In the process of translating our demo to our final broadcast, we were mindful of the feedback that our coordinator Heather gave us. In particular, she noted some issues that we made when introducing pre-recorded segments—such as accidentally introducing the same segment twice and forgetting to signpost our interviews. Fortunately, in our actual live-to-air broadcast, we avoided these mistakes.
Another piece of feedback we received was to better plan the exit of our show and introduce Breakfasters. To make sure that we did this in our actual broadcast, we wrote out the exact runtime of each song and segment on our runsheet and kept an eye on the clock during the entire show. This allowed us to end the show at around the exact time that we needed to.
In terms of collaboration, I thought that Simon and I worked together well on this assignment. We built our on-air rapport between the demo and final broadcast, which helped things go smoothly. I would have preferred, however, to have been in a larger group as having just two people limited us in terms of the amount of creative input that we had to work with during the creation of our project.
A massive improvement can be heard in the audio quality of our live piece in comparison to the demo. I actually attribute this change to having read The Podcaster’s Audio Handbook: A Technical Guide for Creative People, one of the set readings for Room With a View. Green (2021)’s work helped teach me how to position a microphone without capturing breath noises, which was actually something I had ever learned during any of my time at SYN.
In addition, our project was informed by Beaman (2011)’s work. He wrote about navigating past hurdles in interviews, and his point about making sure that you are talking to the right person was especially helpful. Thanks to this reading, we were very deliberate when it came to selecting our three interview subjects. We actually bounced around ideas with Adam of Triple R about who would be the best people to talk to for each of our stories.
Overall, I am incredibly happy with how the show turned out. I believe that my prior experience with SYN and having taken Sounds Like a Story aided my technical and on-air abilities, which let us navigate past any on-air hiccups that we experienced. The only thing I would change, if given the opportunity, is to improve the audio quality on our interview with Michael of Maurice Blackburn (about Uber). The lav mic we used was faulty, and we had no way to correct that when we were at his home recording the segment.
I hope that this piece succeeded in communicating radio’s ability to persevere throughout time, largely thanks to how sound is able to create an almost unmatched sense of intimacy with listeners. I was very mindful of creating a strong sense of co-presence while working on the show, which I hope was successfully received by the audience.
Sources:
Beaman, Jim. Interviewing for Radio, Taylor & Francis Group, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/detail.action?docID=684041.
Green, CM 2021, The Podcaster’s Audio Handbook: A Technical Guide for Creative People, 1st 2021. edn, Apress, Berkeley, CA.