This is my weekly blog post about what I’ve done over the course of this module.
Week 1:
During our first week, we were given a better chance to see what we can expect over the next few weeks. This week, we were split into two different groups. I was the only guy in my group. In the group we had to create a station which turned out to be very hard. The other group was sat behind us to give us feedback on how we interacted with each other. I had Adam who said i was the comic factor.
After the second group had a go, we then came up with ideas for the pop up station. They included some really fun ideas and some very interesting ideas for a pop up station. We then all had to go away and decide what we liked and started to think of some ideas.
Week 2:
After spending the week thinking of the different ideas. I mainly focused on the Alternative Sports. This is because i wanted to focus more on the other side of sports beside football. After we went into our groups, we had to pitch our ideas. Unsurprisingly this was the first one to go out. After much debate, as a year we agreed on doing a gaming stations. Being a gamer i was partly looking forward to doing this.
In the afternoon session we then decided the roles. I went for station manager and presenter. I went for these two as they are the paths i want to go into when i leave university. Unfortunaly I didnt get the station manager role but Eliza who will be a better manager got it. Instead I was given the presenter role which i was very suprised at in all honest. I was paired up with Fay for one of the three shows on the station. Me and Fay were given the talk show which i am very much looking forward too. However it was only after we left it hit me just how much we’ll have to do.
Week 3:
This was our first week of production as our pop-up station. We went off into our teams to start planning and making our station. One of the first things we did was come up with the themes of each week shows. Myself, Fay, our producer Phoebe and our assistant producer Ellen went through and came up with four different themes.
The pilot and the first show will focus on the gaming culute and it being normalised.
The second week it will focus on Women in gaming and giving a better side to them.
The third week will be gaming addiction and in-app purchases.
And our final week will be a VR special which I’m looking forward too the most.
Overall this week has made me feel less nervous about the whole station and making me want to make the shows asap.
Week 4:
This was our second week of production of the show. I mainly aimed towards finding more information about content for the show and helping out as much as i can. I also tried to help the OB (AFK) with finding suitable locations for their part and help with ideas.
Me and Fay also started to put down what points we wanted to cover in each weeks shows. I wanted to talk about Incels (Involuntary Celibate) and try to get a better understanding of it. However, as we went through the weeks it didnt seem to fit any of them. So it cut from the shows.
Overall this week has been a lot of research giving us a better understanding of our topics.
Week 5:
This week was the most fun I’ve had to this module. We started off with our usual group meeting. However Fay had told me that her friend was coming down to let us play some VR (to make digital content, not just to have some fun) We were shown a wide range of VR head sets starting from the cheapest to the most expensive. I didnt realise just how much went into the production of the online content
So we started off with the cheaper side of it which was good and fun but like we said, you get what you paid. The second headset was also alright, bit more enjoyable but not as fun as the real thing.
The third and final one was the most fun i had. I was put into a horror game with zombie like creatours coming at me. I can honestly say i was the most scared i have been in gaming ever. As seen by many peoples snapchats, my reaction to a lot of it wasn’t very manly to say the least. I have to admit i did hit James by mistake at somepoints but he was sticking his camera infront of me when i was swinging to kill those zombies.
After doing all that i was just a case of us getting more prep done before the pilot show.
Week 6:
This was our final week of production before our pilot. Have to admit the nervous started to kick in. We spent most of the day on monday getting things sorted. On the Tuesday myself and fay and all the other presenters had to be in uni for our photoshoot. This was quiet fun as me and fay just ended up having a laugh with it.
Once we had finished our photoshoot we went back to radio and did our first run through. With a few exceptions, it went really well. It helped me feel less nervous about doing the real thing.
Week 7:
This week has been the hardest week of the whole pop up station. To start off I was not well at all at the start of the week. This had affected me a lot as i wasnt able to get myself ready before the pilot on monday. As a result. To me, the pilot wasn’t great. Having had a few issues at the start of the show, with technical issues with myriad wasnt helping. After several things went wrong Lucy got callum to drive the desk.
This had helped the show out so much more as in a way put a lot of pressure off me and made fay feel a bit more easier. However as a result of this issues, myself and fay have spent everyday this week focusing on the pop up station. I do feel bad as if the show went well and didnt have any issues i dont think we would of spent so much time on it. And would of made Ellen and phoebe feel a lot easier.
Week 8
Monday
This week has been the most stressful myself and the team on the talk show have had. Firstly on Monday we had our first live show. I will be the first that the nervous were a massive issues for me. I dont understand why as I done radio shows before so I should be used to it. However i think because of it being assessed it was and everyones grades being affected with it i felt some pressure. However once we started the show i felt a lot more confident with it. There were a few issues such as me introducing our live caller too earlier, however fay was able to save it. Once the show had finish we all relaxed a lot more.
Tuesday
Firstly we met up at 10am to get ready for next weeks show. Its fair to say we had to focus more as we only had a week to get everything done. Taking on board the feedback we agreed to have a few live calls and less pre-produced elements. We also agreed that i would work on a packaged that focuses on the topic of next weeks show. Among other thing we also agreed to have a vox-pop in there to get a feel of what the general public thought. Me and Fay will be doing this tomorrow at kings cross. We also agreed as a group that just having 4 people working on this show is very hard. This is because we have so much that we need to cover with only a small team. So we approached people who we believe would be helpful with us and would be willing to make the show go well. However only a few people message back while the others just read the messages. This is very annoying and stressful as its meant to be a group project, however when we ask for help which we need having such a small team, no one wanted to help. And i know that the moment something that goes wrong in the show we will get blamed for it. Even though we have approached people for help. I hope for the sake of the show and our grade people start pulling their fingers out and helping out when we need it.
Wednesday
Today was a very busy day as there were a lot of different things needed. I had to travel to kings cross to get these vox pops done with fay. After doing it i had to pop back to do a phone interview with a guest for monday’s show. We did try to get her on for monday’s show however she isnt available as she has work commitments. After finishing that i went back to the library to finish off my script for my package. I was communicating with Ellen and Phoebe the whole time to make sure everything was going well and helping me with any issues. I managed to record the package and started to work on it. During the evening while i was still working i was asked by branding if i had made the improvements onto my ad. And to be honest i had re-recorded it, however it didnt fit. So i did spend sometime redoing it, but it didnt sound any better. With the amount of work that we have to do in the talk show i am very doubtful i’ll be free to redo the advert. Unless we get people who arent doing anything to start researching different areas and giving some free time to help us out.
Thursday
Today we agreed to meet up at 10am again to finish doing stuff. Ellen was a bit late thinking it we’re meeting up at 11 but to be fair to her and Phoebe they have both worked their ass off over the past few weeks so she deserved a bit of a lie in. Today was mainly spent getting everything sorted. The running order, finishing off my package and vox pop. Me and Fay went through the script. Fay did most of this as i was doing both research and finishing off my package. Ellen was listening back to some of the vox-pops and agreed that we need to get a few more as some of the audio wasnt great. Mainly due to the contributors. Around midday everyone had to go due personal commitments so i spent the afternoon finish off the last little bits that i need to do. I’ve also started to do some basic research for nexts weeks show as I do believe that again we will get very little help when it comes to doing anything. This has really annoyed us as we all have other stuff going on in our lives as we cant spend every single day doing this. The talk show is the hardest one to do and when we started it everyone in the class agreed to help each other. However when we ask for help no one seems to want to help us.
Over the weekend we spent time doing other things such as areas that need our attention such as Audio drama and other personal matters. However as a group we agreed to do a run through on sunday evening via skype. This was a very interesting method of us doing it because we had always been face to face doing it.
I was half way eating my roast dinner when the call started. Ellen had just gotten home from work and cooked her pasta, phoebe was travelling back to London by train so her wifi wasnt great at all. However she was doing the timings. And Fay was at home but she sounded like she was in the sea.
We went through the run through however it was very tricky. But we managed to go through it and we only had to changed a few things. However while we went through the run through my roast got cold so i had to re-heat it.
Week 9
Monday
Today was our second live show. This one we felt a bit better at as we had already done one so we knew what worked and what didn’t work. However Ellen wasnt too confident on driving the desk at all. Like she knows how to do some stuff but for the show today we had so many phone calls and going to the ob a few times it would of been too much for the show. So Lucy went up to callum and told him he is driving the desk. The reason why we did that because he knew what he was doing as he has doing it so many time.
During the show we felt more confident with it, I was even allowed to go off on one about Incels and how messed up they are. Overall i felt that this show was so much better then last weeks but we can and will do better next week.
Tuesday
Today we were much more relaxed about everything. We started the day talking about what areas we can cover in nexts weeks show. Me and Fay then started to do some basic research into different areas which can be used in the show for next week.
Wednesday
Today we all agreed as a group not to come in as we had spent nearly everyday for the past 4 weeks at university. So we said we’ll work from home instead and have a little break.
Thursday
We all met up again after having a day off. Fay was unable to come in as she wasn’t feeling very well. So today was just spent finishing off all my research. I also started to write my parts of the script without knowing what Fay will be talking about. So i did as much as i could.
Friday
Today was mostly spent doing audio drama. We did have a quick run through in the morning. However during the afternoon while i was finding something on myriad Simon and Nayara came in and i found out that the tieline wasnt working. I tried to help to some extent however i had very limited knowledge on it. After a while it came to the conclusion that the tieline might not be working on monday. But we will only be able to find out then.
Sunday
Today started off as a really good day. We met up at 10am in the radio studios to go through a run through and to finalise everything before tomorrow. Everything was going well and we felt very confident. However during the evening we got informed that one of our panellist was unable to make it. It did annoy us and created more worry as we have had issues with the tieline. So as a team we spent most of the night trying to find someone who we could use on our panel and thinking of different ways we could work around this issues. However we have struggled to find someone due to the lateness in it however we didnt find out till 9pm tonight so we’re under a lot more pressure.
Im trying to stay positive for everyone as we are able to pull it off and we will. Its just not knowing what will happen.
Week 10
Monday
Today was the third show. This one we were very worried about as we had so many issues before it. The tieline was out of our hand so we didnt have to worry about that. However, Andrei was able to find someone to replace our missing panellist. As we when into the show I had personally made a few mistakes but they werent noticeable.
Half way through the show we then moved over to do the panel which i was worried about because we hadn’t done a practise of it. So me and fay sort of had to hope for the best. As we started we were given headphones and talkback packs to hear everything going on in the studio. However of course mine had to break half way through. So i was having to rely on fay and hoping she noticed me struggling. But aside from that the show went well and i was very pleased with how it played out.
Tuesday
Today we met up again as a group at 9am in the library and start planning our final show. We were all as a group much happier and relaxed as we finally were able to see the finishing line. We spent most of the morning just researching the next topic for the show which was VR. Me and Fay did what we normally did and Ellen and Phoebe planned out different parts of the show.
We did have some issues with music on the show. We wanted to play a song which we felt that would of been a very cheery and happy song. However music were determined to have a song they picked which we were fine with, well i was. However the way we were spoken too got us a bit annoyed. As such we decided to not have a song as we agreed the song didnt fit for us and we had also been told try it without music.
Thursday
Since we didnt meet up yesterday as we all agreed to have a day off, me and phoebe met up again in the library. Ellen and Fay weren’t there as they had other matters to attend. I wasn’t feeling very well personally so me and phoebe just spent the morning getting the running order sorted so I could go home
Friday
Today was spent just getting the last bit of research done for the show for monday. I was away focusing on a different module so we only met in the morning to go over everything quickly.
Sunday
We did another skype call during the evening as we wouldnt have time to do a run through before the show tomorrow. There were a few things we needed to go over before tomorrow, a few lines being changed here and there. But other then that we were happy with our final show.
Week 11
Monday
Today was the last day of pop up and although I’m very tired and drained from it, im happy of what we have achieved in it. We were all happy with it, managed to do a run through, however 1 minute before we went on air myriad decided it didnt want to work. So we then had Tim, Niarara, Matthew and Tom in there along with the team already in there trying to help out. Myself, Fay, Ellen and Phoebe were then going through the script to cut out content. We decided to drop one area which made the timings perfect.
Ellen was in studio 5 to do the phone calls. We decided to do this because we had some many callers back to back we didnt want to have Ellen speaking in the background. Although we did have a few phone calls in the studio, the ones that ellen did in studio 5 have a weird feedback which sounded like the callers were stuck in a well.
After that show me and the team were so relaxed. Overall this project has been enjoyable and stressful and i’m proud of what we have achieved throughout the few months working together. And it was a pleasure to work with so amazing people not just on this but the whole 3 years in radio. Couldn’t of asked for a better group of people to have done it with.