WORK EXPERIENCE – CASE STUDY – PART TWO

I always prefer being in control of a production, so seeing as i was the only person working on this project, i was in my element. Abby arranged for the first set of interviews to take place on the knightstone campus. This was the reason for our first problem that occured. The technicians done a great job with supplying me with a tripod with a dodgy leg and some lapel mics with no mics on them. This meant that we had to record the audio using a hand held mic. Although it records sounds to a good quality, Abby wasn't used to using the hand held mics and didn’t keep a firm enough grip whilst using it. it wasn't too bad, it just resulted in minor disturbances to the sound.

Most students we worked with gave good answers. We did have to hint at what they should be saying. A lot of them didn’t have much good to say about the college at weston which obviously wouldn’t have gone down well in a video that’s designed to promote it. Most of them were very cooperative and consistent with their answers, though some interviews I had to cut out all together. There were some students that were giving very childish, one-liner answers, which aren't too interesting to listen too.

With each interview, I tried to get as much cutaway footage of the subject they were talking about as possible. This would make it easier for me in the edit to cut from answer to answer without the viewer noticing. for the most of it, this wasn't a problem. However, Abby didn't manage to arrange any filming of the drama students at work, which resulted in me having to use random cutaways of the college and tacky transitions. And breaking up the interview was tricky, being drama students, they weren’t short of stuff to say, and gave really long answers.

My final edit turned out to be ok. I think it’s an improvement on the promotional video the college has been using in the past. In the end, im not really happy that I spent so much time on it, its not particularly a piece of work im that proud of. I just wanted to get it done, and time ran out which I think effected the final product. I dont really feel any kind of achievement at the end of this project. Not much thought or creativity went into it. It wasn't much of a challange, Abby arranged every interview but the music students. It wasn't a good or a bad project to work on...just very very bland.

YR2 - WORK EXPERIENCE – HEART RADIO

I didn’t get the best reviews about the placement at Heart from the students who done it before me. They both thought it was an extremely boring experience, and for the most part, I would have to agree. I didn’t really do anything whilst I was there, it was the stuff I learnt about that interested me the most.



My first day was spent doing pretty much the same thing I done every other day, shadowing producer, Ben Marks. It was interesting watching him on the first day, seeing how fast he works, how he generates different ideas. He got to telling me about how he got into the industry, how long he had been working in radio. I was very surprised to hear that he was still quite new to the industry. He had only been working there for about two years but had already progressed to producer. By watching him work, you would have thought he had been in the job a lot longer than two years, he was so fast using Pro Tools. He got into the industry through an interest in music, which turned out to give him the edge that would put him above the rest.

At first, I thought his job was pretty straight forward. The first couple of days I sat in on him working, all he was doing was creating jingles and links to and from different segments of the show. However, after spending more time with him, I found out that his job and his influence played a very big part in the branding of the station. This was more noticeable when the station was GWR, before it merged into Heart radio. Back then, he had the job to brand the whole station, make it unique from all the others. However, since Heart has taken them over, he has less say in how things are to sound. Economically, the merge to Heart radio was a good idea. It means that there will be less work for each individual station to do because they are all using the same brand. Though less work means less jobs, and Ben has had to do extra work for other Heart stations around Britain to keep himself busy and in the good books. Whilst I was there he was working on promos for Heart Exeter, previously known as Gemini. It was kind of sad to see the industry in such a way that a good producer like Ben would fear so much for his job, as does everyone at the station.

Although I have no desire to work in radio, it did seem like a fun environment to work in. listening to the links for Breakfast with Bush, Troy & Paulina made me laugh. Ben took me in to meet one of the DJs, Stuart Elmore, who showed me around his deck. It was surprising actually seeing how easy his job was, all he done was push a button to play the songs that have been lined up by Heart already, add a bit of personality to the links and job done. He also took me around the news department. I spoke to Cormac MacMahon for a while about how he got into the industry...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CE6I-YfplI

Although Ben seemed very happy in his current job, he did tell me that he didn’t wish to work there forever, and that he would love to work for stations like 1Xtra or Kiss, stations that are better known for the kind of music he’s in to. Whilst I was there, he was emailing one of the producers at 1Xtra that he met at the Sony awards, at which he collected a silver for his promo Bristol's Big Give. at the moment he’s working towards another nomination for Race For Life for cancer research.
And his interests aren’t just in the radio industry, he still has a massive interest in music, and is DJ’ing a reggae set at the Bijou lounge in Whiteladies road.