Having organised most of the relevant interviews for our feature, it came time to head out and interview Bruce Thomas – Senior Investigator at Ballarat Police Station.

We chose bruce as an interviewee as he is one of the senior police members who head out to Rainbow Serpent each year to police the festival – the same festival which harboured 4 sexual assaults in 2016.

The interview went relatively well, although Bruce and I did clash on our opinions of the way in which drugs are policed and looked upon in our society towards the end.

I was able to grab some great material off Bruce that would be able to be used in our feature and that would add a counterpoint to the opinions already made by Carolyn Worth from C.A.S.A.

Completing the Live To Air was one thing.

Getting the file uploaded to the ROAR site was another. Having a program that only accepts mp3 files under 100mb proved to be a major inconvenience as we bounced the audio out as a .aud file.

The result of this was one of the group (me) having to make a return trip to 3RRR to bounce the file off the logger as a .wav file, compress it and then upload it to the site. This process not only took a long time (5 hours) but highlighted the flaws in the ROAR site.

It has now been successfully uploaded, but I can safely say that I have lost a decent part of my soul to the process.

After deciding on the trajectory of our feature piece, it came time to head out and interview the relevant individuals that would comprise the main expert body of our piece.

Heading to Bentleigh East to meet with Carolyn Worth, I prepared approx. 20 questions pertaining to sexual assault at music festivals. Having no idea what to expect, and feeling slightly out of place being a male asking these questions, I entered the building with some apprehension.

This apprehension was soon forgotten when I met Carolyn and began asking here the questions. This interview was more of a fluid conversation that touched on numerous key points about sexual assault and resulted in 45 minutes worth of audio.

Having just worked 11 hours straight, coming home to a rush of Facebook notifications isn’t exactly what I had expected late on a Sunday night. Neither was the subject matter contained within the notifications.

Aisha (our panel operator) had received an email from our interviewee at the Lupus Foundation stating that she would no longer be able to come in tomorrow for the live to air. This effectively had left us with a 10 minute gap in our show and no alternative segment to fill it.

Fortunately the rest of the group went in to crisis mode and have managed to pull a rabbit out of a hat. They have not only managed to notify everyone necessary (Elizabeth, Sam and Bruce) about the conundrum, but they have managed to procure another interviewee from the Lupus Foundation.

Although this is fantastic news to have come out of a bad situation… it also leaves us with a couple of problems. Namely the fact that the new interviewee is located in N.S.W and will have to do the interview over the phone, and we have centred a lot of our questions around the previous contact.

After a few weeks of anticipation, the day we have been waiting for is only just around the corner. Presenting this coming Monday – the nerves and excitement can be felt by everyone in the group. It is for this reason that receiving feedback from both Sam and Bruce, pertaining to the DEMO, the weekend before our show proves to be vital.

After reading the comments they had both left on the DEMO, the group felt slightly more comfortable that we would be able to pull off a relatively smooth program that is both interesting and technically sound.

It did, however, give us a few extra things to think about. We noticed that a lot of the feedback centred around the interplay between both Bek and myself. Knowing that we need a greater connection and chemistry to keep the listener informed on what is happening, whilst also sounding less jarred resulted in a rework of the script and the necessity of booking in more time on Monday before the live to air.

As mentioned in previous posts: the beginning of the year brings with it an enjoyably, yet annoyingly high number of public holidays. Having fortuitously (insert rolling of the eyes) been allocated Mondays for our R.W.A.V classes, this meant we had to forgo another weeks worth of studio time and tutorials.

Knowing that our live to air was only a week away, the group thought it best to head into the 3RRR studios to get some more practice with the console, presenting and running of the show.

This proved to be a brilliant initiative, as we were able to work out some kinks with the script and allow our panel operator a greater chance of getting familiar with the operation of the desk.

We orchestrated a mock interview with our Media Producer and that also enabled us to scope our questions so that they pertained to poignant subject matter which would keep the listener engaged.

14-4-16

All Systems Go.

After receiving conformation from Elizabeth in regards to the interview ideas for our live to air, the whole group quickly sent out confirmation emails and started generating scripts, introduction and outro’s.

The first interview pertains to Grandparents becoming a carer for their grandchildren while the parents go out to work. We chose this topic because there has been a societal shift requiring Grandparents to take a more active role in the early life of their grandchild – this is due to a number of factors including economic and financial pressure on the parents stemming from the increase in living expenses. We made contact with Lyn Clemments – Volunteer Coordinator at The Conniston Street Childcare Centre, in regards to her coming in for an interview.

The second live interview centres around a relatively unknown // under documented disease – Lupus. This topic was chosen because international Lupus awareness day would coincide with the week we are presenting our live to air as well as the fact that the disease effects a wide variety of individuals and often goes undiagnosed for years. The aim of the interview is to both raise awareness of the disease as well as offering the Lupus foundation a wide audience to help debunk some of the myths associated to Lupus. We have made contact with the Lupus foundation and are currently awaiting a response as to whom will actually come in to the studio on the day.

The third interview we are going to use will be a pre-recorded interview fro our DEMO. Having received positive feedback from Sam & Bruce in regards to the interview, we will employ it in our live to air. Adhering to the advice of Bruce, we will make sure to trim the interview with Helping Hoops down to a more engaging 7 minutes.

Watch This Space.

Following the completion of the morning lecture (which i couldn’t make due to prior commitments), Group 4 decided to rendezvous at a local café to discuss plans for our DEMO and interviews.

S

T

A

C

K

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is where we decided to meet.

This initial discussions soon spiralled into a period of stress and worry as it dawned on the group that the demo would be due in exactly 2 weeks & we had yet to lock down specific roles and content for the show. This panic resulted in our most productive period yet, as we managed to delegate roles and tap into the rich resources on offer within our group.

Having been given the role of co-presenter, my mind switched into gear and began working on scripts and content ideas. Having already recorded 2 interviews of approx 10 minutes each for another project, the group decided to employ them in our DEMO to relieve some of the pressure whilst also freeing up more time for studio sessions and planning.

Drinking the last of our coffees, we headed to the 3RRR studios to have our second session in front of the consoles and to get more familiar to the idea of a microphone being in front of our face! The session proved extremely helpful as we were able to gauge what the dynamic would be like in the studio as well as the types of content we would need to fill out the 1 hour time slot.

13-3-16

As all Australians will attest, the initial months of every year are plagued by public holidays – although enjoyable and a welcomed change of pace, they can often be annoying and inconvenient. The latter was the case when it came to Moday 13th March 2016 – Labour Day. Instead of having the usual class or 3RRR session, all classes at RMIT were disbanded with no replacements scheduled. This resulted in a weeks less involvement with the studio and a weeks less practice in the 3RRR suites.

In an attempt to make up for lost time, I thought it good practice to begin further research into Interview topics for both the Demo and the Live To Air that would gwen stefani (no doubt) roll around all too soon. This process, although rewarding, ironically proved to be quite laborious.

Managing to lock down an interview with Helping Hoops’ Executive Director Adam McKay and having generated an idea for the radio feature due further into the semester, I (like RMIT) disbanded my research for the day and enjoyed an afternoon free from work.