…

I felt that I did a lot more work for the Media Showcase than I did for the Industries day. I was part of the design group for Industries day, and there just didn’t seem to be a whole lot that I could do. I was meant to be printing the posters for the day, however after 1 week of being away due to unforseen circumstances, someone else had put their hand up to do the printing and I was out of a job for Industries day. I will credit that I did help to some extent in the creative process of getting the website and poster artwork finished however it was minimal. And if I may say I helped with the clean out of the venue at the end of the day. My input to Industries day was small however I knew I would be organising the printing for the Media Showcase.

This went quite well at the beginning with Stef supplying the artwork for the posters very early and we ended up getting 200 posters printed easily on time. The invites were not so easy to organise. The artwork took a little longer to finalise which meant that the printing time had to be reduced. Unfortunately the printers became busy at the same time we needed the invites printed and because this job was a favour, it took 2nd place to paying work.

Both finished products looked fantastic and the printers did a great job. I would say next time, that it would be a good idea to have the artwork ready and finalised long before it has to be sent to the printers. This is no-ones fault, as pre-press work is always the longest and most difficult to finalise. Stef did an awesome job designing all logos for Industries day and the Showcase.

I felt this subject was all about getting out there and making yourself known. I took a lot from the speakers at the Industries day, especially John Faine. The way in which the day was organised made it easy for the audience to engage with what each guest was trying to say.

While doing the networking report I found that I was starting to develop better people skills. Although I did not cold call anyone, I felt I made a good impression on the people I interviewed. Jay Mueller from 3aw even asked me to go in and sit and watch the breakfast show he produced. I did and had a great time. He want me back in there after all my work has been done for uni.

I was offered a job in June to work at Sportal, a sports reporting website. The connections I have made through working there are fantastic. Every day I meet people are involved in the media. SEN especially have a lot of people coming in and out of the office to commentate shows or do previews for weekends matches. I get to produce them while they do this so it is a great way for me to get myself known.

I believe my participation in this subject has been adequate and I have fulfilled the duties I said I would in my Collaboration Contract. Although this subject did take 2nd place to my primary project I really enjoyed listening to guest speakers who obviously had a lot of experience and knowledge in their fields.

I think I deserve a Credit of 62 in the course.

Snapshot 5

Production Project.

“The Hard Line” ended up being a very different project to what we first envisaged it to be. Feedback from professionals, peers and teachers led us to constantly change our ideas and structure, for the better of the product. Whether it is writing music, radio dramas or really any work I do for uni now, a second opinion is so vital to the success of the project you are doing. The subjective perspective another person can have about your project is very valuable; after all you are trying to produce something that you want them to listen to.

My role as co-producer and director, gave me the job of making the script ‘come to life’. I’m good at creating music and sound-scapes so doing that part of the job was quite easy and enjoyable. Trying to direct Harriet and various other actors was the most difficult task I had to do. While I thought that I was ok at drama and acting as I did it all the way through school, actually expressing to an actor exactly how you want something said, it very hard. The trick is to not just accept that an actor can’t get it in three goes. While you need to be conscious of how much time you are taking on little parts, if you do happen to spend a little bit longer and get it to sound exactly how you want it to, it makes the production so much better. Because you can have excellent production values, but if the acting is not to par, then the radio drama is not going to cut it.

Time management was a real issue for Harriet and I. What we thought would takes us a few hours took us days. The recording process was longer and needed to be, so we had to be quicker at the editing process for each episode. That surprised us, because we found the voice recording took the longest and was the hardest part of the project. So we had to change the structure of our plan again, editing each episode straight after we had done the voices for them. This was a far better method, it meant that ideas that came up while recording, in terms of background atmos and sound effects, could be dealt with straight after and not forgotten.

Picking the person you are working with also makes a massive difference. It needs to be someone you can rely on, trust, and work well with to get the job done properly the way you want it done. Harriet was a dream to work with, she was organised, efficient, hard working and subjective. Her acting really made this project, so I’m very pleased to have worked with her. Producing the Hard Line was lots of fun. We had a good laugh while writing and recording and enjoyed the editing process, as we got to see it change from being dry dialogue to having a totally new context.

The Night Air.

This project was very challenging for me and for everyone in the group. At the start of the semester I had no idea how much work this project was going to take. Now looking back at all the work I have done, I’m so glad I was able to be involved in something like this. The opportunity was fantastic, and I wanted to prove that I was reliable, and a good person to work with. Even thought we are at school we are constantly working with professionals, whether it be teachers, guest lecturers, session teacher (JJ) or anyone else, it is so important to leave a good lasting impression of yourself. I believe that I did that this semester in regards to ‘The Night Air’ project. I was punctual to meetings, enthusiastic, did the work that was required and more, was involved in group discussions and really loved doing the work.

I felt I had to love what I was doing because I was going to put so much effort into it. What I ended up producing was really personal and that helped my involvement in the whole picture stay strong. While producing my part was quite hard emotionally, I found it very satisfying piecing together my feature, morbid music, sound effects and the sound montage.

I think it was really important to look at the end result for this project. When we were doing our small separate parts, it was starting to get very tense among the group. Although this is still uni work, we were producing content for the ABC so I tried to treat the exercises as actual work I might be paid for if I was to submit it. This really helped me put the TNA into perspective. It became my number one priority because I knew that the benefits I would get from proving myself as a member of the TNA group would be far better for me than my electives. I shifted the work-load accordingly, so while those subjects may struggle, I know in the end I did the right thing, because I want to work in radio.

I am very happy for the opportunity we were given and felt I gave it my all.

Many things have changed over this semester in terms of our project. Firstly we changed the format (to choose your own adventure), then the number of episodes and then we changed our schedule so we could record and then edit episodes one after the other. We found this worked well as the recording was fresh in our minds, and any bursts of inspiration we got while recording we could achieve straight away. Also having a whole lot of dialogue to cut up at the end would have been quite daunting.

We are going really well with the project now. 5 of 10 episodes are fully complete and will be checked by JJ on today. I was really surprised at the class’s reaction to our project last Monday. I think because Harriet and I have for worked so long listening back to every line and analyzing it to see if it all works out in the structure of our project, we have lost sight of the entertainment value it holds. Actually getting a few laughs and smiles in class made me passionate about doing this project again, because at one point I felt what we were making was quite pointless and wouldn’t really interest anyone.

Working with Harriet has been great, she’s been really organized which has helped me and she has played our lead character very well. We have had a lot of praise for Harriet’s acting skills. Not only has she been on top of organising the schedule, having Harriet’s ear in the studio to help edit has also been brilliant. We have very different editing styles and what we both brought to the table when finishing off the product really only made the project sound better. I really enjoyed basically coming every Saturday this semester to record and edit. It’s what I love doing.

I really enjoyed TNA. I put a lot of work and effort into producing something I actually found hard to do. My input was quite personal in the end, and even though I wasn’t really happy with the way I portrayed myself through dialogue I was happy with the way that I mixed the piece with music and sound effects. TNA taught me how to make audio engaging and emotional, through music choice, flow, dynamics (sonic intensity) and tone. I loved just playing around with sounds on garage band and pro tools to make a soundscape for certain areas of my piece. I also loved joining mine with Harriet’s and Phoebe’s to make the 1st half an hour. I believe what we presented to the class was top quality work, we spent hours and hours refining it and mixing it together to join concepts and make the flow tight which the 1st half hour of TNA is renowned for. I was very happy to be involved in the TNA.

I also think our radio class has been exceptional this year. We have supported and helped each other wherever possible.

This is the time of the semester when things get stressful. So luckily a lot of our project had been done last semester and early this one. The only thing left to do is record and edit our project as all the scripting has been written. So our production project is rolling along quite well. We produced a short rough cut for today’s class which I couldn’t attend because I am sick but I heard that it went ok. We need to make the backdrop a little more clear as to where Tina is I heard was some of the feedback, which is really good. Actually trying to make it sound as though Tina was on the train was a harder task than I had first thought. I pulled all of the treble and boosted the bass of a train rolling past sound to make it appear as though Tina was inside the train with a noisy crowd style atmos above to act as commuters. Maybe it didn’t work, we will have to find a few solutions to this train problem.

The TNA project is slowly starting to take shape. Last week we heard everyone’s second montage and there was some really good stuff in there. My favourite was Karan’s, he used music and sound effects really well. The rhythm was fantastic the way it built up to the climax then slowly drifted off. He has some really great quotes as well, it felt like a song, not just a few interviews put together fused with music, it sounded like experimental radio and it really worked for me. I especially like the way he phrased the music with the quotes. Paired each back each when the other was meant to be the primary sound we hear, or fuse them in such a way that you were forced to listen to a certain sound he wanted you to hear. It was just really well edited I thought. I even burnt in onto CD so I could listen to it later.

In terms of my TNA I think that I was way off last week. The you-tube woman was a little bit of a cop out. Wanted to fill space, didn’t want to do it myself for a few reasons and it did end up sounding corny. What I am going to do is tell my story of the last few weeks. I will IV my family, then get some unrelated people and interview them about loss to cut into the piece. My piece will be focused around the quote “time and tide waits for no man”, and the fact I wanted to IV my pa for this project just a couple of days before he went. I will tell it as though I am being interviewed and will probably be the central character. I do have a slight problem with this, because I know when I listen back to it, it will sound very lame and I will cringe, because I hate fake sadness. I have no problem about telling my story but I don’t know if I am going to be engaging enough, as I don’t usually show a lot of emotion on the subject. I will certainly try it and see how it sounds. I also know I have to fix the music in it. It will certainly be more eclectic and dynamic this time around and be more reflective of the moods I will be trying to convey in the certain sections of my piece.

As for the gag in the middle I am still keen to pursue the idea but Kyla tends to think it may work in another area. I like the juxtaposition myself so I will have to try and convince her by making it seamless in the way it will shock the listener. As a clump in the middle of the piece it certainly doesn’t work and the acting in it is terrible.

The intro has had some good reviews but needs tidying at the end. I have some interesting plans for it by joining some song lyrics and really playing the effect idea John came up with on the licks that identify these songs. I love doing that shit. And obviously we wont just be playing short clips of each song like I did the first time because it is super lame. Must also remember to put an audible voice at the start identifying the show something like, “if you listen closely you can hear the night air”.

I really need to get started on producing these ads with the girls. I will contact them sometime this week and make sure we have a plan for them and how we will manage to do it. Kyla wants me to use my voice in it, as it will act as a kind of running theme.

So this is where I am at, in regards to Prod Proj. I am not 100% healthy but aim to be by next Monday when I fly out to Broome, which I have scheduled into all of my planning if you didn’t think so.

I will be working with Dewani and Terry in the making of our website for the media industries day. We are part of the design group and will be working on designing the page in such a way that it will inform a potential audience of what the media industries day is, how it relates to our theme of the next step and information on the professionals who will be speaking.

In terms of the design of logo’s I will take a secondary role, as my creativity is limited in the visual art department. However I have said I will organize all the printing of posters etc. as I will be able to get them done free/ cheap. I will put this in as one of my tasks because it is not as easy as you think to organize a big task like this, and pick up all the goods once they have been finished.

When we get to actually making the page I will leave the actual design process to Terry and Dewani because I have seen their hypertext essays from first year, and their ezedia projects from 2nd year. Wow. I will be their man who types up the code and does what they want for the page to look the best it can. I will assist each in the design and production of the page. My roles will become morely clearly defined as we begin the project.

A lot has happened in the last three weeks. TNA has started to take shape in our meetings and we have been assigned vague roles to explore for our 3rd fortnightly task, I have put my hand up to look at some ideas for the chorus which will glue the whole piece to together and hold repetitive themes of morbid associations with time. I will expand later on in this post.

Our PP is coming along to schedule, we have till next Monday to finish our scripts which I think is very doable. There are only two full scripts left to write and Harriet and I will be doing one each separately then meeting on the weekend to edit. In terms of the choose your own adventure aspect we have 2 paths that the listener can choose to follow down from the introductory episode. They can either choose to hear Tina confront the Opposition leader about being a transsexual or they can listen to her follow a lead she has been given about Melanie C from the Spice Girls appearing on the Frankston train line somewhere between 9am and 10am. From there each episode has 2 possible outcomes at the end. We changed our existing scripts to have cliffhangers at the end of each episode as the panel members from last semester’s pitches suggested.

The cliffhangers serve 2 purposes. Firstly they intrigue the listener and beckon them to keep on listening to our episodes, and secondly they beg the question for which episode should come next, which is entirely up to the listener. Another suggestion we have taken on board is setting the scene of our drama on the train, so that the listeners, who will be public transport users, feel like they are actually part of the story. Which will be a cool experience I think.

All the work seems to be going as planned for PP2 haven’t really hit any snags just need to make sure we keep meeting our deadlines.

Now to The Night Air. Our last production meeting for TNA was very constructive. Kyla gave the show some form and we gave the form some content. We basically created sections that identified the different ways in which time affects us. There was Fantastical, Human or Memory, Defying, Abstract and Chorus. We came up with so many different issues relating to each section and in the end we each expressed an issue or section we wanted to help produce.

I chose the chorus. As TNA’s producers said the show is music, it is a mash up, an eclectic mix of sounds that is basically to music to the listeners ears. I thought it was a great idea to have a show structure like a song. Have verses full of exciting ideas about time and how we can defy it, expose it, deconstruct it, play with it, obstruct it, but then repetitively juxtapose these ideas with the Chorus; A painfully realistic view of time, and how none of us can live without it, always pushing us closer to our inevitable deaths.

I’m really excited about this part, as there are a lot of avenues I can explore. I really enjoy producing morbid music and I am treating this project as a similar kind of task.

I still will get involved in making short 2 minute ads or stings for the show in the other areas of TNA. I have about 4 scripts written for ideas on ‘lost time’, ‘killing time’, ‘selling time’ and ‘creating time’. They are basically just designed to make people laugh, and act as bridges between some heavy thought in the ‘verses’.

Since returning to uni this semester our project has had some changes made to it. Instead of producing 15 episodes for 3 weeks of audio, we will now be producing 10 episodes which will we be part of a “choose your own adventure” style pilot for a series.

The listener will ave one initial episode that they must hear which will set up the show and story, then they will have two choices in which the story can go. We are still yet to decide how we will present these choices to the listener whether it be a choice of 2 quotes from the preceding episodes or a narrator style voice over asking the listener which one they wish to choose. Basically the listener will SMS back on fo two words which will let us know what episode the wish to hear.

This idea came up for two reasons. Firstly three weeks of straight radio drama is a little dry and has been done. We wanted to do something different put a new, different kind of spin on an old idea, qand secondly we believe that 15 episodes will be too much audio to produce taking into account the TNA project which we will be heavily involved in all semester.

5 of the 10 epsidoes have already been completed. The next two Sunday’s have been dedicated to finishing off the scripting which we will have done by the 20th of August.

Our progress report was due on Monday, and it was really interesting to see how far everyone had come since the pitch last semester.

Most of the radio groups ideas seemed tighter and well thought out. Where as last semester most groups were still asking themselves; “Can our idea actually work”.

Harriet and I have reduced the amount of episodes we will be producing instead going for a ‘choose your own adventure’ package, where our project will be the pilot for a potential series of episodes.

Gen and Stef’s project has so much potential for commercial success, that I want to steal it… But I wont. The idea has been very well thought out and the group has a very strong understanding of their demographic and mediums they have chosen to use for the project.

Sarah’s organic mash up site, is a fresh alternative for media producers who are sick of using lame copyright-free music for their projects. I like the fact that Sarah has chosen this path because of her love of music and music making and I reckon that there would be plenty of support for a project such as this.

Karan’s idea to use human interest stories is clever as no other radio group has seemed to have gone down that path, even though our teacher is a master at these style of documentaries. Looking forward to hearing the music he has produced for the project.

Dewani and Phoebe’s idea is also killer; bridging the gap between wine and a youth market. Like Stef and Gen this group has targeted an audience they know best; the demographic they fit into. When they pitched their idea to us as the wine magazine, I’m pretty sure most of the group realised that they could actually make this happen. It’s exactly what Australia’s wine industry needs. They used alarming statistics and offered us (Wine group) exactly what we wanted to hear. Trained wine drinkers.

In my opinion the cooking with sound show and the wine idea both have potential to work outside this course as an ongoing project. Sure everyone elses projects are good, but I feel these two projects could actually make the producers some money.

Most of us seem on top of our ideas now, and I am so glad that we were made to plan out our whole semester so we know exactly when we will be recording, editing and when assessments will need to be handed in. I have never experienced this kind of organisation and it feels good.

I have been writing in my production work book my ideas for the TNA and have now decided to copy them over to my blog where it proves I am doing the work.

Basically I have been thinking that TNA sections can go for too long and make listeners lose concentration.

After hearing the producer’s rationale behind the show and how their idea of The Night Air is similar to a “mash up” of sounds and songs, I have changed my thoughts on the show. They described TNA as music. A piece of audio where ideas on themes are linked together with random sound effects, atmos, obscure movie quotes, music, dialogue and narration. 

 I analysed “In Out Between”, a piece whose form resembled a maze. Short stories and interviews directed thoughts down paths of a dreamlike sequence. The second hour, seemed a lot less structured. Sections dragged on for longer and the themes of each part harder to identify.

 I felt the theme of this particular TNA was quite difficult to capture. At times the interviews and stories hit the nail on the head, but at some points, the audio had  me wondering why it had been included.

 Obviously listening was a really good way to create some of my own ideas for our theme “Time”. 

I did have a couple of problems about the way the show sounded. I wanted the show to have an identity than ran through with stings an intro and an outro. I really wanted to know I was listening to TNA and wanted it to be branded so it explained to confused listeneres what the hell was going on.

To begin this semester Harriet and I decided we needed to cut back the amount of content we will be producing for our production project, considering how much time we will be spending on The Night Air production, which I am really excited about.

Instead of producing three weeks worth of content we will be making 10 episodes which will fit into a choose your own adventure style episodic radio drama. It will be a comedy based around the daily work of an apprentice newsreader on a prestigious Melbourne radio station.

We can now write alternative endings to the introduction we have already written, which means we can really explore the idea of setting some episodes on a train which really works well with the delivery of our project. Listening to a radio drama set on a train while you actually sit on the train yourself would be an interesting experience.

Script ideas are already being formulated for the remaining six scripts we need to write. Which will include 4 alternate endings.

Another idea that came out of our meeting with Kyla this week was to cut down on some of the characters. Instead of having 3 or 4 identifiable characters in each episode, make it 1 or 2, which makes it easier for our audience to follow the story.

My main goal for this project is to entertain people. I want the audience to get a laugh or a smile out of this project. I am not interested in commercial success for this project. I am basically using this as a test to see whether we can produce a good quality product, which can feature on our showreel when it comes time to send them out.

I want this project to prove Harriet and I can write for radio and have thought out the distribution method properly. Our goal is that the five people we send this to, really engage with the story and interact with the “choose your own direction” style of delivery.

Most of all I want to have fun producing this project because I feel sound production is what I really love doing. I do not want this project to become a chore that we do for the sake of finishing our degree. We will be producing something that we are proud of and have really enjoyed making.