THE BIG DAY!
So this is my second and last ‘Lend Me Your Ears’ show! And I must say that I think it was a great success! From my personal point of view of presenting, I think we started a little shaky but once myself and Lucy got into the flow of the show we both relaxed and bounced really well off one another. Without going to off topic, our conversation eased into just general chit chat, and we had people laughing in the studio with our jokes. The only part of the show that I didn’t feel very confident with was when we conducted the live interview. I must admit I crumbled a little there! But with more practice and confidence I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it. Our team worked incredibly well together, and everyone individually did absolutely brilliant. In particular our BA Lauren was constantly worrying and stressing because she hadn’t done BA’ing before. But when our live show went on air she absolutely smashed it and didn’t mess up at all, and we were all really proud of her as we knew how frustrated she had been over the last few weeks. That just shows you what a lot of practice and having supportive people around you can do!
Here’s a funny image of me before our live show went on air!
Week 19
It’s the night before the big day, and we have spent hours and hours of rehearse time. It has been a very long and tiresome day, but I feel as though everything has finally come together. Through constant practice I feel a lot more confident than I did at the start, and as me and Lucy are really good friends as it is I feel as though we have great chemistry together so that has definitely helped. I probably wouldn’t have felt as confident and relaxed if I had been paired with someone I was very familiar with. Surprisingly enough, thus far I really am enjoying presenting, and I would happily do presenting again.
Week 19
So this week we managed to finally finalise our script. My co presenter Lucy Davis was very supportive and helpful when it came to helping me write our script, as I had never written one before. After many drafts, our script was finally complete and it was now just about getting in to the studio and rehearsing! We have also managed to secure a pre recorded interview that we’re very chuffed with, and now it is all about just rehearsing and rehearsing before our big day!
Week 18
Today was our first time in the studio, where we recorded our jingle. I had never recorded a jingle before, or even presented in itself. Therefore I was very nervous and couldn’t control my nervous laughter throughout, which I think might have irritated other members in my team and set us back quite a bit. It felt very weird presenting. My only true experience from radio is producing, as in my first year I produced our show and for my first live show on ‘Lend Me Your Ears’ I produced that to. As previously mentioned, I have my own radio show on Brayford Radio, and I also produce for that. So you could suggest that I am use to directing others and being in charge. So it was very weird for me to take on a more relaxing role, even though I was a lot more nervous having the presenting role than I was for actually ever producing.
Week 17
In Week 17 I have officially started my second ‘Lend Me Your Ears’ show, which is to air on Wednesday the 5th February. Our theme for this show is the ‘Future of Radio Drama.,’ which I am very interested in exploring. My role for this particular show is presenter, something that I have never tried out during my entire university experience. I’m not a very confident speaker, especially when it comes to speaking publicly or having to record myself. However, this will be a new challenge for me and as it is something I have never done even though I am nervous I am very excited to get the ball rolling.
Me and my group had our first official meeting today, where we got a few idea’s about what we wanted to do and we decided that not only were we going to address the potential future of Radio Drama but also explore where it first began and where it is right now in our current generation.
We all discussed potential people that we could contact to appear on our show. We decided that this was the most important part of our show to start first, as sometimes in can takes weeks for someone to get back to you, and others won’t get back to you at all and therefore you must always have a backup and that is why we decided to think of as many possibilities as we could.
After our meeting I went away and contacted a lady we’re all familiar with called Peggy, who herself is an actress that has been in plenty of Radio Drama. However recently she has given us tutorials of how to produce and create Radio Drama, and therefore would be an excellent candidate for our show. I also contacted the Wireless Theatre Company, who also specialise in Radio Drama and have won countless awards for there work. I emailed them and asked whether it would be possible for an interview over the phone, as realistically I know it would be pretty difficult for them to travel into Lincoln for the show. However, I am still waiting for a reply!
Week 7
Off of my own back I decided to email Trevor Dann to receive personal feedback about my role as a Producer for Radio. I’ve always been keen on taking over the producer’s role for Radio, as I did so in last years Radio Show which was very successful. However I felt as though I crumbled a little in my previous and it knocked a little of my confidence. As Trevor Dann has a lot of experience in Radio I knew my best source of feedback would come from him and therefore decided to email him. Here was his response.
Trevor Dann was very helpful and gave me good constructive criticism, in which I really appreciated. I was very nervous meeting Mr Dann and forgot to inform him of what they show was even really about. I realised after reading his comments that I must never let nerves get the better of me and must take control and guide other members of my team throughout the show. This is something that I can honestly say that I lacked, as the pressure got the better of me.
Week 6
I found our Radio lecture this week to be extremely interesting as we were taught about the regulations in Radio media and the consequences of surreptitious recording. This gave me a great insight into broadcasters material and the substanials risks of Radio and some very good examples were given. The example that I found most interesting was the hoax prank played on a nurse about Kate Middleton’s pregnancy treatment, that later resulted in her death.
Interview with Australian prank DJ’S
In our workshop this week we were given the task of ‘speed interviewing.’ This is where we were given half an hour to make up a story and do a 3 minute interview, including sounds that connote with the story that we have chosen. We then had to get into groups and get the ball rolling. Here is a an image of my group drafting out idea’s.
However we initially encountered some problems as the man who we planned to interview (Geoff Thompson) was unavaliable and therefore we then had to quickly come up with a basic idea. We chose to create a short interview on the lifts in the Media Centre at the university. Here is a clip of me practicing the interview.
Reflecting-Monday 4th November
Reflecting back on my Radio show I am in somewhat way relived at the fact that there were mistakes made throughout my show. It gave me a great insight into the pressures of working in the Radio industry, and how much attention to detail that you need to pay to your surroundings and everything that is going on around you. I was given an absolutely great opportunity to work first hand with Trevor Dann and produce the show in which he was a guest on. Even though not everything went as planned, it was a great experience and a pleasure.
I am now currently looking forward to producing my own Radio show called ‘The Society Show’ and to continue to gain as much experience from Radio as possible!
Lend Me Your Ears Radio Show with Trevor Dann
Having just completed our first live Radio show, I can honestly say that I am unsure as to how it actually went. We started really well and I felt as though we communicated with one another effectively during the first 20 minutes or so, however there were a number of things that didn’t go according to plan. Our biggest let down was our time management as we had to completely scrap half of our show as our interviews and took up to much time than necessary. I do feel slightly disappointed in myself as reflecting back on our radio show and as the producer I should have taken more of control and interacted with my presenter better. The pressure and the nerves got to me a lot and that was evident when it came to the live show. Having said that I do believe that within the time frame that I had to prepare for the show and balancing other deadlines on top of this I didn’t do such a bad job. This gave me the opportunity to learn from these mistakes and influenced me to off of my own back start up my own show as a producer with fellow students. Even though this will be a lot more relaxed and casual, it will give me a great opportunity and practice for future shows and working in the Radio industry.
Here is the podcast for our live radio show.
Wednesday 23rd October (The Big Day)
Today is the big day and I cannot put into words how nervous I am. Don’t get me wrong I am really excited about it but I am worrying so much that I’m starting to feel sick. As I am the producer the pressure is really on me to make sure everything goes to plan. All my paperwork has been completed and handed in to Siren, and just before we went live we had a brief meeting to calm and prepare ourselves.
Tuesday 22nd October
Everyone was exceptionally nervous today, as this was our last real chance to really get everything together in preparation for tomorrow. Me and Joss finalised the scripts and running orders and everything was set into motion. All of our music had been uploaded and Beth had all of her carts ready and rearing to go. Ben was in the middle of processing the social networking aspect of ‘Lend Me Your Ears’ and Joss just really cracked on with rehearsing his script. Whereas I was busy just shaping the content of our show and briefing my team on how things would run tomorrow. I was able to retrieve some contact information for Trevor Dann and spent a while drafting an email that I planned on sending to him regarding some questions that I wanted to ask him. This gave me an insight into not only how to structure an email formally but also gave me a brief idea of Trevor’s interests.
From this I learnt that it is always professionally wise to interact with a guest prior to your show, so that they can familiarise themselves with you and vise versa. That way when they come into your Radio studio it isn’t completely alien to them and therefore may be more relaxed and the interview may run a lot smoother.
Although on another note I had very little opportunity to keep an eye on the time which has made me very precautious about the time management for my show tomorrow.
Here are some images of us in the studio
Monday 21st October
Stressful was an understatement for how today went. I spent the morning researching into the various artists that Trevor Dann was interested in and imported their music onto my hardrive. However, when it came to uploading to our myriad it was unsuccessful as I learnt that you had to physically buy a CD to upload to myriad. Having said this, the artists that Trevor Dann was really fond of I had never heard of before and therefore listen to a few of their songs from their album in my spare time. One I particularly warmed to was ‘River Man’ by Nick Drake.
I spent the rest of the day going through the script and running order with my presenter Joss, making and/or adding any changes that I thought necessary.
Joss Moore practicing his script
Our time in the studio was vital today, as we were given a taster/practice session in Siren FM. We learnt how to format music and adjust the volume and sounds to the appropriate levels. We practised using preface and talkback with one another and everyone just really familiarised themselves with their roles. However I am beginning to get extremely nervous for our first show on Wednesday! Fingers crossed everything will turn out as planned!
Thursday October 17th
After my Radio seminar today, I called for a meeting with my group to really get our idea’s flowing and to start getting things together. We all gave ourselves set tasks for the upcoming weekend, so that when we came to meet the following Monday we could really start putting everything together.
Wednesday October 16th
The tutors for my module revealed today that I will take on the role of the Producer for ‘Lend Me Your Ears’ first live show! Not only that, but TREVOR DANN is going to be our main guest for our show, and I cannot wait to really get things going. Although I am extremely nervous, I am absolutely buzzing about really getting things started!
What Is Lend Me Your Ears?
Lend Me Your Ears is the new radio show on Siren FM that will begin on the 23rd October and run into the early weeks of March, every Wednesday from 1-2pm. Each week there will be a new theme for individual groups to take control and independently organise and create their own radio show, giving everybody the opportunity to express their idea’s and develop their knowledge of radio whilst improving their skills.
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