Our brief for this task was to create a one minute radio show in small groups to showcase our skills and techniques in audio production. I worked in a group of 5 and our concept was to create a fictional radio show named ‘Behave.fm’. My group included Owen, Dan, Emma and Rosie. We all put our ideas forward and decided on a script for the radio show, when we had the final script completed, we began planning on recording it. We booked a session in the recording studio where we were able to begin recording our script in our group. Two people went in the booth and read the script and the other three of us worked on recording it.
The concept for our radio show was an interview with a fictional singer. The two people performing the radio show were Dan and Owen. We decided that Owen would be the host and Dan would be the person being interviewed. We tried to use humour in our script by having Dan finishing singing his latest single and Owen, the host, mocking Dan’s song, this lead to an argument, which escalated during the course of the radio show, which concluded in the host leaving the studio. We felt this was the best idea that we constructed together and we decided this would be our final plan for the radio show. First of all, we had a few rehearsals of the script so that we could go over it a few times and point out any flaws or errors in the script. We felt that the script was performed to a good standard when we went through it so we were happy to go and record it.
We used Adobe Audition as the recording software. None of us had used this software before so we had to learn the skills to use it from our tutor. We recorded the radio show on one track and decided to edit it afterwards. There were numerous pauses and interruptions during the recording so we had to edit these out and split the tracks so that the radio show would last around one minute. The final edit we recorded was not exactly to the original script we had planned, this was due to the fact that the script wasn’t exactly how we wanted it and we all felt that it would be better with some improvisation. This also meant that there would be more pauses and errors in the recording as the two people performing the show were not entirely certain what there lines were. However, this proved to be the better option overall as we felt the finished recording was a better result than the original script.
We had some problems with the recording software so we had to record it again after the original session. This cost us some time in the recording studio but it did allow us to perfect the radio show in the final recording. We tried to use some effects from Adobe Audition in order to make the recording sound more professional and radio-like. However we couldn’t find an effect that we were happy with so we decided to scrap this idea and keep the original recording style. We had to record one part of the radio show separately, this was the part were we introduced the name of the show. This part of the sound track was louder than the other so we had to turn the volume of this sound track down so that it all sounded the same volume when it was mixed down.
We added an instrumental track in the background of the radio show so that it sounded more professional and realistic. We had to import the sound file in order to use it in the background of our show; we turned the volume down and faded it out so that it was less clear and distracting for the vocals. Fading the track out also allowed us to clip the track to the length of the original audio track. Overall I feel we created a good and effective radio show, which was interesting and informative as we made it clear what the radio show was about and we used humour to keep the audience entertained. I feel that our radio show met the brief well and we all had a part to play in creating it. I think that our group was successful in completing the work and creating a final recording that was true to the script and relative to the assignment. We delegated roles to each member of the group, which we were all happy with as we were all working to our strengths. This proved to be most effective as we were comfortable in our roles and this allowed us to create an effective radio show.
