The Book Café!

I can't quite remember what was discussed in huge detail at the last meeting, as the minutes are still yet to be sent out by Jen, but there were several shows brought up by Liam. The Book Club, The Movie Cafe, and the other Cafe shows on Radio Scotland. He thinks that these will be good to base our one hour show on. We're planning to do it at about 3 on a Sunday. That's when we think our show would be on.

By the looks of it, I agree, but I've never actually listened to these shows. So that's what I'm going to do now, by listening to the latest 'The Book Café' as broadcast on Sunday 25th March.

It's got a lot of mood-setting music in the background. This is good, as I think it will add to packages such as Liam's with his comic books, which usually have quite a dark undertone.

Interesting interview with the author of the book they're talking about. Maybe our guest for the hour-long show, could be related to/in one of the previous packages? I think I've mentioned this idea before, but 6-8 minutes may not be enough time for someone involved to get their point across, and if they're local, they may be only too happy to expand on it (but only if the questions answer things that are entirely different to the stuff that's already been covered in the package.)

So far, it's been about 10 minutes of pure interview. Having not listened to Radio Scotland much, it's clear that it doesn't use regular station stings and music doesn't have to be under everything. This is good, because it means I can focus more on the actual intellectual content of the package, rather than packing it full of effects and music beds, like I'd probably have to do a bit more if our station was Radio 1.
Good radio interviewers and interviewees shouldn't need a music bed underneath them, and that's exactly what's happening here.

That interview was over 10 minutes long. I feel this adds a bit of pressure for us to have the duration of our to last about as long as this. I don't think it's necessary that our interview be this long, but to fully capture the style of this Radio Scotland show it'd be good if it could be. Once we work out who our guest is, we have to get together as a group and write a load of questions for them; this task shouldn't be given to just one member of the group, as we've all got as much work as each other to do and it wouldn't be fair.

The 2nd interview is being held elsewhere. The first was of a much better quality, and was clearly recorded in the studio. But this one has a bit of echo in it, and doesn't sound as great.

This 2nd interview has also lasted about 10 minutes so far. That gives me the general idea that the interviews are about that long. Another reason for our one hour show interview to be a duration of 10 minutes long.

I think, at this stage, I've got the general feel of this programme. There's no music, other than maybe a small bit of mood setting music. It's what I'd expect to hear on Radio 4.

There's now a live reading of a book that the author was talking about. I had an idea that we should include a reading of a comic book and brought it up in the last meeting. This just reinforces that idea, as I now know that it's exactly the sort of thing that would be included in a show like ours. I'm going to stress to the rest of the group that I think we should definitely include this in our hour-long show.

There's just been a small excerpt from The Hunger Games film which they're about to talk about. I like this, because it again reinforces an idea; this one being that I can include excerpts from the scottish comedy shows that I'm talking about. I wasn't entirely sure if that would work, but hearing that has made me worry slightly less.

There's now an interview with 2 people at once. It's a lot like the discussion bit that may be included in our hour-long show, so it's good to hear that it's featured in this.

That's the end of the show. Overall, I'm very happy with what I heard, as I think it fits in really well with what I want our packages to come across like. I'll listen to one of the other café's (movie café, comedy café) at a later date, and see if that will add anything or basically just be the same to this show, but about different topics.