Soundtrack Research

In our audio production brief, we're asked to pick one task to further develop in audio lessons out of these three:

• A single camera comedy drama for Instagram, edited in Premiere
• A pre-recorded 90 second news report for radio, including a musical ident
• A 120 second factual film informing an identified audience about a cause or campaign

After reading these, I decided to do the second task. To research the sound aspects of this task I first looked for some examples similar to it. I found this one minute news broadcast which was helpful in me understanding the format of a news report. 

The first 3 seconds open the broadcast with a musical ident, which sets the tone of the show. Then the reporter greets the listener (or watcher in this case) and makes the audience aware of the show/what they're listening to. Then the reporter reads the headlines and says a little about them, each headline and description lasting around 10 seconds. With this report, the speech is accompanied by visuals and audio to help emphasise the stories and give context however this format would still work without visuals for a short radio broadcast so I'll keep these things in mind when I go on to record and produce my own short news report.

I also found some textual information to help with my research, these two websites:

http://blog.spreaker.com/2011/02/16/10-tips-to-make-a-great-radio-news-broadcast/

http://audiojournal.net/volunteer/broadcast-tips/

The first website gave some tips as to what to do and not do when making your own radio broadcast. Some helpful points for me to consider were to:

• Be Concise

This is so that the listener doesn't lose interest, which should be relatively easy as I only have to make a 90 second report. Because of this I'm going to aim to report on 4 or 5 stories.

• Record your voice in interesting places or make use of sound effects

Background noise can make a radio broadcast more interesting, however I think that recording in an interesting place could cause problems such as unexpected sound, microphone issues or inaudible speech. To make sure my broadcast isn't silent at points I will have audio in the background which relates to the story being reported or is sampled from the story if possible.

• Have an effective closure

By closing off the broadcast well, the listener leaves with something to think about, reminding them of the podcast. I'll try to do this for my report.

The second website was more detailed and it said that it's important to thoroughly plan the broadcast before recording (or as the article puts it "Preparation is 90% of the game"). It also said to speak in an entertaining manner, which will make the audience more likely to appreciate the broadcast and listen to the whole thing. This also means trying to avoid saying 'um' 'uh-huh' and similar words.

Lastly, I found this video which contained examples of a range of idents. It will be helpful when I come to make my own as the video shows a simple version of an ident and how it develops, as well as talks about adaptations of idents and how they can connote certain moods and tones.