Main task: A five minute news bulletin (local radio) to include title music, presenter, specialist reporters, OBs, recorded interview, a vox pop and appropriate sound fx and structure.
All audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source. Both preliminary and main tasks may be done individually or as a group. Maximum four members to a group.
Our brief is to produce a 5 minute local radio News broadcast. This broadcast must include:
First Article:
Part of my job within this task, is to try and find local news items to include into our news broadcast. Since it is a local radio, we need something to distinguish us from the rest of the radio stations in London and the UK as a whole. Local news comes into play here, as no other radio station would actually report these news items. In a way, it's a world exclusive, as there's a big chance that only the news/radio stations in the area are reporting these. Doing my job, I went through the West Hampstead Digital Newspaper, finding this, the first ever Kilburn Literary Festival. The next step was to try and construct a news angle. As we know, this is going to be the first ever literary festival in Kilburn; so I am going to want to know whether there will be another festival like this in Kilburn. This piece of news is a local news item, so it won't be the most valued news item, so we will need to find a piece of breaking news that catches the attention of our audience, Something that will affect everyone.
Below, is an example of what the festival will consist of:
A challenge in presenting this news article was producing a script for us to use on the radio broadcast. We needed something that sounded like it belongs on a radio station, but we needed it to sound human as well. I find that reading off of a script is in no way complete emulation of human speech and thought. A news presenter can get away with reading off of a script, but we were interviewing people related to the news item. They couldn't read a script entirely as it wouldn't sound genuine. If they were asked a question, they would have to think a little about it. There would be some hesitation, like "erm" or "um" between sentences. These people are pretty much being put on the spot, they know they are going onto a radio, and logically they would be nervous to a degree, or at least they would be thinking about what they are saying. I suggested that we use a script, but deliberately not follow it. That way we would know what to say, but not word for word. We would have a path to follow, but we would still have to remember it, and we would not recite it completely. It would add a level of legitimacy to the broadcast.
This is the creative process of producing our script.
I am the presenter.
Celyn was the guest.
Edevi was the specialist reporter.
An interesting point I would like to add is the use of an alias. My name is Bradley Loughnane, but in the script I am Bradley Andrews. We thought it would add some sense of authenticity to the news article.
The final step would be to chop up the recording on Audacity to complete the item.
Screenshot 3 & 4
We would remove any periods of silence i.e after we said our line and are moving to stop the recording, or if someone finished recording and said "ok, is that good?" or something of the likes.
Week 2
The following week, we unearthed another festival. This time it was the INTO film festival, which was an annual celebration of film and education for schools and young people around the UK. The event lasts from 4th of November until the 21st of November.
Website Link: http://www.intofilm.org/festival
In the above photo, we see that the festival is holding events that involve screening films in local theatres.
The event has a variety of activities that you could choose from, ranging from educational resources to a wide choice of films to watch, and even filmmaking classes
The next step would be to produce a news article. This would begin with a script.
The script was designed to feel authentic. It needed to feel like a news report.
With the script set up, we went through with developing the news recording. Our main technique was to record everything in segments, so that editing them would be much easier. There is a downside to this, as it potentially makes it sound less authentic.
This is the completed recording of the guest and presenter. They are in separate tracks so that we can have both the presenter's and guest's audio together. The tracks are labelled for convenience.
For our news item, we needed to add background audio so that it fits in with the context of the article. The festival is targeted at school children, so we searched for "children talking" on Freesound, and got a variety of results. This was the one we eventually settled with.
Here, we are importing the audio of children talking into our news item. This is raw and unedited.
We quickly discovered that the audio we imported was too loud for the presenter and guest. It's meant to be background noise, so we had to change the amplification to a much lower level. This was so that the guest's audio would not be drowned out by the children.
Tools we used:
On the left is the original audio, with the middle highlighted.
On the right is the resulting piece of audio after we trimmed the sides, using the trim tool.
- Title music
- at least one presenter
- at least two specialist reporters
- at least two Outside Broadcasts (OBs)
- at least one interview
- at least one vox populi (one vox pop sequence)
- sound effects
- an organised structure
In this part of my blog I will set out all of the elements which meet the brief. From my research and planning I have discovered that local radio news broadcasts are typically 5 minutes long just like the brief. I have also discovered that they usually include about 8 - 10 stories. So I am going to use the 7 codes and conventions of the genre of local radio news that I discovered in my research and planning to help construct my own local radio news broadcast.
First Article:
Part of my job within this task, is to try and find local news items to include into our news broadcast. Since it is a local radio, we need something to distinguish us from the rest of the radio stations in London and the UK as a whole. Local news comes into play here, as no other radio station would actually report these news items. In a way, it's a world exclusive, as there's a big chance that only the news/radio stations in the area are reporting these. Doing my job, I went through the West Hampstead Digital Newspaper, finding this, the first ever Kilburn Literary Festival. The next step was to try and construct a news angle. As we know, this is going to be the first ever literary festival in Kilburn; so I am going to want to know whether there will be another festival like this in Kilburn. This piece of news is a local news item, so it won't be the most valued news item, so we will need to find a piece of breaking news that catches the attention of our audience, Something that will affect everyone.
Below, is an example of what the festival will consist of:
A challenge in presenting this news article was producing a script for us to use on the radio broadcast. We needed something that sounded like it belongs on a radio station, but we needed it to sound human as well. I find that reading off of a script is in no way complete emulation of human speech and thought. A news presenter can get away with reading off of a script, but we were interviewing people related to the news item. They couldn't read a script entirely as it wouldn't sound genuine. If they were asked a question, they would have to think a little about it. There would be some hesitation, like "erm" or "um" between sentences. These people are pretty much being put on the spot, they know they are going onto a radio, and logically they would be nervous to a degree, or at least they would be thinking about what they are saying. I suggested that we use a script, but deliberately not follow it. That way we would know what to say, but not word for word. We would have a path to follow, but we would still have to remember it, and we would not recite it completely. It would add a level of legitimacy to the broadcast.
This is the creative process of producing our script.
I am the presenter.
Celyn was the guest.
Edevi was the specialist reporter.
An interesting point I would like to add is the use of an alias. My name is Bradley Loughnane, but in the script I am Bradley Andrews. We thought it would add some sense of authenticity to the news article.
The final step would be to chop up the recording on Audacity to complete the item.
Editing our first news item
Using Audacity
We used Audacity to record and edit our news item. Audacity consists of many tools which allow us to record and edit our show more efficiently, as you will see below.
Screenshot 1 & 2
Screenshot 3 & 4
We would remove any periods of silence i.e after we said our line and are moving to stop the recording, or if someone finished recording and said "ok, is that good?" or something of the likes.
Week 2
The following week, we unearthed another festival. This time it was the INTO film festival, which was an annual celebration of film and education for schools and young people around the UK. The event lasts from 4th of November until the 21st of November.
Website Link: http://www.intofilm.org/festival
In the above photo, we see that the festival is holding events that involve screening films in local theatres.
The event has a variety of activities that you could choose from, ranging from educational resources to a wide choice of films to watch, and even filmmaking classes
The next step would be to produce a news article. This would begin with a script.
The script was designed to feel authentic. It needed to feel like a news report.
With the script set up, we went through with developing the news recording. Our main technique was to record everything in segments, so that editing them would be much easier. There is a downside to this, as it potentially makes it sound less authentic.
This is the completed recording of the guest and presenter. They are in separate tracks so that we can have both the presenter's and guest's audio together. The tracks are labelled for convenience.
For our news item, we needed to add background audio so that it fits in with the context of the article. The festival is targeted at school children, so we searched for "children talking" on Freesound, and got a variety of results. This was the one we eventually settled with.
Here, we are importing the audio of children talking into our news item. This is raw and unedited.
We quickly discovered that the audio we imported was too loud for the presenter and guest. It's meant to be background noise, so we had to change the amplification to a much lower level. This was so that the guest's audio would not be drowned out by the children.
Tools we used:
Audacity have many different tools which help us construct our news item, the tool above is a Trim (left) and Silence (right) audio.
The Trim audio tool allows you to cut the both sides of the selected piece of audio, which then only leaves the middle. This makes it easier for us to identify which part we would like to delete and keep. It's more effortless than manually having to highlight each side and delete them.
On the left is the original audio, with the middle highlighted.On the right is the resulting piece of audio after we trimmed the sides, using the trim tool.
This is the completed second news item, which is about the Into Film Festival. We discuss the importance of the event and how it affects school children in a way to help them expand their knowledge on the film industry. We used a new tool/website in creating this, and that was Freesound, which was used to get the background audio of children talking. We used audacity to edit the recording to make it fit for a radio broadcast, and to record voices.
Freesound is a website in which you can download audio, and said audio can then be imported into your audacity file. The audio can then be edited accordingly.
Third news item
Website Link
We knew we had something special when we found this news article. I personally am very fascinated by the video game industry, and I love seeing how the public reacts to certain games. We knew this would appeal to a younger demographic, because this was indeed "The" game of 2013.
This article consists of Australian retailer Kmart removing the critically acclaimed, yet ever so controversial game Grand Theft Auto V from its shelves. Three women argued that the game should be pulled due to its alleged misogyny, violence and aspects of rape culture. They created a petition online which garnered 40,000 signatures.
Below is the script we were to use
Editing
This is all of our recordings complete, and touched up. As you can see, we have named each of our tracks (i.e presenter, vox pop, spec. reporter) to make them easier to edit. Without these names, we would have to play a clip each time we wanted to know what it consisted of, which could be rather tedious.
These pieces of audio appear quite stretched. This is because we had to amplify them. the naked recordings were far too quiet, so we used the amplify tool to make the audio easier to hear.
We are yet to move them in order at this point. If you played the tracks now, they would all play at the same time and it would either be painful to listen to, or it would be hilarious. Either way, it wouldn't be fit for our radio broadcast, so it couldn't stay that way.
Using the time shift tool, we moved all the tracks into their correct positions. Now they would play in a chronological order, and would not play simultaneously. This was how the audio looked before we saved it and uploaded it to soundcloud.Completed Third news item
Fourth News Item
This story is very timely, as it has happened recently. This makes it ideal for the audience because it's current rather than in the past, which would be irrelevant. It creates the effect of being precise and accurate and leads to a more authentic news product. This news item has an impact on the society. It shows, or at least implies that old men are voiceless and vulnerable in today's society. The proximity of the event makes the item less relevant but the event itself hits close to home. Since it happened on a public train, it affects the local area because almost everyone in Kilburn uses public transport, and it could happen at any station, including Maida Vale Station. This is also bad news since not only was a man abused, but the man was blind and elderly. It shows the respect people have for the elderly nowadays, which is great for news since it's been a common stereotype for years now, and would appeal to people.
Script
This is the final script which is to be used for the fourth news item. It will consist of a presenter, co-presenter and a vox pop of two or more people from the public. In the timing and effect clump we've included a caption of when the background audio is going to be inserted, then we are aware of what to do when editing the track
Freesound is one of the handy websites we use when producing our news items this is where we find all of our background audios. This particular audio is the sound of a busy London underground station where you will hear people talking from every direction and announcers speaking, it creates a feel to the atmosphere and to the interview because of the location of where it was recorded. After being downloaded into the computer we had to import it into Audacity and place into the 'Background Audio' track. The audio will go in sync with the interview as a background track.
Fifth News Item
The fifth news item is focused on the killing of a teenager in Westminster where a 16 year-old was arrested. Not only does this have proximity but it also has timeliness, the news wasn't too far away for our target audience but it wasn't too near therefore it was ideal to use because the location of the murder happened near the area so it would catch people's attention.
It was timeliness because it didn't happen last week, but happened within the present. Therefore the news was fresh to use which gives us a reliable source because we know that it wouldn't lose our target audiences interest, but instead inform them on what is currently happening within their area. So it gets to the audience faster than word of mouth.
Script
This script is our guideline to conjuring out fifth news item. We included the running length of each recording so that we know exactly how long the news item is. We wanted every script to be laid out on a table, in order for it to be clearer for our vocalists to understand and read.
This is our fifth news item where it has considered news value like impact, proximity and timeliness, so we decided to research background music that will be content with the news. So we typed in "serious background music instrumental" YouTube and I found the perfect track to use, called "Epic and Dramatic Tailer Music"
Sixth news item
This piece of news was obviously going to hit the headlines. One Direction is one of the most commercially successful bands in recent history and this news could affect people from businessmen to adoring fans. This news item is timely, and is really good because it affects damn near everyone to a degree. Even if you don't care about the band, this topic will be everywhere for weeks to come, and will likely come up in conversation a fair bit.
EIGHTH NEWS ITEM
Sixth news item
Website: http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/zayn-malik-quits-one-direction-5365313
Script
Above is the first draft of our script, and on the left is the finalized script. The final script is shorter because we wanted to keep it condensed, and hard hitting. We wanted to get straight to the point rather than beat around the bush.
We also had to include a vox pop including voices from many different demographics.
Seventh News Item
Website: http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/jeremy-clarkson-flee-uk-close-5373635
Our seventh news item focuses on well known top gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson who was recently fired for being accused of hitting a producer, Oisin Tymon. From the accusations, it has been going around that he is on the verge of being sacked. His response towards this verdict was unpleasant as he used the F word countless of times this showed how frustrated he was after hearing about this and that they have now 'F***** Top Gear'.
This particular news item has news value of entertainment and elites because it involves a big time TV presenter and it's been spoken among many social medias, mostly twitter.
SCRIPT
We created a short script to keep the news item simple.
EDITING
The Editing part of this news item was the most easiest out of all because it only consists of a presenter and a specialist reporter. This is our shortest news item amongst all eight.
OUR SEVENTH NEWS ITEM
EIGHTH NEWS ITEM
CANON RADIO NEWS
SCRIPT
EDITING
Completed Show
This is the final cut of our show, and thus it is the end result of our script-writing, recording and editing.
You will find that this may be different from the individual news items we published. This is simply due to last minute changes that we thought were necessary. For example, I am no longer the main presenter. It wasn't my decision, but such is life in the studio. Nonetheless, I am happy and satisfied with the final product.
Here is the final script for the entire show.
You will find that this may be different from the individual news items we published. This is simply due to last minute changes that we thought were necessary. For example, I am no longer the main presenter. It wasn't my decision, but such is life in the studio. Nonetheless, I am happy and satisfied with the final product.
Here is the final script for the entire show.
