At the end of each week write up an evaluation of yourself and your work ethic. Items to include are:
- Did I work well as part of a team?
- Did I contribute enough to make it fair on the others?
- Did I voice my opinion enough?
- Was I honest with my team members regarding the work?
- What did you say and what would you have liked to have said? (this is confidential)
- What did I learn this week and how can I take that forward and incorporate in my final production?
- Were there members of my team who didn't pull their weight and why? (this will be compared to their self-evaluation so be honest)
WEEKLY ENTRIES
Week One |
20TH FEBRUARY- 24TH FEBRUARY |
In the first week of the task, we were assigned into our groups. My group consisted of Conor Coleman, Jack Patterson and Lara Jones (with Conor as our production manager and Jack as assistant director). This group was excellent, as we are very creative and the standard of our work is quite high. This week, I believe that I did work well as part of the team, despite the fact that we worked on individual segments to be more efficient for the majority. I set about doing the pre-production, mainly focused on what type of radio we would use and the equipment that would be required to complete this radio show to a high quality. Our team is naturally very good at sharing opinions, so I felt we all had a fair voice in the decisions that were made. As Conor was our production manager, he had the final vote about some of the more complex choices and he used this well. I was honest with my team when we disucessed the work in hand - there were some ideas that excelled more than others and I made it clear which ones I thought would be the most creative and get us a higher grade, which was the shared response to the task. I said everything that I felt I needed to share with my team, and we all worked off of each others responses. If someone thought the idea needed some work, we discussed how to improve it as a team and worked together until the problem was solved. This week I learnt that teamwork is a lot simpler when there is clear communication between all of the parties and everyone is honest with each other. That way, we can challenge our flaws and find solutions to some of the things that hold us back. I didn't feel like there was anyone who didn't pull their weight this week - we all worked hard to kick start our ideas and make them a reality for the radio station.
Week Two |
27TH FEBRUARY - 3RD MARCH |
In week two we planned, organised and used practical skills to come up with our features of the radio station we were attempting to make. I thought that as a team, we worked really well during this week as we all had to collaborate our ideas to make the radio station a product of our group. We all contributed quite a lot as we all had some ideas that we really wanted to share with the group, and turn from simple images in our minds to a reality. For example, BAIL OUT OR BAIT OUT was a variation of everyone's idea of a phone-in during the last hours of a Friday. Personally, I would say that I did contribute to the team equally, as there were thoughts about the radio station that I wanted to share. However, I made sure to listen to everyone else's ideas and their explanations before determining if the idea was something that would be compatible with the station. We came up with the station name as a team (HNLY) and Jack Patterson designed the original logo for us. We also came up with the features that needed to be included in the radio station - a radio drama series, a thirty minute music segment, a radio advert and an outside broadcast. I was honest regarding the work with my teammates, if there was something that I didn't think would work or didn't sound very good, I would tell them. However, there were very few instances that this happened. I think that I said everything that I wanted to say to my group, mainly because we were all keen to get the work to a high standard and to do that we all needed to contribute. Not telling them information would result in us not doing as well in the pitch and overall. I learnt again that communication is essential for teamwork as we needed to discuss ideas and thoughts before they were finalised. There were no members in my team who didn't pull their weight this week, as we all worked together to come up with the features along with the name of the station, the schedule and the roles we would take on.
Week Three & Four |
6TH MARCH - 17TH MARCH |
During week three we started working on the features and recording them. For Monday and Tuesday, we were lacking two members of the team - Lara and Jack. Lara was on the Creative Media Production trip to Paris, and Jack was ill. This meant that we couldn't start recording as a group, so we were held up by a couple of days due to their absence. However, these two days gave Conor and I a head start in the script-writing of the our own features. When the rest of our team returned, we all started working on our own scripts so that we could record as soon as possible. As team leader, Conor assigned us each a feature to complete. This was a good idea, and displayed his delegation skills, however it meant that there was little teamwork. This continued into week four, when the recorded versions of our features were due in. I think that I did my fair share of contributing for the team. Not only did I make my own feature (half an hour music slot) but I also helped record Lara's drama series and featured as an actor in the drama. During these two weeks, I voiced my opinions on the other people's slots and gave suggestions on how to improve when requested. I thought that I was honest with them, because if I lied to them it wouldn't help improve their work and would therefore reflect badly on the whole teams efforts. There was little that I wanted to say in this week that I didn't tell the team, mainly because I thought everyone's work displayed their efforts and was a good contribution for the team. I learnt this week that having someone to give me feedback regularly on my work improved it exponentially, and I was able to solve the problems I faced easier than if I didn't have anyone to check over it. This is helpful because I will have someone looking at my work on a consistent basis when we do the final major project. I felt everyone pulled their weight during this week, however we could of worked more a team unit by going over each others work and providing feedback.
Week Five |
20TH MARCH - 24TH MARCH |
This was the week that we started making our pitches. The concept was to sell our radio show to everyone who would be present at the pitch - Sarah, Adam, James, Nicola and the principal of the college. Unlike the other pitches we had done in the past, this was going to be presented and our ideas taken from it to make an actual radio station for The Henley College. This week, I think that I did work well as part of a team. We each were assigned to create a pitch for our own segment, as well as a different part of the research. I made my individual pitch, which included visuals, an interview with myself and a quick minute sample of the music slot segment. I edited Jack and Conor's audio so that they had visuals for their pitch in workshop on Wednesday, as it became apparent they only had audio. In workshop as well, I combined all of the small pitches to make our official pitch to present. I feel that I did contribute enough to the team, and dedicated a lot of time to making sure everything was complete on time and to a good standard. I think that I could of voiced my opinion more, as the team left it a bit late to record their pitches and get the final product done. I would like to have asked them to have a slightly earlier deadline so that we were prepared for the pitch, as it was a little rushed and given more time would of been of higher quality. In this week I have learnt that the team needs to be aware of exactly what everyone has done so that we are all on the same page. We also should of rehearsed the pitch more, but we lacked time to do so. Every member of the team did their duty, however I feel like the team could of pulled together to help a little more with the pitch as it was left to Conor and myself to complete.
Week Six |
27TH MARCH - 31ST MARCH |
This was the week that we presented the pitch. Ours was a little rushed and the lack of the team being together when putting the final edit in place meant that I was slightly worried that it wouldn't be complete in time. I would like to think that I did work well as part of the team, as I finished the edit and helped to put the video together. In the pitch, I had a segment at the end to state why our pitch was overall the best for the college in terms of pleasing both the students (target audience) and the admins (people who would make it possible to do).
PEER EVALUATION
Survey Monkey
RESULTS
Response 1 - Jack PattersonI am very please with the feedback that I received from Jack. According to him, I was a valued member of the team that pulled my weight when it came to the group. I agree with this review, as I think that I did work hard on the project and worked well within the team. The skills that he thought I excelled in was very flattering, but I disagree. I thought that I could of done better with the recording of the show, as there were bits of it that would of worked a little better with a longer duration of time spent editing it. With editing the pitch, I think that with a little more time spent editing it would of been a lot more aesthetically pleasing than it was. He was also very flattering with the skills that I lacked, which again I don't think really reflect my actual work. A skill I know that I need to work on is my editing, as at the moment it is a little basic and simple. I am glad that Jack would work with me again, he was a key member of the team and a skilled worker.
|
Response 2 - Conor ColemanI am very pleased with the feedback I received from Conor as well. His review of me stated that I 'took control' of my given duties and 'executed them efficiently'. I am happy with this, as I worked hard on my sections of the task and put a lot of effort into them. According to Conor, I recorded and edited well in the music slot. This was very nice to hear, as the pitch was something that I tried very hard to complete and faced a lot of problems, so to have a nice review of the work made it worth the struggle. My research skills were apparently 'exemplary', which I am chuffed with. Something that I do need to work on is my editing skills when it comes to visuals - the pitch editing was a little basic. I think this is mainly due to rushing it in order to complete the work in time, but I do agree with the statement overall. It is going to be something I need to practise for the final major project. Other than that, the feedback was very nice from Conor and I see this as a good reflection of myself.
|
Response 3 - Lara JonesFinally, I am also very happy with the feedback that was given to me by Lara. Although the survey was brief, it clearly stated that she was happy with the work that I had completed and my teamwork skills. Considering that I have worked with her in the past and it was a struggle, I was slightly concerned about how it would pan out for the radio show. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how well we worked together. According to Lara, my strongest skill set was with the research. There is a correlation here, so I know that this is a strong point for me. I also didn't lack any skills, so I am happy to think that my skills are good enough. There was 'no comment' for what I could of done to improve the group production, so I am not entirely sure what she means by this. At first, I thought it meant it was something bad that she didn't want to share, but the question below contradicts this. I am glad to know that Lara would like to work with me again, as she proved herself to be talented in the drama series and a useful asset to the team.
|
CRITICAL EVALUATION
Include in the critical evaluation:
- In your opinion did you research the topic well enough in order to produce a professional radio station?
- Did you research the contents and target audience well enough?
- Do you think your produced a professional radio station?
- With regard to sound quality of your features, do you believe they are to a high standard (compare to other college radio stations)?
- Did you overcome any sound issues you may have experienced and how?
- Does the vocabulary / scripting of the features suit the target audience?
- Did the outside broadcast sound professional (even if you did not partake in this section)? What could have been done to improve the quality?
- Was the radio drama appropriate and did the sounds create an impact on the story?
- How professional was the radio advert in terms of sound quality and information? What could be done to improve?
- How well did the half hour music slot work? Was the audio of good quality, was it edited professionally, did the DJ’s use the correct vocabulary and tone for the audience, how well was the interview constructed and did the music suit the feature? Please give reasons for all of the above.
- Why do you think we should choose features from your ideas?
In my personal opinion, I think that our group did enough primary and secondary research of the topic in order to produce a professional and effective radio station. The majority of the pre-production tasks were research based, so we had to thoroughly investigate the logistics of making our own radio show to discover the details that would ensure that we not only achieved a sense of the effort that would go into producing the station, but also a distinction grade when it came to marking our work. As our group was made up of students that regularly accomplish high grades, we all wanted to make the radio station a reflection of our skills and showcase our talents through the medium. Because of the amount of research that we did accomplish, both for the entire broadcasts as well as our individual features, were of a higher quality that originally expected. By putting more effort into analysing and understanding what makes the radio station a successful show, we were able to spend less time figuring out what we needed to include as the research provided us with efficient and clearly worthwhile ideas that had been trialled before with success on multiple tests. I would say that the show that we produced was professional enough, as it followed the basic rules of radio stations as well as trying out new ideas and bringing our own originaluty to a platform that can often sound repetitive and recycled.
The two main focus' of our research were the target audience and the content that would be produced on our show. For the target audience, we wanted to include as much of their opinions and direct our work solely to their demographic. In order to do this, we had to get more of an understanding as to who our audience would be and what they looked for in a radio station. There were a couple of different methods of extracting this information out of them, so we tried all of them to get the best results. The first thing we did to get better knowledge about what the students at Henley College wanted was through an online survey. We used www.surveymonkey.com as everyone in the group had experience with this server before and knew how to use/format questionnaires and responses effectively. I made the five different surveys that would be used throughout the project, and then emailed the results to the rest of my team. This was efficient as it meant that we had the same data to analyse and would all be on the same page when it came to discussing results. The surveymonkey questionnaire was very helpful as the majority of the people to I sent it to responded within 24 hours. Alongside the online forum, we also did face-to-face interviews with people who would be listening to the radio in order to reinforce the opinions voiced in the survey. Conor and I conducted these interviews with two first year students, as they would be the most likely to get to listen to our radio station considering it wouldn't be in place before the second years left. We talked to John Browning and Dani Beru, who both expressed a passion to listen to a radio station run by college students in the past. This method of learning information also worked well, as we could ask them to expand on answers and they could ask queries we had not put on the online survey.
For researching the contents of the radio station, our team leader each assigned us with a single feature. My role was to research the thirty minute music slot, Conor's was to research adverts, Jack's was to research the outside broadcast and Lara's was to research into radio dramas. In terms of how much each of us did for the researching tasks, I would say that we spent a lot of time looking into what made each feature successful. We helped each other out with these tasks (for example, finding past radio dramas like The Archers for Lara to analyse or emailing Conor with other radio adverts for him to examine). For my own feature, I spent an equal amount of time on the primary research as I did the secondary. My primary research was using a SurveyMonkey questionnaire to gain opinions about what I should include, what music was popular and how to make it original. I then analysed each question thoroughly until I made a professional playlist and knew what people would enjoy hearing for thirty minutes. My secondary research was mainly studying other music slots on other radio stations. They all sounded fairly similar, and could only be torn apart by slightly original angles, like games or interviews. I knew that I wanted mine to stand out, so I had to be creative with the content I included.
For researching the contents of the radio station, our team leader each assigned us with a single feature. My role was to research the thirty minute music slot, Conor's was to research adverts, Jack's was to research the outside broadcast and Lara's was to research into radio dramas. In terms of how much each of us did for the researching tasks, I would say that we spent a lot of time looking into what made each feature successful. We helped each other out with these tasks (for example, finding past radio dramas like The Archers for Lara to analyse or emailing Conor with other radio adverts for him to examine). For my own feature, I spent an equal amount of time on the primary research as I did the secondary. My primary research was using a SurveyMonkey questionnaire to gain opinions about what I should include, what music was popular and how to make it original. I then analysed each question thoroughly until I made a professional playlist and knew what people would enjoy hearing for thirty minutes. My secondary research was mainly studying other music slots on other radio stations. They all sounded fairly similar, and could only be torn apart by slightly original angles, like games or interviews. I knew that I wanted mine to stand out, so I had to be creative with the content I included.
I think that the radio station my team produced is professional enough, as we made it as high quality as possible and put a lot of work into researching how other radios made their shows sound polished and deft. HNLY Radio meets the requirements and needs of its demographic, as well as not isolating those who lay outside of the target audience. It also includes a executive schedule that highlights our white-collar structure of the station. The entire show was well though through, and has been put together like jigsaw pieces that have resulted in an exquisite final picture that reflects our entire groups efforts.
The sound quality for our radio station is something we all understood as being a key aspect and vital in order for the show to sound professional. For most of our features, we used the studio available with the microphones to make our audio clear and crisp. For example, both the radio advert (Smoky Flame) and the thirty minute music slot (Eargasms with Elliott) were recorded in the studio. We used Adobe Audition to actually record the audio, and cleaned the sounds up using that program. To edit the audio, and add sound effects or overlap clips, we used Adobe Première Pro. As these programs are similar, and can be used with each other, it made a lot of sense. Our team also have experience with these programs in the past, so it was easy to use and interchange. These two features sound the most professional, as the audio that has been recorded was done so in a proper studio, using proper equipment. For the outside broadcast, we knew that getting decent audio was going to be a struggle. Obviously, Jack needed to sounds to be clear, but he also needed background noise to prove that he had recorded this out on the field. To do this, he used a VoxBox microphone that can be carried around for his interview with Conor. This meant that the audio wasn't as clear as it would of been in the studio, however it was a real interview on the ground and he captured a lot of background noise with it too. The outside broadcast needed little editing, as it was meant to be live, so it was easy to then upload onto Soundcloud. With the drama series, there were some problems. The first take of the drama series went smoothly; Conor and I agreed to be the actors for the series and we recorded it in the studio. Sadly, the recording didn't save properly and we had to re-record. By that time, there was little to no more slots available in the studio and the deadline was the next day. Lara recorded the drama series on her phone, which did impact the audio. However, by using Adobe Audition we were able to clean up the audio files and make them salvageable for her slot. The audio is clearly not as high quality as the rest of us, but was a miracle that she managed to save it.
In comparison to other college radios, I would say that our sound quality is quite good. Admittedly, there are some aspects of it that need improving due to lack of time or poor recording, but overall it is quite impressive. Some of the radio stations that we looked at cared very little for the audio, despite it being a very important aspect of the radio. This correlated throughout all of the academic colleges, whilst colleges that were more focused on the creative arts displayed more care and concern over the sound of the show. As we have got very high-tech equipment available to use at the college, our team made full use of that and exploited every piece of gear that we could. The end result was that our sound quality was considerably better than other groups who had just used their phones to record the show.
In comparison to other college radios, I would say that our sound quality is quite good. Admittedly, there are some aspects of it that need improving due to lack of time or poor recording, but overall it is quite impressive. Some of the radio stations that we looked at cared very little for the audio, despite it being a very important aspect of the radio. This correlated throughout all of the academic colleges, whilst colleges that were more focused on the creative arts displayed more care and concern over the sound of the show. As we have got very high-tech equipment available to use at the college, our team made full use of that and exploited every piece of gear that we could. The end result was that our sound quality was considerably better than other groups who had just used their phones to record the show.
The main sound issue that we faced was when we recorded the music slot and the drama series. We booked an hour slot so that there was plenty of time to record both of these features, however when we arrived at the studio there had been a system malfunction and the entire recording studio was down. When it finally worked again, there was a man who helped people record their features. He was a great help, and boosted the confidence of guests and people who were nervous about recording their segments. He recorded the entirety of my thirty minute music slot, as well as Lara's drama series. When it got to editing the audio files, it was clear that he had failed to record them properly. The actual audio was very quite, and when we artificially increased the volume, the audio became distorted and clapped. There was only one solution for this problem - rerecord all of the audio again. Luckily for myself, I managed to secure myself another slot on the router for the recording studio. Lara, however, was not so lucky. There were no more slots to record by the time she got to editing and realised that the audio was ruined. This meant that she had to record on her phone, which did affect the sound quality of the file and therefore her drama series.
The vocabulary of the scripts in each of the features was tailored to suit the intended target audience. We wanted to appeal to students, without making the station cringy and embarrassing to record. In the outside broadcast, Jack has designed to script so that the amount of sporting jargon used is limited, however there is still a couple of technical terms thrown in there. He did this because a lot of people aren't versed in the words and jargon is sporting broadcasts, so a lot of people wouldn't understand what is being said. By cutting that down, his target audience goes from being the sporting side of college students and his work is applicable to all of the college. He has kept a couple of technical terms regarding sport though, just to highlight that it is a broadcast about sport and he has done his research as to how the broadcast should pan out and what should be discussed in what manor. It is not of a particularly high register, but there is not slang or informal language as most college students still want to be talked to professionally, and not made to feel like they are being made fun of. With the music slot, the same rules applied. I focused on how other colleges talked during their slots, and how they addressed their adolescent audience. The majority of them used regular language, not too formal however there was very little slang otherwise it sounded unprofessional and immature.