Thursday 28 April 2011

Thursday 28th April

Final day at the JACK FM Studios

Today for me was all about finishing up my personal project, this meant editing a couple of music montages, and mixing Keiran's interview with music.

I also had to write a gone in sixty seconds Royal Wedding Special for tomorrows live broadcast.

It was also a day for rounding off paperwork and having the exit interview with my contact.

Wednesday 27th April

Today with JACK FM it was putting the skills I learnt to practice.

I conducted a phone interview in the studios with Sheer Music promoter, Keiran Moore. This involved me using the software the studios have to record the interview and master all the levels after.

It took us 3 goes to do it because there were issues with the sound levels on the first 2 interviews.

I also completed the schedule for Thursdays Morning show with Downsy, Richard and Roz.

With the producer Jim I also phones through 20 invitees to the Royal Wedding Breakfast Gathering which is happening on Friday. A selected few out of those who applied recieved invitations to join the team on a special live broadcast on Friday Morning.

Thursday 21 April 2011

Wednesday 20th April Jack FM

On Wednesday it was a day revolving mainly around my personal project.

I had to contact a caller for a special sports version of the 'gone in 60 seconds' segment.

I went over link training with Downsy, where he taught me the 3 stages to making a radio link. It is a lot harder than how DJ's make it seem. Each link consists of an intro which includes the station name and frequency as well as the show and presenter name. It then moves on to the main part of it which could be a live reading, observation, competition or interview etc. Then the final part of the link is all about making sure the listener stays. You do this with either a hook or a tease. For example "We have music from 50 cent, Wiz Khalif and Devlin coming up, also we'll be telling you how you could win a cash jackpot".

I then practiced my links, making significant improvement on last time although my speech sped up as I tried to add more dynamic to my voice, it really is a balancing act between the 2.

As regards to my project it was all about the final planning parts. I confirmed the outline of the documentary. I also made contact with 2 interviewees and am in process of sorting out a time to conduct a phone interview with them.

Wednesday 20 April 2011

Tuesday 19th April Blog

Yeah, yeah day late again I know.

Today at Jack FM started off with a far less stressful journey than the day before as I remembered the correct turnings.

For me the day started off with editing the intro for my personal documentary which was mixing parts of big hip hop anthems using Logic.

I then had to go through the schedule for the morning show which would be aired live on Wednesday and make the correct changes, such as news, sport, countdowns, 'Jacktivities' and update the information for the 'Gone in 60 seconds'. This included using the resources available like irn.co.uk and ents24.com.

I then moved on to recording some links in more detail. These were evaluated by the DJ and I recieved some good feedback.

Research for Hip Hop Documentary.

As part if my work placement I have to research, produce, present and edit a 5 minute documentary of which I could choose the subject.

I decided to go with the Hip Hop scene in the South West as it is something that I am very passionate about.

I've been researching certain documentaries that are on YouTube to get some ideas on how best to structure the piece.



I really like the opening of this video. The strings in the background create a nice bed of audio for the voiceover. The background of Hip Hop is a good idea before going into adressing the issue of who killed Hip Hop?

In the opening they do show both sides to the argument with sound bites of different people saying whether they believe Hip Hop is dead or not.

However the creator of the documentary does let his opinions enter into it by focusing so much on money as the guilty party in killing Hip Hop.

The structure of it is very good. It gives you a historical knowledge and clearly explains the question it is going to be asking.

Tuesday 19 April 2011

18th April Jack FM

Okay a day late I knooooooow.

18th April was the first day of my 2 week work placement with Bristol and Bath digital radio station Jack FM.

The day started off with getting lost around 3-4 times on route to the studios! It was nothing quick U Turn on a dual carrigeway couldn't solve though.

When I arrived at the studios I was greeted by studio dog Cassie, before her owner and my contact at the studios Downsy appeared. It started off with a tour of the office and studio, which included a talk on my aspirations and what I hoped to get out of the placement as well as a demonstration of how the coffee machine worked ;)

When we got down to work I had been assigned the task of booking in contestants for the 'Gone in 60 seconds feature'. This meant calling people who had registered to play the game online and sorting out a suitable date for them to play which fitted in with the shows timeline.

I also recieved a quick run through on how to edit the shows schedule for the current day as well as the links for the newsroom website and entertainment news for Bristol and Bath.

One of my tasks for over the next 2 weeks is to produce a 5 minute documentary on a subject of my choosing. So this meant brainstorming ideas with Downsy and coming up with a brief and basic timeline.