including timings from the news, weather TOH, all the links (including features), tracks. I also included for the tracks from the log, who the artist was, the title of the track and the duration (these were in green boxes), the Links and what type of link along with the INs and OUTs which I got for the script that the presenters wrote – I did have to edit quite a lot of the script just so it would make more sense – and I also timed the links, which was slightly hard because at that time the presenters had gone home so I had to pretend to be them as much as i could (the links were in purple boxes), and the adverts which were in a orange box which also included which advert would play, the duration of each advert plus the duration of all the adverts combined, the idents – and duration of them – for the show were also included in a light red box, and finally in the running order the news and weather were in a pale yellow colour with the duration for both of them. I worked on this in detail until late at night, and still had to do the last 20 minutes of the second hour to do as I was following the clock and making sure that it made sense and linked up with everything else. It did take me a long time to do a running order as I don’t do one everyday, the way I created them may seemed long winded but i just wanted the details for the sake of the presenters. I did asked for and wanted the music log (like between a week or 5 days before) before our final show, just so that I have an idea of timings, and where certain links etc would go for the benefit for my learning ways. But I got told that it wasn’t necessary for me to have it that early, even though I mentioned how it would just be easier for me to do the running order.

The End.

FINAL SHOW DAY WAS HERE.

I was 110% was stressed, so I got in university early to work on the last part of running order which took me longer that it should have done I was still working on the second hour as the show was running but everyone was shared in the drive mad could see the live updated (Ryan helped me with timings). I was disappointed in myself that the work wasn’t done before the show had started, however the rest of the paper work was done and I had asked Ryan to print off the clocks and the first hour of the running order to give to Matthew and Tom as well as the structure of the outside broadcast. I made sure the studio was set up along side Stephen and then himself and Shammy set up their levels. I also told them to upload the running order to follow. I then mentioned to the two presenters (a lot of the time) how the ins and outs on the running order follow the script and that I’ve made slight edits to the script. Ginny then added the final adverts and what not on to the system, I asked Alex to take a photo of the two presenters in the ‘live lounge’ room to upload on social media. Ginny worked with Connor on the news as the news presenter switched so I had to make sure that her levels were set up.

Once everything was set up the show was on it’s way, I did find myself updating and editing the script between each link as one of the presenters was less confident than the other with making up a link from a couple of key words/phrases. I was doing my best to give directions to the presenters, however we all ended up talking over each other and each of of us was getting more stressed at a time – which wasn’t helpful for anyone. When the Jazz lounge feature (the OB) came around – we smashed it and I thought it went very well. We hit the news on time which was great, the jazz bar requests feature worked well too. I did find that people were asking me what was next even though the running order was in front of them – it just made me feel / think that people weren’t reading the running order that detailed and worked for while for their benefit too. Overall even though I wasn’t too happy with my performance, the show went very well and i’m proud of everyone and it’s over now!!!!!!!

just a little PSA; I was very aware of how stressed I was and the tensions were super high and i’m aware of how that effected everyone else in the group which made it a little bit uncomfortable which I am sorry about.