Real Talk
Real Talk is a talk show produced by West Herts College, we're meant to record a part that'll be in their episodes. There are six episodes in total for the year: 15th November, 6th December, 17th January, 21st February, 21st March and 2nd May. I was allocated to be the sound technician during all of these recordings
We first recorded a tour of the new college building, this was featured in Season 5 Episode 1. We went through the cafeteria, the new Starbucks, the gaming room, the hairdressers room and one of the band rooms. We also went to one of the science rooms but it was cut out due to time constraints
Diary for S5E1
I was with the host while they were doing a tour. The sound was fine throughout for the most part and we recorded a lot of footage of the host in different areas of the college. Some of it was cut out like the library and the science room, but the best locations like the computer room and hair salon room were shown instead
During the interview with the student (not the students in front of the studio/black curtain), I realised I didn't have the lapel microphones. I went up to the studio to get some but it took some time and by the time I came back I found out that the ones I got didn't even work. The sound quality is slightly worse in that scene because of it and we lost a lot of recording time due to my mistake
We then did a more light-hearted wrapping paper contest as a Christmas special, this was in the next episode after
Diary for S5E2
We only filmed in one area for the Christmas special and the sound was fine throughout. The zoom I was working on was low battery but it didn't die out during recording so it was fine. I also had another sound technician to work with today so we could've also used that audio just incase, we stood on opposite ends of the set so we didn't communicate much afterwards
The next section we recorded for Real Talk focused on the energy drink Prime, prior to recording this I personally had no idea it existed but it was highly sought after and expensive for us to source
Diary for S5E3
We split up to five separate teams: team 1 focused on the host reviewing the drink, team 2 & 3 recorded Vox Pops, team 4 captured audio sound bites to be used for team 5 to edit them all together. I was the sound assistant for team three
The sound was subpar for the vox pops we were able to record, there was a lot of background noise in the college and it was a bit hard to filter out. Getting people to interview wasn't too difficult due to how popular Prime is though
^^ video isn't out yet. We then recorded a section about the new show for The Last of Us. I was the sound technician for one of the teams doing vox pops
Diary for S5E4
The sound quality for the vox pops wasn't great, we tried moving to a quieter spot which helped but we were still around classroom doors so there was still noise. I could've done better with sound as the interviewer was really loud but the people answering were much quieter compared to her. Getting people to interview was surprisingly difficult, there were three teams trying to get vox pops and none of us were able to find many people
Open Day
I helped with the autumn (05/11/22) and spring (25/02/23) open days. On autumn I helped by answering peoples questions and guiding them on where rooms are in the third floor. On spring I was in charge of an activity about making album covers, it was meant to teach people the basics of Photoshop. I also answered questions about the course and the college
Diary for Open Days
Autumn open day was a bit busy, but since I was mainly guiding people on where to go I wasn't too overwhelmed. I was by the elevator too which meant that I was able to help people who were coming into the third floor faster
Spring open day was much less busy. I was in a classroom so I didn't have to stand all day, most people that came in didn't really do the activity and instead asked me about the college and the course. I answered them honestly but there were a few questions I couldn't answer because I never did Level 2 Media (such as 'how long is Level 2 Media?')
Radio and TV Takeover
I took part in the University of Bedfordshire's Radio and TV Takeover. As part of the live brief, we recorded a segment of the show about topics that we did research into. This helped us experience with both preparing and recording for a live show. I had to step in to be one of the camera operators and was able to use the university's professional cameras
Diary for Radio and TV Takeover
I'm not very interested in working for TV (I could do it just fine as a job but it's not something I'm extremely passionate about) but today was very insightful. The university's gallery and vision mixer is mostly similar to ours but a lot more bigger, their set is a lot more modern and in line with a chat show though
I was supposed to be helping with the vision mixer but because someone else didn't show up, I had to fill in to be with the cameras. I was annoyed by this at first because if there was any role I would want it'd be with the vision mixer, but I ended up doing okay with the cameras still
Evaluation