The Appendix

Evaluation

Production

Magazine style radio programme for a particular audience

Recording our magazine style radio

Microphones

Th finished audio project

Production Log

Genre research

Codes and conventions of magazine style radio shows

News and Topic items

Audience research

Planning

Script

The Evaluation

During the construction of our show me and my group had to make many decisions that required deep thinking. One of the decisions was to choose the right person for each role. The roles we had to present were being a presenter, an educational reporter, an entertainment reporter, an interviewer and a continuity presenter. We chose the person with the strongest and clearest voice to make the overall show strong. The strength of choosing the person with the clearest voice to be the presenter made our show have a stable consistency.I included below an example of the presenters voice: 


However, there was a little problem with this choice. This problem was that other members of the group who don't have as clear and loud voices would get a little part to present, this makes it sound like it is only one person talking the whole time when we know it's not. Eventhough the members of the group spoke less they spent more time editing, so all of us had equal amount of work to do to make it fairer and make everyone participate in the making of the magazine style radio show.

The interview I had with the worker in the DVD store in Maida Vale, which was aimed at people who like movies and listening music, sounded uninteresting and dreary. Therefore I decided to add background music as the interviewee talks. This made it sound engaging and enjoyable to listen to. This sound effect gave the interview a suitable atmosphere as the woman was talking about the DVDs.I found the background music from 'http://www.freemusicarchive.com/' the song was called "Tosca's Afternoon Party" as shown below:

In our radio show we decided as a group to add sound effects after or before a reporter or presenter speaks. For example the playground noise before our educational correspondent begun to ask. We did this to make it conform with genre of magazine style radio show, as it is supposed to be entertaining as well as educational, so by adding these sound effects we get a more interesting radio show.

To understand the genre of magazine style radio we as a group agreed on undertaking individual research into other radio programmes. At first we found it difficult to find a radio show which used all codes and conventions of a magazine style radio show as all shows I listened to were moving away from the typical codes and conventions.

However, after researching for a while I found a website which had many magazine style radio shows that helped with the making of our show as it gave ideas of what to use. This is the website we used: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/programmes/genres/factual/player/episodes 

To make a radio programme we had to know who our target audience are. So therefore we had to do some research into our target audience. As a group used two primary research techniques observations and semi-structured interviews  on the streets of Maida Vale. This helped loads because we then had an idea of what to talk about in our show and what the news and topics would be.

There were few codes and conventions we had to keep in mind while constructing our radio show, and these are:

• Including a jingle and intro music

We added a jingle and intro music to separate the different parts of the radio show as it is a magazine style radio show it contains completely different topics, so it is important to let the audience be aware of the change that occurs in the show. A presenter is like a leader.

• Presenter

A presenter is very important in a magazine style radio show because the presenter starts off the show and ends it, the presenter also introduces the different topics in the show. All magazine style radio shows have a presenter.

• Variations in topics

One of the most important code and convention of a magazine style radio show is having/presenting different topics in the show. This important because it helps to put the show together and build it up. In our radio show we had about 3 topics that we spoke about in detail with interviews, OB and Vox Pops.

In the planning of the radio show there were few weaknesses and strengthens in our group. The strengthens in our group was being able to communicate with each other and come to a decision easily. However, we were not able to produce a plan that we would stick to during the construction of the radio show, but instead we decided to take responsibilities for different jobs during the construction of the radio show, this helped us finish our radio work quicker than we expected. In our group we had few disagreements on some of the decisions made by the members of the group, but we tried our best to make the right decisions that every member of the group would agree with.

  

o   After getting the radio show done, as a group we had to collect audience feedback from the age group our show was aimed at, in this case it was aimed at adults mainly living in Maida Vale because our show explains many thing about Maida Vale. I played my radio show to two adults living in Maida vale, I recorded their responses.

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I  I think I  met the BRIEF successfully because overall we managed to produce 4 minutes of varied content.In the first 15 seconds of the radio show the continuous presenter says the time and the show up next. The intro music starts and then the presenter starts to present the 3 different topics in the show that suits the genre of the magazine style radio show. The way we organised each topic is by adding a bit more detail to each TOPIC by adding sound effects. This was appropriate and effective for my target audience because it grabs their attention while the radio show is playing. We added more 2 interviews, one interview was on Maida Vale streets and the other one in a CD store in Maida Vale . I also added OB and Vox pops in our show to make it interesting for people to listen to especially our target audience, who are adults living in Maida Vale.


l To be able to understand the concept of institution, you can do two things and one is through the radio industry's website like BBC radio and  the other is by  how creative the team worked as group. I recorded few radio shows to prove that I have listened to some and understood the codes and conventions of magazine style radio shows. This helped each member of the group to think in a creative way and be able to produce a high quality magazine style radio show.

  Overall, I am very happy with the work we produced as a group and I am very confident that it fits the genre of magazine style radio show and is suitable for the target audience.

     

Production

Magazine style radio programme for a particular audience

• title music

I found this sound that I think is ideal for our radio project because it is soft and not jumpy which attracts people, this makes them want to listen to or show. However we didn't use this title music because me and my group agreed on another title music that sounds more appropriate for our audio and its content.

• presenter
• OB (outside broadcast)
• vox pops


• two recorded interview


This is one of the interviews I did with a worker in a DVD shop that I added

• sound effects
• script



Recording our magazine radio style 


                  
This is how our recording looks like in its very early stages. So far we have only recorded the continues presenter and the presenter of the show including the music and the jingle.





This screenshot shows the OB I recorded. I needed to do this separately because I was using the a portable microphone as I stood in the street outside the Eveyman Cinema.




This screenshot shows the full recordings. 








This screenshot shows me trying to use a timeshift tool to move things to the correct place. 




Microphones

Portable microphones

 Is a microphone that enables you and your subject to move around without being tethered to wires or power cords, it is a battery-powered microphone.
This photo shows Randy Makoto interviewing people about what they think about restaurants in Maida Vale using a portable microphone.


Studio based microphones (usb microphones)

Studio based microphones are useful for stable use only. It is wired and plugged into the computer so the sound recorded would be directly recorded into the computer.



The finished Audio Project

This is the complete magazine style radio show which is about 4 minutes long.

Production Log

Research

I have to research three different things for my media course.
1. Research existing magazine style radio shows.
2. Research audience.
3. Research the topics that I will be using in my own magazine style radio.

This video explains what a magazine style radio show is and it mentions few codes and convention of magazine style radio show.

Genre research

I wrote 'BBC podcast and downloads' in Google and this website http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts came up.

It lists all the different genres in Radio; Comedy, Children's, Drama, Entertainment, Factual, Learning, Music, News, Religion& Ethics and Sport. Each of these are different to each other, they have different generic features. I clicked on the different categories of genre and listened to some of the podcasts.


I then listened to two different magazine style radios on http://www.internetradiouk.com. I listened to heart radio and BBC radio 3 and I noticed few things while listening to them:

• The presenters changed their tone of voice and they spoke clearly and loudly.
• Advising people
• Telling people about the past- telling stories
• Played music
• There were few adverts

Codes and Conventions of Magazine Style Radio 

One of the elements we have to put in our magazine style radio show is a vox pops. A vox pops is a collection of voices edited together on a single topic. The example above is much longer than the vox pops I will be putting in our magazine style radio. I took it from an edition of Saturday Live which broadcasts every Saturday on Radio Four. What ties them all together is that they present a sound picture of Sunderland, this is why I included a map of Sunderland.

1.Continuous presenter
 In most magazine style radio shows there are continuous presenters that keep the whole show stay in a chain as there are different things going on in a radio channel.


2. Attention grabbing music:
Radio has to work harder to grab listeners' attention that TV. When people watch TV they have usually sat down in front of the screen. Mostly radio listeners are doing other things, jobs around the house - cooking, tidying up or perhaps the listeners are driving.


3. Presenter greets his audience:
This is important because radio is very personal medium, much more so that TV or print magazine. I think the reason why this is to make the audience think that they are talking to the presenter in personal.

4.Presenter lists the content of the show:
The listener needs to hear what is coming up later so that she or he can decide if it's worth staying tuned in. It's a bit like a table of contents in a print magazine or a menu bar on a website)

5. Audience interactions:
Interactivity provides choice and gives opportunities to be heard, to participate and to create content. My aim is to offer it to everyone by using our different platforms in different ways, but we will not exclude viewers and listeners who choose not to interact. Interacting with an audience is relevant to any radio show for it to be successful. 

6. Separating the items by using music:
There has to be some audible way to show that the topic of the show has changed; it doesn't have to be music but it has to be heard in some way!

7. Balance:
Many podcast are balanced, this means they show both sides of an argument to ensure it isn't bias. Both sides of the argument has to be shown fairly. By balancing a podcast causes more people to listen to it and that is our aim.

8. Interviews in the show
In many magazine style radio shows there are interviews with people from outside the show to tell about a personal experience or to inform something to the listening audience.

News and topic items

There are many things you can talk about in magazine radios. The topics that would be suitable for my audience who are people living in Maida Vale are:

• Restaurants
•  Entertainment in the area
•  Schools

 There are of course more things that we can talk about in a magazine radio but I think the things I listed are suitable for the people living in Maida Vale.

Audience research

Our group's target audience is people living in Maida Vale. Obviously whoever these people are they have to know more about the area Maida Vale,we want to discover what other things they are interested in. Our task is to create a four minute magazine style radio show and this means that the contents have to be varied which means they can't be about Maida Vale all of it.

 Within the podcast we will be giving news to these people about the area and the events occurring within Maida Vale. To find this information we went on Google and searched plans made by Westminster council.and 291 thousand results appeared in 0.34 seconds.

Audience Research: Out on the streets of Maida Vale.

Using two Primary Research Techniques:

1. Observation (see photos)
2. semi-structured interviews.



 We went to Maida Vale to interview people to find out what our target audience is.







Click on this image to see details of my editing

Planning

Week No.	Production Tasks	Responsible	Checked By
1.	Genre Research. Finding example of Magazine Style Radio Shows.  Using Blog to capture research.	Individual	Myself
2.	Using Audacity to  record precise examples of the codes & conventions of Magazine Style Radio	Individual	Myself
3.	Audience Research. Conducting street interviews	Individual	Randy
4.	Audience Research. Using Audacity to edit interview material. Blog results	Individual	Leo
5.	Planning the Production. How to organise: ·         Two interviews ·         An OB ·         Vox pops ·         Presenter role ·         Station ident (jingle) Writing an outline script.	Everyone	Mai
6.	Interview 1.	Leo	Zeineb
7.	OB
8.	Presenter’s Links	Leo	Randy
9.	Interview 2.	Mai	Leo
10.	Re-writing and re-recording the introduction.	Zeineb	Mai
11.	Fitting together the whole show and playing back to target audience.	Everyone	Leo and Zeineb
12.	Evaluation PowerPoint. Strengths & weaknesses of research and planning.	Individual	Myself
13.	Roles and responsibilities of production group. Strengths and weaknesses of the final production	Individual	Myself
14.	Audience Feedback on finished Audio Production	Individual	Myself.

Questions to be asked in our semi-structured interview: 

Our aim is to find out about our target audience because we need to know who will be listening to our magazine style radio show. We will be interviewing people in Maida Vale area as shown in the Map.



1. How well do you know this area of Maida Vale?
2. How is Maida Vale different to other parts of London?
3. What in your opinion are the best things about Maida Vale?
4. What are the worst things about Maida Vale?

Script

Mai Jaf-

Zeineb Awad (Me)- entertainment correspondent (OB from everyman cinema and an interview from the DVD store)

Mai Jaf- the educational correspondent (interviews teachers at st George's school)

Randy Mankoto- Reporter, who will interview people to ask about what they think about Maida Vale restaurants.
Leonardo Coelho- The presenter of the show.

Mai Jaf-  its three o'clock and up next is  Maida on Veild

Leonardo Coelho- Hello and welcome to Maida on Vield (he lists the contents). But first to Zeineb Awad who is reporting from the everyman cinema in Maida Vale.

Zeineb Awad (Me)-

Leonardo Coelho-  and now over to our education correspondent who will be interviewing teachers in St George's school in Maida Vale.

Add Vox pops of what teachers think about their school which is in Maida Vale.

Add an interview of Randy.

This script could be changed!