The horror from our last R.W.A.V remains etched into the collective memory of our group. The show itself ran relatively smoothly, however we had a last minute cancellation from one of our interviewees that threw our planning and scripting in to disarray.

 

Knowing how good things always come around twice, we were fortunate enough to have the same predicament again this time around. Having planned for an interviewee, we were to find out only yesterday that they would no longer be able to come in to the studio for the interview.

 

A quick alternative was offered to the interviewee and thankfully it times in with everyones schedule.

 

We will be conducting a phone interview with the interviewee which means our planning still gets to stay in place and no scripting has to get binned.

 

thank yeezus!

26-5-16

 

After weeks of attempting to get in contact with the social collective at the forefront of womens rights in the music industry – The Listen Collective – we finally managed to lock down an interview with one of their volunteers.

 

Interviewing Rachel Cox proved to be a pivotal part of our feature, as she offered some interesting perspectives on our topic and enabled us to take a more in depth analysis of the frameworks of the music industry.

 

We decided to record the phone interview directly through the console at the 3RRR studios, so there wouldn’t be a double handling of recording devices and to reduce noise in the interview. This proved to be ideal, as we were able to grab the audio straight off the desk and begin working it in to our feature straight away.

 

Hoping to have the feature finished by Monday (ahead of out live to air) this meant that the weekend would be filled editing the piece and getting it polished by the R.W.A.V show.

 

Here’s to hoping.

Having planned and locked down most of our interviewee’s, we headed to the 3RRR studios to get a final practice // run through before we present next week.

 

The songs have been picked. The scripts have been written. The run sheet is planned.

 

I am confident in our groups planning and I believe that this round of R.W.A.V will far exceed our previous attempt. We have our feature well on the way, which will definitely engage audiences and spark a genuine interest in our program. We have also picked two different local organisations to interview which are both left of centre and quite ingenious.

 

I just hope all this planning pays off.

Having been informed by Sam that he would like to hear a rough copy of our final feature and play it to the class for critical analysis, I came into the Monday lecture apprehensive to play the rough cut.

 

Having only started to edit the feature in the days prior, I only had approx. 1 minutes worth of audio completed, with the rest still in fragments and out of order.

 

After playing it to the group, it was greeted with relatively positive views and opened up a few questions which ultimately sparked the group to delve deeper in our edit to highlight more poignant points in the final edit.

 

The feature also managed to spark a fairly full on discussion pertaining to the policing of drugs at music festivals, with the class quite evenly divided on the matter.

 

After playing our feature and organising the dates in which the class would meet to get the presentation organised, we took off and headed to the 3RRR studios to practice ahead of our final live to air for the semester.

Having gained most of the material for our feature, aside from the interview with the Listen Collective, it has come time to start editing the piece together – to have a rough cut ready for this coming Monday.

 

This process will take some time as we have over 1.5 hours worth of recorded interviews with both Bruce Thomas and Carolyn Worth, as well as all the ambient sounds and music.

 

Already we have made a 1 minute intro to the piece, that just needs to be re-dubed with a female narration and then we can begin to work on the body of the piece.

 

The process is beginning to feel a little like this though…

 

Having been out of the classroom for almost a month, due to public holidays and our live to air, it was good to finally head back and discuss the relevant material we would need to complete all assessment tasks for R.W.A.V.

 

Having focussed a lot of my attention towards the live to air and the interviews pertaining to the feature, I have managed to both overlook and neglect a few areas of assessments that need to be addressed – namely this blog and the online delivery on ROAR.

 

Having Sam walk us through precisely what we would be assessed on and the types of content & standard that both he and Bruce would be looking for has enabled me to gain a clearer perspective on what needs to be done before the end of semester (which is only 3 weeks away).

 

I am hopeful that I will be able to address all the relevant criteria and produce content that both reflects and addresses all the hard work I have put in this semester and what is expected of me.

03-05-16

 

Weeks of preparation finally came to fruition on our edition of Room With A View. Presented as a collective effort by everyone in Group 4, we went live to air in week 9 (Monday 2-5-16). Having locked down our songs, interviewees and script for the session, we went into the weekend prior to our edition with a somewhat confident outlook.

 

This confidence was soon shattered as we faced a late minute crisis – the contact for The Lupus Foundation (Aisha Stevens organised interview) pulled out the day before we were due to present. Aisha managed to organise a replacement interviewee, however due to her location, the interview would have to take place over the phone.

 

This last minute change prompted us to head into the RRR studios 2 hours prior to our allocated time slot in an attempt to generate new questions for the replacement interviewee as well as practicing the flow of the new running sheet. Throughout the practice we were constantly addressing problems that arose and building back the confidence we lost. A test of the phone lines confirmed our ability to conduct the phone interview and enabled us to have a quick chat with the new interviewee.

 

This practice was conducted in a different studio to the one we were due to present in and it managed to run overtime, this resulted in a slightly rushed beginning to the program and further resulted in a few mistakes straight away.

 

Having been somewhat flustered at the beginning, we accidentally let the previous song from the ‘The Grapevine’ run into our session as well as managing to accidentally reset the ‘Room With A View’ theme. These two mistakes were apparent when listening back to the program, however they weren’t too major and didn’t affect the intro and first interview.

 

The ‘Grandparents Playgroup’ interview ran relatively smoothly, with Bek conducting the majority of questions and interplay with our guest. Although Lyn (the interviewee) didn’t get to touch on any majorly poignant points, we still managed to generate a relatively engaging interview that ran for 10 minutes.

 

Being cautious of time, our producer Amalina and our online producer Laura signalled to wrap-up the interview and move on to the next segment of the edition.

 

The second segment/interview was a pre-recorded interview conducted approx. a month prior to the live to air. Having already conducted the interview prior to presenting, it enabled us to know exactly what was happening and how long the piece would run for. This prior knowledge enabled us to settle back into a rhythm and regain focus before we conducted our phone interview with the new interviewee.

 

Coming out of the Helping Hoops pre-record and the subsequent music tracks, we launched into the final interview with Keren at approx. the 33-minute mark of the program. Hoping to have a 10+ minute interview, we were confident that we had structured our segments well and would finish perfectly around the 1:00pm finish time.

 

The interview was introduced by Bek and ran relatively smoothly, however its running time ran shorter than expected and landed us with a greater amount of time to fill than we initially had planned for. This was coupled with the premature play of the next song, which forced Bek and Myself to abandon the outro of the Lupus Foundation interview and loose 2 minutes worth of material.

 

This resulted in a slightly disjointed and somewhat awkward last quarter of the program due to improvised narration and having to generate new listening material for the audience too. Although we managed to adlib quite well and select songs that stuck to our theme, the panic in the broadcasting suite was somewhat evident when listening back to the program.

 

Although we faced a lot of challenges prior, during and after the segment, I feel that we managed to present a relatively smooth program that covered a broad range of topics. I feel that everyone put their best efforts in and although we all could definitely improve on certain things, we still managed to generate a show with only a few mistakes.

 

On a personal level, I feel as though my presenter skills and ability to engage an audience could do with some work. Upon listening back to the program, it is somewhat evident that I was reading some sections from a script, which resulted in a more robotic and programed tone.

D-DAY!

 

After numerous weeks of preparation, the day had finally come. We went live to air on 3RRR and surprisingly it went relatively alright. Having faced a few last minute set backs, we were able to put forward a full 1 hour show containing 3 interviews and all the relevant information required.

 

There were a few technical difficulties that arose during the the hour.. but although they felt like they dragged on forever while we were on the air, upon listening back to them, they actually didn’t sound too apparent.

 

I am happy to have it behind us so we can now focus on the feature and our 2nd stint at R.W.A.V.

Having passed the first half of the semester, it has come time to submit the plan for the feature we wish to present in week 12. Pertaining to the rise in sexual assault at music festivals, the feature will aim to highlight the serious societal problem while also drawing on expert opinion to support any claims made.

 

The production plan for the feature will go as follows:

 

TOPIC:

 

Sexual Assault at Music Festivals and the apparent lack of policy implemented to help curb and address such a troubling problem.

 

DURATION:

 

10 – 15 Minutes

 

AIM:

 

To highlight the lack of policy and surrounding support for people who have been Sexually Assaulted at music festivals and the victim blaming mentality that forces many victims to repress and deny their own sexual assault experience.

 

SUMMARY OF STYLE:

 

The piece will oscillate between a soundscape and interview based style. The interviews will be used to address serious psychological and legal frameworks, while the soundscapes will immerse the listener into the ‘scene’ that we are attempting to depict. The use of Vox Pop’s may be helpful in relating our views back to that of the Melbourne Public, however we will decide on this later.

Interviews to be conducted are with – Rainbow Serpent Festival organizer, Ballarat Police Officer and C.A.S.A (Centre Against Sexual Assault). Following the C.A.S.A interview, there may be the potential to interview a sexual assault survivor.

 

RESEARCH:

 

We have compiled a list of statistics and documents pertaining to sexual assault at music festivals, however we are yet to research the greater psychological effects of Sexual Assault in detail.

 

ADDITIONAL SOUND SOURCES:

 

We will source all sound effects from a royalty free website or record them ourselves (Foley). We have gained permission from a few local bands / producers to use their music throughout the piece, however we are waiting to hear back from the Rainbow Serpent Festival organisers to see if we can use the stems from their recordings of the actual festival itself.

 

 

PRODUCTION ROLES:

 

Patrick – Recording, Interviewing & Mixing

Bek – Interviewing & Research

Aisha – Research & Mixing

Amalina – Interviewing & Research

Laura – Recording & Mixing

 

PRODUCTION RESOURCES:

 

2 x Portable Recorder (H4N)

2 x XLR Cables (3m)

2 x Microphones (SM58 or equivalent)

1 x Binaural Microphone

1 x Editing Platform (Protools)

 

PRODUCTION SCHEDULE:

 

4-5-16 | Interview Carolyn (C.A.S.A)

6-5-16 | Record Foley sound of Newlyn (the area Rainbow Serpent is situated in)

 

We are still waiting to hear back from the other interviewees; however once we have heard back from them we can commence a more thorough production schedule.

 

27-5-16 | Submit Feature to Bruce and Sam.