The aim was to do a one-hour show in our group, in the style of a radio show broadcast on Radio Scotland. Our group consisted of myself, Liam, Allan, Hassan, Jen and Caelinn, at the start. Every member of the group was to produce a package on the same theme, which, for us, was Scottish Exports; things that were created in scotland, and are known of elsewhere. Before we settled on Scottish Exports, there were a few other ideas for what the theme of all our packages could be. The first being an hour-long show about student life, with us all making packages on different aspects of it. We quickly decided against this, as the thought was that it’d be way too easy to find interviews for the packages; everyone we’d need to interview would be in the same building, and it’s unlikely that hunting for interview would be as easy as that elsewhere.
An idea that I had for the theme, was that all of our packages would focus on the different aspects of putting on a live show. The promotion, the merchandise, the mental state a performer is in before a show, etc. Liam brought up the fact that we might run out of people to interview, which I agreed with. As each package had to include 3 interviews each, and there were 5 of us, that would’ve been 15 different interviewees we’d have to get. It was wise for us to widen the net, and give us some more range as to who we can interview and what about. Liam’s idea of Scottish Exports was a great one. My first thought was to do a package on Scottish Comedy Exports, Liam was going to do a package on Scottish Comic Book Writers, Allan on Scottish Music Exports, Jen on Whisky and Hassan on Tartan. These packages would be played out during our one hour Culture Café show. At this point, Caellin had left college and was no longer part of the group.
Jen was very bad at staying in contact with us. At the start, when we’d just started working on the one hour show, she was around now and again. But she was only there for one of the group meetings, and every other time involved up having to get her up to speed with everything, on one of the rare occasions when she was in. When it was getting to the last few weeks before the hour show, one of our biggest worries, as a group, was that Jen wasn’t going to complete her package. To the point that when we found out she was no longer going to be in the group, we had expected it and already had a suitable alternative to her package, in order to fill up the time. We were going to have a group discussion. We thought it’d be a great start to the show, as it’s a nice introduction to the topic of scottish exports; the discussion focussed on what some people thought scotland’s most important export was and what they would like scotland to be most well-known for.
Another idea I had to lengthen the one hour show, was to include interviews with the producers of each package. Every interview would ask the producer why they wanted to make the package, if they had any troubles along the way and what they would like people to take away from the package. The plan was for the interviews to last about 2 minutes long. I wish I would’ve came up with this idea when we had a bit more time to spare; it was just a few days before the one hour show, and due to him not being around and us running out of time, we didn’t have time to record an interview with Hassan. We also tried to feature an audio clip of something that related to some of our packages; after Liam’s package, we played a clip relating to his package (which was originally going to be a reading of a comic excerpt, which we sadly didn’t get done in time) and before/after Allan’s we had music which related to the topics and artists covered in his package. I felt that there shouldn’t be a comedy clip after my package, as I both had some clips in the package itself, and thought that the interview would Gareth would be enough time talking about my specific package.
In terms of the live guest for the hour show, I should’ve paid more attention and given more of an input as to who we were going to interview. My original thought was to have a musical guest, that fits in with Allan’s package. I thought that we could have a live interview with one of the up-and-coming scottish bands that features in his package, and then maybe a pre-recorded live performance, as I feel that that’s what I’d expect to hear on a show that was on Radio Scotland, and on this particular theme. But Allan dismissed that idea, as at the time, he thought we had to have a guest that encompassed all of our packages; it was only later that we found out that the guest could really just relate to one of them. Then all I really knew was that Allan had been in contact with someone who he thought would be good for the package. But then that person went quiet. Luckily, just when we needed it, we managed to get a hold of a live guest. The woman that Allan had been talking to about a live interview had went a bit quiet about it, so we were worrying that it was about one week before the one hour show, and we didn’t have a guest confirmed. Then, my friend Gareth Waugh contacted me for some tips about how he can impress at an interview he had for this very course. I asked if he’d be up for returning the favour, in the form of being our live guest and he agreed; I feel that this was a great get for us as a group, as Gareth is a stand-up comedian and has performed in places as afar as Australia. My package was mainly about scottish tv shows/comedians being shown/performing in England, but as he’s played in Australia before that gives another view of that.
I was in charge of doing the majority of the script for the hour long show, as I’d agreed to do so at an early stage. It would’ve been a lot easier if I’d had everyones intro, and knew the duration of every package; this also goes for me, as I wrote my intro to my package quite late on. To get the timings correct, I needed to know the exact length of every package, everything else that was to be included in the show and how long everybody’s live intro would be. I didn’t get the timing for Liam’s package until about just 30 minutes before the one hour, which means I then had to alter the time for everything that would appear after it, and print it off. I wasn’t really happy with this, as it was last-minute rush and I was too stressed to know if I was adding up the timings correctly, but I know that Liam had trouble getting his package ready.
The preparation that morning, the morning of the one hour show, didn't go too great. For some reason Hassan's package wasn't working on the computer, which it needed to so we could upload it to the system. so I suggested that he bounced it from his original pro tools file again, which worked, but only when it was put on my usb, which was weird; he reckons there is something wrong with his one.
I’d originally planned to use this time to work on the final bit of the script. Liam was still finishing off his package, so it wasn't until the last 20/30 minutes before the live show that he was able to get his package intro to me, to print out. I got a bit stressed out when re-doing the timings (as I now knew the length of Liam's package) as i knew how little time we had left, and I'm not entirely sure if all of my timings were correct. There was also a problem printing the script, but luckily barry from another group printed it off for us, which I was very thankful for.
In terms of how the actual show went, I think it went well. There was only one bit where, at the time, I was worried I’d ruined the show for everyone. And that was when I was interviewing Gareth. I just froze up at one point, but luckily it wasn't for as long as I thought it was; just a second or something. This was due to me not having any more questions for Gareth written down, which I don't think was entirely my fault; a few times I'd asked other group members to add questions for him but got nothing in return. This was annoying as I had to rely on the few questions that I’d come up with myself. The other members of the group could see that I was struggling, and got me to wrap it up; annoyingly about 3 or 4 minutes short of what was planned. I was really worried that I'd ruined the whole thing at this point, but was reassured by the others. and we decided, that to fill the gap, we'd put another song in that relates to Allan's package. For a while we discussed coming back to Gareth at the end for another interview, but at the time didn't know if we would've been able to come up with enough questions for him, in that short space of time. So we played another song at the end, that fitted in with Allan's package, and that brought us exactly to the 1 hour mark. So yeah, overall I think it went really well; it's just that at the time, and a bit after, I was worried that i'd ruined it all during the interview with Gareth. When listening back to it, it sounds nowhere near as bad as I thought it was at the time. Though I do think my interviewing could've been a bit better, in terms of listening to Gareth and responding to what he was saying; I mainly just read out question after question, which I regret doing now.
I think we achieved our aim of putting together a show for BBC Radio Scotland. We definitely should’ve worked a bit quicker and more efficiently, in order to have the show ready a fair bit before the broadcast, so things weren’t quite as rushed. I think the only real downfall of the show, was not having enough questions prepared for the live guest; because of that, we shoved another song on to the end of the show, which didn’t really work because there were already 2 songs being played and I don’t think a show like ours, on Radio Scotland, is likely to play 3 songs (almost) in a row during this type of show. It’s quite obvious that we just put one at the end purely to fill time, as there were no songs featured earlier in the show. Just a sudden surge of them at the end. But all in all, I think we came together and did a good job.
