Radio Production Progress: Final Piece!

Today is the hand in date for the Group Radio Project! Our radio as you have read on previous blog entries was about Banksy, we included and introduction/history,  interview and finished with a concluding section. The music we used was Teardrop by Massive Attack.

Here is the MP3 version of our group radio piece:



Here is the link to download the original WAV file

In comparison to professional pieces, I think it is clearer that we recorded in different locations as the same voice sounds different. The other thing that could be better about ours is the levels, as at points the music drowns the voice.

Other than that I am really happy with our piece, especially in terms of content. I think we chose an interesting subject and conveyed it in a manner that appeals to young people who would listen to student radio.

Radio Production Progress: Final Editing

Today we completed our editing of One Nation Under Art: Banksy!





After using the Automation tool on Logic Pro, we Merged our audio tracks down to one track and exported it as a WAV file.

Happy days!

The only thing we have left to do now is submit the file for assessment by Tuesday =]

Radio Production Progress: Editing Session

Monday 30th November

Today we met up in the Gatehouse and assigned ourselves sections of our recordings to edit. I took the Introduction and Conclusion, Carlina looked at the History/Bio Section and Ant has started work on the Interview section.

We have each worked through and basically edited our sections for breaths, pops and any slip ups.

Our next stage is to piece all of the pieces together and set the levels with the backing track.

As an extra play around I took a piece of recording Carlina did of the phrase "One Nation Under Art" and put it through various filters to try and add something to our current jingle. We did not end up using it as it sounded too much "like a Dalek" but it gave me a chance to have a go with the different filters and how they affect audio.

I applied distortion, modulation and pitch shift but the final product wasn't really fitting with the ambiance of the rest of our radio piece.

Radio Production Progress: Team Meeting 24th Nov

Tues 24th Nov, 2.15pm, Gatehouse

Present: Ant, Carlina, Kirsty

Not Present: N/A

Progress Summary: K had no replies from any of the teachers contacted at Sion Hill, so having to re think interviewees. Chosen 2 students (as it is still fitting with being a student radio production)

Action Points:

• Sort out when and who is booking out equipment
• Have recordings done by the end of the week
• Plan what we want to include in the summarising minute of the programme

Next Meeting:  Fri 27th Nov

Radio Production Progress: Script for Biography

As part of our radio show we will have a biography/history about Banksy, this is what I have come up with within the context of the programme!

[Jingle&intro]

[Bio]

The first question we need to answer is: who is Banksy? Well, officially no one knows though there are rumours his real name is Robin Gunningham, though as with any guesses about his identity, Banksy denies all often replying with “I am unable to comment on who may or may not be Banksy, but anyone described as being 'good at drawing' doesn't sound like Banksy to me.”

What we do know is he is a graffiti artist originally from Bristol born in mid 1970's, who began by doing free hand work within the underground Bristol scene in the early 1990’s. In the late 90’s Banksy developed his renowned stencil work which got his work more noticed in both Bristol and London.

Though his artwork can now be found all over the world, it was not until October 2008 that Banksy had his first official public exhibition. Held in New York it opened on October 5th and was called “Village Pet Store And Charcoal Grill”. With only 8,500 visitors it is safe to say his more recent exhibition in Bristol was far more successful reaching that amount of visitors in the opening weekend and over 300000 over the 13 weeks the work was displayed.

Though Banksy is a non-profit artist, his pieces have sold for up to £290000 at auction to art fans and celeb fans including Christina Aguliera, Angelina Jolie, Jude Law and Keanu Reeves.

For an artist with such a high profile he is no stranger to controversy. Westminster City Council deemed his work graffiti and their policy is to remove any graffiti regardless of creator or their reputation. So in April 2009 his piece “One Nation Under CCTV” was painted over just a year after it was painted. The political undertone of his work is also often seen as unsavoury, however on more than one occassion the public have given overwhelming supporting to keeping his work up in their area.

But what we really want to find out now is what does Banksy mean to you?

[Vox pops]

[Concluding minute]

Radio Production Progress: Team Meeting

As I was the only one present  in this afternoons session I had a meeting with our tutor Mike to discuss the progress being made within the project. At the start of the session we were told about group work and how to take minutes of meetings so here are the minutes of my "group" meeting.

 

10th November 2.30pm, Gatehouse

Attending: Kirsty, Mike

Not attending: Carlina, Ant

Agenda:

• Discuss progress
• Assign action points to group members
• Set deadlines
• Set time/place for next meeting

Progress summary: Structure for radio show has been set, Kirsty has started scripting the biography section, Carlina has started work on the interview question, Ant has arranged at least one interviewee

Action Points:

• K: Finish biography by 11/11 then try and contact interviewee's
• C: Script interview/vox pop questions
• A: Find&confirm interviewee's
• As a group: Set recording dates and book equipment

Deadlines: After looking at the final deadline (8th December) we worked backwards and set the following dates as guidelines to have completed certain tasks.

• Record interviews week beginning 16th November
• Finish recording 20th November
• Editing process 27th November
• Aim to finish by 4th December
• Final Deadline 8th December

Next Meeting: Thurs 13th November

Radio Production Progress: Banksy

On Tuesday we pitched our idea for our programme to Mike and Holly, we got their approval and some additional comments so the next step is to start planning our recording schedule.

The following things need to be completed before we can actually go out recording:

• Script the opening 2 minutes of introduction and Banksy biography
• Come up with an opening jingle
• Contact people we wish to interview/do vox pop with
• Plan what questions we wish to ask

The final conclusion minute of the programme probably wont be able to be written until we have gathered our recordings from people as we cannot predict at this stage what they are going to say.

In terms of stages of recording I see us needing 3 sessions:

1. Recording the opening section
2. Going out and recording the interviews/vox pops
3. Recording the concluding minute

This will of course be followed by the editing process which may be quite time consuming!

Radio Production: Banksy Research

For my radio production with Carlina and Ant we have chosen to do a piece on Banksy with the main aim of it being trying to answer the question "is it art or graffiti?"

So, for a bit of inspiration and a place to start I have done some research on the artist.

Banksy is an anonymous artist who is believed to be from Bristol. His work is often very topical on things to do with political and social issues.
Banksy started in the early 1990's as a freehand graffiti artist in the underground Bristol scene. After a few years he developed his work with stencils rather than just free hand as it took less time to create a piece.



One aspect that we want to include in our radio show is to take a look at his recent exhibition in the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery it was his largest exhibition to date with over 8500 visitors on opening weekend and a grand total of over 300000 visits during its 12 week stay.

Here is a compilation of clips found on Youtube relating to the event:


Controversy
Keep Britain Tidy spokesperson Peter Gibson is one who considers Banksy's work graffiti, even going as far as to say it is "simple vandalism". Another spokesperson from the organisation Diane Shakespeare goes one step further in saying: "We are concerned that Banksy's street art glorifies what is essentially vandalism".
This article by Charlie Brooker also goes to some lengths of rubbishing Banksy.

The Film Programme: Radio Content

I have been set the task of looking at the content of a radio documentary/programme. The one I have chosen to look at is a podcast from The Film Programme, it was released this week by BBC Radio 4 and talks to Terry Gilliam

The Film Programme, is a weekly programme broadcast on a Friday and it is hosted by Francine Stock.

The content of the show was structured as follows:

• Standard BBC Podcast jingle
• Francine Stock giving brief intro/history of Gilliam
• Clip from his new film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus featuring Heath Ledger
  
• Stock speaking of Ledger's death and the effect on Gilliam's filming
• Interview between Gilliam and Stock about how the film came about and the concept of the "imaginarium"
• Another clip from film then fade back to interview about cast
  
• Continuation of interview talking more about Ledgers death and how it changed him & the film.
• Questions from Stock to Gilliam about how other actors getting involved.
• Stock talks to Gilliam about future projects
• Further clip from film
• Interview continues to compare his work
• Gilliam discussing the state of Hollywood
• Interview ends with clip from film
• Stock closes programme with what is going on in next weeks programme.

The programme has quite a simple structure and if it werent for the clips from the films they are talking about it would be quite monotonous, however it does have very in depth interviews and is very informative considering it only lasts between 25-30mins.