Brads Headspace

The show was finished, the stress was over!

 

What an enjoyable, challenging job it was.

I’m a person who thrives and enjoys the pressure situation, I really liked the role of producer, coming from a background who enjoys the technical side and using all the equipment. The show was something I had control over and the responsibility to get it right live on air broadcasted to the public is something I think is a great experience to have under my belt. The feedback I got for the show after it was mainly positive, firstly the producers and BA did a great job which was noted on, but from a personal point of view, I always felt as in I was in control of the show and that was also noted on as I believe this is vital for a producer.

 

Everything seems great when you organise a show with everybody at the meetings you have, the ideas seem great and really exciting until you get to the process of actually creating content and the show itself. Of course its still great fun, but a lot of hard work! Searching for people who would be able to give relative content was tough and finding ideas on what to do packages on. Then doing enough practice to get prepared enough for the live show and also balancing this with other work from different modules and another radio drama project. It was tough but we managed it through some great teamwork, I tried my best to make sure everyone enjoyed their part in the show, The presenters Iona and Josh we’re great, sounded natural, confident and having lots of conviction in their presenting. The co-hosts Dalt and Coutnie who gave good reletive full answers every time they were asked, and for being confident behind the microphone due to this being their first involvement in a live radio broadcast. The BA, Louron, for assuring me with confidence throughout the show that the changes he needed to make would be done efficiently, in which they were.

 

It was process I really enjoyed and something I found challenging and rewarding.

So on to the show, now before the show we had to interview Ben Atkinson, bit of a rush but it was the only time that he could fit in. Iona did the interview and we went in to the studio where I recorded it and made sure the content was good and relevant enough for the show. After the interview finished I quickly edited down as it was a little too long and we took it downstairs to prepare for the show. Unfortunately, as we was short on time, the interview didn’t fully save on to the memory stick properly so it couldn’t be used. This led to having to think of an alternative to fill the 5 minutes it took up. We didn’t really have to decide as we had to prepare so during the news of the show I had to tell the presenters over talkback to play a song in there instead, and to have an extended chat with the Americans. But anyway, the start of the show.

It started off running smoothly, during this just before the show started I kept making sure the presenters and my BA was comfortable and ready for the show. The introduction went great, was about 10 seconds off the time on the running which was fine and presenters and BA were doing a great job. Up to the first package, were I had time to talk to my presenters and through the technology advances and the wonderful people at Google, was updating the script and running order through Dropbox. We also had to update the script and say unfortunately due to a technical the interview won’t be featured. I wanted to be as clear as possible in how to deliver this, saying we did the interview, unfortunately technical faults don’t allow use it. Iona had a different idea on how to put this but as a Producer I felt it was my role to have the authority in how this should be delivered, which I believe is an important part of a producers job.

 

There was no real concern throughout, we did go out of time to the running a couple of times but thanks to talkback, I could frequently make the presenters aware of what was happening how they were getting on and if anything scripted has changed. The Americans helped a lot, as we explored a lot of different topics in which we compared culture to the U.S, it was great to get their opinion and point of view on the things we do here compared to the things we do here.

So, when it was my turn to produce the show. I had to start thinking of ideas on what I could base my show on and which content to include. The show was 18th Feb 2015, and the timing of this played a part. Preparing for the show was around the start of the year, middle of January. The time of the year where the American exchange students came over from Minnesota and it just so happened we had 3 of them in our radio group (Dalton, Michaela and Courtnie). As we was getting know them I found ourselves questioning what their lives like in America, and they were asking what ours was like in England. I picked up on the differences in culture and how people seemed to enjoy exploring different cultures. I then came up with the idea to do my show on American culture clash!

 

Now the Americans had never studied radio before, so I cruelly came up with the idea of having Dalt and Courtnie feature throughout the show, their first live show experience. I thought the idea of bringing the conversations we have when we are socially together on to a live show as it was something we all showed an interest in, therefore I thought the audience would enjoy listening and learning about a different culture.

 

So for the content we could have included, I had a few ideas in people who could be involved with the show. We included an interview with Ben Atkinson, a Lincoln post-grad and asked him questions of his experiences in America. Did various packages the differences in sports, music, games films & tv, and generally life between the two cultures. Also frequently got an insight from the two Americans co-hosting the show into a comparison of life in England, and life in the U.S.

 

After various meetings, as soon as we got some content made, we started on a script the moved into the studio to get some rehearsal time down. I felt it would a different approach to structure and write the script for the show as we went along. After creating an introduction, we could move into a topic and then decide where we wanted to go from there. I frequently asked the presenters what they would feel comfortable in going to next as I wanted them to be as natural as possible.

 

After many hours rehearsing and creating content we felt confident we had the basis of a solid show.

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