Category Archives: Room With a View

Assessments, Room With a View

RWAV: Feature

The feature was one aspect of Room With a View that I was particularly excited to work on, as it’s closely related to the sort of narrative documentary podcast content that I love listening to. Our subject matter (cultural attitudes towards body hair) was decided relatively quickly, and I felt that as a topic it gave us a lot of pathways to explore and follow, which we could narrow down as we further developed the idea. We discussed a couple of potential styles/tones we could employ, from the more academic current-affairs style news reporting to something more atmospheric and esoteric, and the direction we would eventually go with would depend on the supporting material we could find.

Roles were divided up into pre-production and interviewing (Chloe and Rebecca) and vox-pops, editing and post-production (Hannah, Georgia and myself), with everyone in the group responsible for researching the topic and finding potential sources of archival material and found audio that we could use. We did some preliminary research to inform the interviews, but I tried to be careful not to spend too much time on scripting or recording material that we might not end up even using. This ended up being a good decision, but more on that later.

Chloe and Rebecca recorded our main interviews — one with a beauty therapist, and four with young people who have had personal experience with discrimination or societal pressure about their body hair. They were all pretty interesting and each could have easily been used in its own piece of radio, but we quickly identified that three of the interviews in particular (Lys, Tom and Julia) traversed some common ground and would lend themselves well to being edited together. One of the style options we discussed in our first meetings about the feature was potentially not having any narration at all and instead letting the interviews speak for themselves, which we identified as a viable option if we used Lys, Tom and Julia’s interviews. So we made the decision to cut the beauty therapist and the fourth interviewee entirely, and work only with the three we liked most.

One of the things I’m most happy about with this project is that we followed our material where it lead us. We could have easily come up with a pre-conceived notion of what our piece would sound like, and then tried to find material that supported that notion, but it could have sounded contrived or been difficult to shape the material to fit what we already had in our heads. Instead, we first listened to our interviews and then extracted the most interesting parts and used those to inform the overall tone and style, which I think has ended up with a much stronger final result. As a bonus, this meant that we didn’t spend too much time writing scripts or narration that ended up not being used. (Rebecca decided to go off and put together some narration on her own anyway, which will help her practice writing for radio.)

The finished piece has a very personal, intimate feeling to it, which is very much driven by the voices of our three main interviews. We didn’t use any archival or found audio clips (other than the vox-pops we recorded, which open the piece), but we made the conscious decision not to include such clips because they would have felt incongruous with the content of our interviews. Hopefully the vox-pops, inter-cutting of the interviews and the music we used all combine to give the piece an interesting texture that will keep listeners engaged.

Finding the perfect music to accompany our piece was challenging, as the subject matter is serious and deeply personal, but we didn’t want to use music that was too dark or sombre, or that was too emotionally prescriptive. We downloaded about 15 different free music tracks by Kevin MacLeod, and seriously considered using three or four of them, before we came across the piece that we ultimately ended up using. I think this speaks to the importance of continuing to search until you find the exact thing you’re looking for. (And we’ll have to remember to credit Kevin MacLeod on-air and on the RRR program page when we play the piece on air, to comply with Kevin’s licensing requirements.)

Of all the projects I’ve worked on during my media degree, this feature might be one of my absolute favourites. The editing process was particularly rewarding, as Georgia and I sat in an edit suite for hours cutting the entire piece together, which was a surprisingly positive and collaborative experience. I think it helped that I really respect Georgia’s talent for audio storytelling, so I was able to sit back and learn a lot from her. Previously, I’ve found editing by myself on my laptop to be a long and frustrating process, but having someone else there to bounce ideas off (and to keep me productive) was really valuable.

I’m excited to play the finished piece on RRR during our second show.

Learnings:

  • Let your material dictate the tone and style of your work, not the other way around
  • Vox pops are a cheap and easy way to get good content
  • Editing with a partner offers benefits and leads to better results
  • If you haven’t found the perfect piece of music, keep looking (or make it yourself)
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Assessments, Room With a View

RWAV: First Show

This week Group 4 went to air on RRR for the first time. Our guests were:

[Click here to read my annotations for the show on Soundcloud]

Planning for this episode was relatively smooth, thanks to the preparation and practice we did for our demo. We had settled on a run sheet formula that suited us all well — Rebecca and Chloe, as the hosts, would have one version of the run sheet with notes and scripts to help their presentation, and I would have a separate panel operator version with technical information like audio source and volume levels.

We had some difficulty finding guests that were interesting subjects, were approved by RRR and available on the day we went to air. I’m happy that we were able to talk to Savannah Anand-Sobti as I’m a big fan of the zine she founded, and she does a lot of work to create open and supportive spaces for creative women to do excellent work. The timing worked out perfectly too, because an issue of the LoL zine had just been released a couple of days before we went to air. Anthony Embleton was someone Rebecca had interviewed for her individual interview assessment, though he was happy to come in to the studio and do an in-person interview about his work with the Monash Club of Juggling and Fire Twirling. We were hoping to have three live in-studio interviews, but since we couldn’t find a third interviewee we decided to use a pre-recorded interview with Soreti Kadir that our producer Hannah had conducted for her individual interview assessment. Soreti is a community leader who speaks on gentrification and its effects on local and immigrant populations in the western suburbs of Melbourne, which made for an incredibly interesting interview.

The tracks we chose to play on our show were pulled together in relatively short time. I tried to find music that was local to Melbourne (or, at worst, Australia) and was recently released, and so did most of the rest of our group, which resulted in six out of the seven tracks we played satisfying the Australian content quota. The one track that wasn’t Australian (The Gap Band) is a great song that fits RRR’s format well, so overall I think our music selections were strong.

As panel operator I was responsible for sourcing the music and collecting all of our material in a way that would make it easy to play out on air. In our demo I thought it would be easiest to burn everything (including pre-recorded interviews) onto a CD, which I then duplicated so I would have two identical copies of the same CD. I would then alternate between players and while one track was playing I would cue the next track on the other player, and wouldn’t have to do any switching audio sources on the fly. This worked well in the demo, but we had an issue where a couple of our tracks only had audio in the right channel, so this time I made sure I burned our CDs with enough time to listen to every track in the studio and confirm that the audio was perfect, which happily it was.

Unfortunately, literally 10 minutes before we were due to go on air Soreti requested that we edit out one of the answers she gave in her interview, sending Hannah on a mad rush to figure out what to do with our audio sources. Ideally we would have burned the entire CD again (music tracks and all) to include the updated interview, but since we were so short on time we decided instead to burn the updated interview to its own CD and switch to it on the fly when necessary. This added a lot of unnecessary stress to an already nervous time before we went live on air, and I think in future we should make sure we inform interviewees that if there’s something they don’t want going to air then they should just not say it — just as Terry Gross tells her interviewees.

Actually going into the studio to take over was a lot more frenetic and rushed than I expected. The hosts of the previous show played our theme and we all rushed into the studio, took our places, turned the mics on and jumped straight into it. Audio levels started out a bit high because I was attempting to quickly put our CDs into the players and cue them up, and thus wasn’t paying attention to audio levels from the beginning. There was also a strange tinny quality to Rebecca’s voice on MIC2, which I couldn’t diagnose no matter what I did — I confirmed that the microphone was on, the fader was up, and the levels showed that it was receiving her voice fine, but for some reason it didn’t sound right. I think I’ll chalk this up to an equipment fault or a dodgy cable, which I hope we don’t get marked down for because I noticed it right away and began to troubleshoot it, but nothing I did fixed the problem.

Once we were into the swing of the show things improved. Bec and Chloe had a nice rhythm and worked off each other well, and we used non-verbal cues and notes to communicate with each other while the microphones were on. We still need to clean up our technique, particularly our microphone technique, but that’s something that should come with time. During our first interview, with Savannah, I had significant issues controlling the levels for her microphone because she has clearly never been in a radio studio before and was very wary of the microphone in front of her. As she spoke to Bec and Chloe she continually moved around (and away from) the microphone, so I had to constantly adjust the levels to try to keep her volume consistent. I think in future, the producers should brief interviewees to speak directly into the microphone before they come into the studio, because the end result is not great to listen to.

The most significant error in our show (from a panel operation point of view) was the moment when I was attempting to transition from the pre-recorded Soreti interview to a track, with a RRR station ID in between. Because we’d changed the Soreti interview at the last minute and put it on a separate CD, my run sheet was out of sync (what should have been CD1 was actually in CD2, and vice-versa), and as a result I pressed the wrong button on the panel — playing Soreti’s interview from the beginning again. Luckily, I noticed straight away and quickly faded it down and switched to the correct CD, but anyone listening would have clearly noticed the mistake. This was quite a frustrating error because I did so much preparation to make sure I had the audio sources all in sync and ready to go, but due to circumstances beyond my control (an interviewee wanting to change an answer they willingly gave in an interview) there was mistake that went to air which was ultimately my fault. If I had my time again I would simply refuse to edit the interview, because it’s ridiculous for an interviewee to make such a demand 10 minutes before air time, but this wasn’t an option in this case.

On the positive side, my preparation ended up saving us at the end of the show. Our in-studio interviews went much quicker than expected (and, in fact, the interview with Anthony went way longer than we actually had interesting content for, and our hosts began repeating themselves trying to fill time), so we were left about four minutes ahead of schedule by the time our third interview ended. I passed a note to our producers saying that I had burned an extra track to our CD, just as a back-up in case something went wrong and we needed to fill time, and we decided to play two tracks after the final interview rather than just one. This is a great example of why it’s always better to over-prepare, because if I hadn’t burned that extra track to the CD then I honestly don’t know what we would have done to fill six minutes in our wrap-up at the end of the show. It certainly wouldn’t have been very engaging radio. It felt good to know that my (over-)preparation did actually end up being useful.

Overall, I’m mostly happy with the experience of our first show. We worked well as a team and put together some interesting content that I hope RRR listeners would enjoy. From a personal perspective, I think I’ve now got panel operation down and I’m really keen to get some experience with producing or presenting for our next show.

Learnings:

  • Live radio is scary, but not difficult!
  • In-studio interviews are much easier to handle than pre-records
  • Always be aware of microphone technique when on air
  • Burn extra songs in case you need to fill time
  • No matter how well prepared you are, always expect mistakes and errors and be ready to deal with them
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Assessments, Room With a View

RWAV: Individual Interview

I had plenty of ideas for my RWAV individual interview, but had a lot of trouble finding someone who was available and willing to come in and have a chat with me. I have a feeling that I might have set my sights too high, and attempted to get people who were too prominent/busy to waste their time with a student interviewer, but in the end I was happy that RMIT music industry lecturer Catherine Strong agreed to talk to me about music heritage in Melbourne and the soon-to-be-built Contemporary Music Hall of Fame.

Catherine was a wonderfully generous guest. My subject matter was quite broad, but she gave me 25 minutes of conversation that I was able to narrow down through editing into something focused and succinct. I was also happy that my subject matter would suit RRR if I decided to use it for a future on-air show.

I made sure to make use of Terry Gross’s rules for interviewing, and told Catherine that since our conversation was not being broadcast live she was welcome to stop herself and begin an answer again if needed. She ended up taking advantage of this a few times when she misspoke or couldn’t remember the specific example she was reaching for. As a result I had a great selection of well rehearsed (but still natural sounding) snippets of audio that I was able to string together and cut down into the 10 minute final form.

One thing I made note of for next time is that recording in the RMIT edit suites adds a lot of unwanted hum to the audio, because the suites aren’t perfectly soundproofed. I had to run a noise reduction on the final audio, which ended up being OK but ideally I would record crisp audio to begin with and avoid the need to fix it up at all.

Learnings:

  • Be liberal when contacting potential interviewees, as very few will actually be available and willing to speak to you
  • Take advantage of being at RMIT, which is full of experts who could be interviewed
  • If possible, record interviews either at RRR or in the RMIT on-air studio, as a Zoom recorder in the edit suites results in sub-par audio
  • Use Terry Gross’s ground rules to make your interviewee more comfortable
  • Do as much research as possible before the interview, but try not to use written questions and instead have an informed conversation with your interviewee
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Assessments, Room With a View

RWAV: Demo

Today we recorded our demo at RRR, building towards our first show live on air next month.

[Click here to read my annotations for the demo on Soundcloud]

I’m very happy with the group mates I was assigned in Group 4. Though we all have varying levels of familiarity and experience with radio, each of the members in our group is keen and enthusiastic about our ability to produce a high-quality show. Our roles were easily assigned, as Bec and Chloe were particularly keen to present and I was keen to do panel operation, leaving Georgia and Hannah to act as producers and social media content creators. We all agreed that we should all be actively involved in the production and logistics for the show, which we also made sure was true for the demo.

We booked a couple of practice sessions at RRR in the lead up to our demo. This was particularly important for me as I was overseas during the studio’s initial introduction to the station, and hadn’t stepped foot in the studio until just a couple of weeks before our demo was due to be submitted. Our practice sessions went well — with Bec and Chloe building up their on-air chemistry and me slowly getting my head around the desk — but I have to admit I was pretty nervous going into the demo.

For content we had planned to do at least two live interviews (which would give us extra practice dealing with in-studio guests) but we were only able to find one guest who was available at the time required. Fi Wright ended up being an incredible guest, with an interesting topic to talk about, a natural on-air manner and a very generous and helpful attitude. She even ended up giving me some helpful tips for operating the panel, which is definitely above and beyond for a guest! To fill out the rest of the show we used a couple of pre-recorded pieces — an atmospheric narrative documentary piece that Georgia created for an RMIT studio last year, and an interview with Violent Soho that Bec recorded for SYN FM. Though ideally we would have found more suitable content for our demo, at least we didn’t have to fill all our entire show with conversations between our hosts. I’m sure Bec and Chloe could have chatted to each other for the hour easily, but that wouldn’t have given us much practice for our real show.

As panel operator I was responsible for getting our pre-records and music tracks onto a CD for playback in the studio, but as I don’t own a CD burner I had to do it in the RRR green room minutes before we went into the studio to start recording. Unfortunately, when I loaded the CDs into the studio I found that some of the tracks only had audio in the right channel. I’m not sure what actually caused this issue (I verified that the original files were stereo), but I’ve made a note to ensure I burn the CDs with much more notice next time so I can pick up any issues with enough time to fix them.

For some reason the Violent Soho interview cut off about three minutes before it was supposed to. We were welcoming our guest into the studio at the time so I was distracted from what was going to air, and the momentary shock led to a few seconds of dead air (a crime!) while I quickly jumped on the panel and played a sponsorship announcement I’d already cued up to be played next. It ended up not being as bad as I originally feared, but it’s still a lesson in making sure audio is checked before being played in the studio (and making sure you have the next thing cued up at all times so you can quickly throw to it when needed).

I’ve annotated our demo with some more mistakes and opportunities for improvement we identified — click the link above to read our annotations on Soundcloud.

Our demo was basically exactly what we needed at this stage of our experience with live radio — generally a success, giving us valuable experience with the studio and working collaboratively, and some very specific areas that could be improved before our first on-air show.

Learnings:

  • Practice makes perfect, the more time you spend in the studio the more comfortable you will be
  • Always plan more content than you actually need, because people will inevitably pull out or become unavailable
  • Normalise and check the volume of any audio you expect to go to air
  • Double check burnt CDs for audio glitches before going into the studio
  • Always cue audio one or two steps ahead, in case of disaster
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