Work experience - Sunshine Gold

Sunshine Gold is an internet radio station that is a not for profit station.
It has been set up to provide feeds to hospital radio stations and to provide a platform for up and coming presenters. I have been lucky enough to be asked to produce a weekly 2hr show to be broadcast on the network.The format of the show is to be similar to that of the one I used to produce and present on Radio Ysbyty Glan Clwyd with a mix of music,nostalgia and trivia based features with the listener demographic being aged 55 and over.

Suitable features would include:
Featured artist
Comedy double act
Spot the intro
Cryptic connection
Retro rewind/Blast from the past
Guess the year
Alternative news items
Interviews where possible
Guess the TV theme tune

Suitable music genres would include:
Easy listening
Soft rock
Glam
Jazz
Country
60's/70's pop
light pop
80's retro

Media - First brief (3 minute moving image) - Evaluation

Media Pathway 3 minute moving image

Evaluation

My idea was to showcase a variety of techniques to create a mixed media film incorporating still photographs, annotation screens, film clips, and a vox-pop to loosely document the Dolphinholme residential trip in a light hearted and humorous way.

The initial difficulty with this was ensuring that it didn’t come across as ‘just a slideshow.’ To overcome this issue I decided that the photo/annotation sequences needed a soundtrack to lift them to the next level which also added another editing technique to showcase within the film. As far as the central theme was concerned, I had the one idea and ran with it, which in fairness probably detracted from the brief slightly but being of limited mobility and unable to carry lots of kit (probably my own fault for choosing to work alone on this) I felt that utilising existing media that I had previously worked on but not yet showcased was the best way to keep within my capabilities. As far as the brief was concerned I did explore different ideas by starting with the photographic idea and then choosing to incorporate the other media to enhance the project.

Strengths.

Within this brief I feel that my strengths were in the editing, although I had not used the college software previously, after a short introduction to it I picked it up relatively quickly. I must point out that there were a few teething problems but I managed very quickly to realise what I had done wrong and rectified it.

Weaknesses  

I do feel that there are a few areas that I need to work on. Firstly the ideas stage and thought processes are not something I am used to, previously my work has been very organic, setting out with a single idea or brief and creating the finished product (definitely an area that needs work). Secondly I feel very limited by my mobility coupled with the fact that I am used to lone working I need to start bringing other people on board to be able to expand my horizons and step out of my comfort zone. I also need to start working more with the college software as for this project I used it as little as possible and converted all the edited pieces into a format compatible with my own software (however, this did mean that I could work on it in my own time).

Outcome evaluation

As far as the outcome is concerned I feel that it fulfilled the brief for the most part however, maybe the ideas and research part could have been expanded upon. The final piece achieved exactly what I set out to create however, maybe I could have used more video clips and made the photographic section shorter and also the vox-pop could have been longer but in fairness it was difficult to catch people as they were all over the place working on their own projects. Also maybe next time I would try to create something completely new with more of a film element to it and look at teaming up with others to bounce ideas between us and for the added support of a film crew to overcome the mobility and lifting/carrying element.

Work experience - Preston FM

Alongside my college course I have completed a short 3 day course in community radio covering aspects such as:

• radio models
• rules for community radio
• interview techniques
• show content
• scheduling a show
• feature production 
• studio/equipment orientation
• the production and presentation of a 30 minute pre-record practice show (shown below)

Following on from this, in a group of 3 we had to create,edit and broadcast 3 one hour magazine style shows. This initially proved difficult as the other two had other commitments and it was difficult to get together to produce and record anything so it was decided that we would each come up with our own content and piece it together in the studio when we could get together. This also led to another issue, I was the only member of the group with any studio or editing experience so naturally it fell on me to do the hard work. We did however find that one of the team's forte was sourcing and conducting interviews and so it was decided that this would be her main focus within each show. The other member was very knowledgeable about employment issues and so we decided to make that a regular feature also and that with each of us taking a turn as lead presenter I would fill in the gaps with a what's on guide and my comedy double act feature and also act as sound man,technician and editor (although I did conduct an interview for the first show as it was focused on the Preston Guild).

Here they are:

Show 1

 

Show 2

 

Show 3

Beacon Radio - First Podcast

Two weeks in and the first podcast is complete on target. The reason for the short deadline for the first programme was firstly to test out the team and see if it could be done and secondly so that it was ready for the first week of November (also the first week back after half term) this then puts us on schedule for producing one podcast a month as per the original agreement and gives us four weeks to produce them.

so here it is.