ALICE WASS
Exploring Media

It is hard to believe that I have been working at UCB for a month now! This week has been busy and exciting, full of new experiences. I have attended several meetings to discuss new projects and job roles which I will be taking on now that I have become established within the company.

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Last week I began learning how to audio edit and started to practice with the Content Producer, Sam. This week I have edited many projects on my own for multiple presenters and created titles and descriptions for the content before uploading it onto Soundcloud. I have managed to get faster and more confident when it comes to audio editing, which I am so pleased about and I hope to continue developing this skill during this placement.

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This week I did my first recorded interview for the Impact Stories. I was glad that Rebecca sat in with me and showed me how to set everything up and checked I got all the necessary content. I was quite apprehensive about doing the interview, but was relieved that the system to record in studio was not as scary as I had imagined and the interview went okay. I had pre planned some questions but I think that made my interview slightly too formal, as when it is pitched as a friendly chat, people give more relaxed statements, which make for great Impact Stories. This is something that I aim to improve on in my next interviews, and I hope that the more I do, the more confident I will become.

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An especially exciting part of my week was on Wednesday when the band ‘Speak, Brother’ came in to record music and do an interview. I was allowed to join them in the TV Studio where they did the recording and helped out with small tasks. It was an amazing experience and I learnt a lot about how to do set-up for a live band recording as well as how to conduct a band interview. Afterwards, Sam went through the process of how he set-up the interview, and how to find bands to come in and the logistics behind the session. It was so interesting and something I hope I can be further involved in.

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The main part of my week has been working on Ruth O’Reilly-Smith’s show. Being a part of the planning of her show is one of my new roles which will continue for the rest of my placement. So far, this has entailed looking for and finding potential interview opportunities, contacting people to organise dates, and following up any potential leads from Ruth. Ruth has a very content demanding show, as every day she features short testimonies at 9:30am and longer interviews at 11am. My role is not an easy one as researching takes a lot of time and needs good organisational skills. What I will learn from doing this role will help me gain the skills I need to be a Producer.

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Other tasks for this week included: inputting information into the database; sitting in on the Breakfast show; collecting information about competition winners and phoning competition winners; using Zetta to change timings for pre-recorded shows; going through audio for compliance and attending a tour of the two UCB buildings to learn more about the company.

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I am happy that my job role has become more defined and I am excited for the upcoming tasks which I will be taking part in, even though some of the tasks seem rather daunting!