ALICE WASS
Exploring Media

This week has gone insanely quickly, being the week before the big November Appeal means it is extremely busy. There has also been lots of talk about big projects that will be happening later in November which I will be involved in.

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Ruth, whose show I help to produce, has been off all week, therefore I have had more time to get involved with other activities, but I have still been responsible for organising and booking interviews for December and January. This has included researching more potential interviewees, emailing and phoning people to try and get dates booked in. Additionally, I have helped Samuel with his guests on the show, whilst he is covering for Ruth. This included having to solve the last minute’s issue of discovering one person he was meant to interview was stuck in Paris, and having to organise a way around this. This demonstrated my problem solving ability, as I managed to come up with a solution, an hour before the interview and kept Samuel in the loop, but I made sure to avoid causing panic or stress whilst he was on air.

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As I have had a bit more time this week, I have been helping other presenters with parts of their show content. For example, I have been organising interviews for Matt’s New Music Feature. Also I am working with Simon to contact, record, and edit, content for a section of his show for December. For this I am contacting people from all around the world to ask about their Christmas traditions to for a 2 – 3-minute audio piece. I have followed up on the people that Simon reached out to, as well as exploring my own connections, to see if I can get more people of different nationalities involved. This is quite hard as I have to consider time differences, dates to record, while finding people and getting them to agree. I have until the 1st of December to get the interviews finished, which feels like a long time, but in reality might not be as long as I imagine. I have already recorded and edited my first one for this project. Other tasks this week have included: volunteering on reception for a few hours when they needed cover which meant learning a whole new phone system, and also sorting through music to find new Christmas songs to be added to the two playlists for December.

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This week has consisted of a lot of audio editing, both for Soundcloud pieces, which I normally get a couple of upload request per day since Sam has left. I have also been editing a lot of Impact Stories which will be played out during the Appeal next week, meaning they all have quite pressing deadlines and are often harder to edit than Soundcloud pieces. Having lots of audio editing work this week has been really helpful as next week I will be having to record, edit and hand over Impact Stories at an insanely quick speed, to immediately be played out on air. Therefore, getting the opportunity to practice has made me feel more confident in my abilities for next week. Also, for the Appeal I have been writing cues for the presenters to introduce the Impact Stories. This is harder than I imagined it would be, but it is something I am slowly improving at.

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During the Appeal most members of staff spend time on the phone zone, to answer calls about donations. It is looking like this is not going to be possible for me, due to the shift work I will be doing with Rebecca for the testimonies, but just in case, I attended the Appeal Phone Training session. I thought this would be more comfortable, as a key part of my job is talking on the phone with people, however, having to follow a script and make sure I had got all their information correct as necessary with finance, and the fast rate that the calls come in made me feel quite nervous. I am sure I will be on phones during one of the Appeals but I hope that it is not until I feel a bit more confident about this. However, the best method might be to just throw myself into it and learn as I go.

In November I am involved in a big production called ‘Mark and Mark at Full Volume’. We are transforming the TV studio to look like a radio studio, with two famous Christian hosts, multiple guests, and a live audience, to record a Podcast series, and also film it for a video series to go out in Lent 2019. We will be filming 6 episodes over two days and I am going to be the Floor Manager for the project. A Floor Manager is the person on set, who works as the directors’ person on the ground, ensuring presenters and guests meet their cues and the programme runs smoothly. This is a job I have never done before, and involves me doing a lot of pre planning and organising for it, but I am excited to try the role out and give it my best. For this big project, I have been in two production planning meetings this week, which is an interesting experience as I have never attended a production planning meeting before.

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I am excited for next week’s Appeal as there is no normal programming and everyone’s jobs are different for the week so it will be interesting to see what the broadcast floor will be like and how the atmosphere will be different.