On Saturday, I spent 4 hours at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting with the intent of spending most of that time in the radio studio. While it didn't quite work out that way, I still feel that it was time well spent. Instead of spending all of that time in the studio, I worked on editing the almost 30 minutes of audio files that I obtained conducting the interview with Steve Dunn and Steve Sylvia from The Steve Dunn Band. I wanted to end up with about 5 minutes of footage for our one hour show.
Our studio time did not go unused, though. Four members of our group were there for at least part of the time and we all got some time in there recording various bits. Part of my time was spent recording another commercial. Our show needs to incorporate at least three original commercials, so each of us is working on making one to potentially be included. Because they range in time from 30 seconds to 1 minute, we potentially have room for up to 20 spots.
On a different note, I am looking forward to today! Our class is Sports News 2 with WFSB's Joe Zone. During our last class with him, he gave us all four stories off the then-current AP wire. Our assignment was to take those stories and re-write them into a 90 second news broadcast giving an average of 20-25 seconds for each story. We will put our stories into the teleprompter and read them on camera. Our 'performance' will be taped so that we can see it and critique it.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Our Mock PSA
Similar to our creation of our first commercial, we also recorded a mock public service announcement. Really, this is very similar to a commercial but tends to be longer and uses fewer - if any - effects. For a real radio station, the revenue is also considerably different. PSAs are played for free while commercials are paid for by the advertiser. Paul and I again paired off for the recording and editing of this mock PSA.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
My First Commercial
In a previous post, Commercial Break, I talked about the class when Paul and I created a radio commercial. I wanted to post that commercial here. Not bad for our first attempt!
Studio Work
In a few moments, I am headed out to meet some of my fellow students in the studio to continue working on our radio final. I have some ideas to record some commercials for the 'broadcast' in addition to some work editing the interview that I conducted on Thursday with Steve Dunn and Steve Sylvia from The Steve Dunn Band
.
We have four hours of studio time signed out as a group so that we can really get in there and bang out some material for the show.
One of the show segments - the reason that I did the interview - is going to discuss drunk dialing. Steve Dunn released a song by that name, Drunk Dial, and it inspired the segment. We are going to have our hosts discuss drunk dialing, play the song, and run the interview.
.We have four hours of studio time signed out as a group so that we can really get in there and bang out some material for the show.
One of the show segments - the reason that I did the interview - is going to discuss drunk dialing. Steve Dunn released a song by that name, Drunk Dial, and it inspired the segment. We are going to have our hosts discuss drunk dialing, play the song, and run the interview.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Busy days ahead!
This week has been pretty amazing already and it is only going to get better! On Monday, our class schedule at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting included spending some time working on our radio final production. This was probably the most relaxed of our days - even though it was probably also one of our most crucial. We have a very limited amount of class time to put together our one hour radio show. This particular class was a little less than productive, but I think it also produced some positive results. If nothing else, it got us moving in the right direction. Several of us have scheduled some studio time to get together outside of class time to get some work done on the production. The second half of our day was spent on a fourth session with Final Cut Pro. A number of us also stayed after class and worked on various projects.
Tuesday's class was spent doing some more recording and editing with Adobe Audition for the first half. The second half was our day consisted of first class of TV news. Our instructor for this class was WFSB's Hallie Jackson.
Today was our midterm. While it was far from being an eventful day, any time you have a test to take can be stressful. After we took our midterm we spent some time talking about what the second half of our semester is going to be like.
Tomorrow is going to be a real test of my endurance, however... Classes from 9:30 - 1 followed by some computer time with Final Cut Pro until 4 PM to work on some video editing from the footage I shot last Thursday for Tainted Cherry. From 4 - 6 I will be in the studio doing an interview with a couple of members of the Steve Dunn Band. The interview is going to be a part of our radio final. Finally from 6:30-8:30, there is a News Writing Workshop given by Hallie Jackson and Chris Collibee - the news assignment editor for WFSB.
Tuesday's class was spent doing some more recording and editing with Adobe Audition for the first half. The second half was our day consisted of first class of TV news. Our instructor for this class was WFSB's Hallie Jackson.
Today was our midterm. While it was far from being an eventful day, any time you have a test to take can be stressful. After we took our midterm we spent some time talking about what the second half of our semester is going to be like.
Tomorrow is going to be a real test of my endurance, however... Classes from 9:30 - 1 followed by some computer time with Final Cut Pro until 4 PM to work on some video editing from the footage I shot last Thursday for Tainted Cherry. From 4 - 6 I will be in the studio doing an interview with a couple of members of the Steve Dunn Band. The interview is going to be a part of our radio final. Finally from 6:30-8:30, there is a News Writing Workshop given by Hallie Jackson and Chris Collibee - the news assignment editor for WFSB.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
A Little Less Than Great.
Well, I got into the edit suite today and got a really good look at the video footage. While the live mix of the band sounded really good, the feed from the sound board was really light on the bass. Unfortunately, the because the camera's headphone jack is broken, I couldn't really monitor the feed during the shoot. The resulting videos will be less than ideal, but that's why we call it learning from experience. The next time that I do this, I will be ready to take precautions to avoid a similar problem.
On a slightly better note, I now have an eight gigabyte flash drive for the purpose of easily archiving and transporting my mp3 and video files. This will come in handy when using studio B as it isn't connected to the server at CSB. Recording anything in that studio is otherwise stuck in studio B without a way to transport it to another computer. Likewise, anything recorded in studio A cannot be retrieved in studio B.
On a slightly better note, I now have an eight gigabyte flash drive for the purpose of easily archiving and transporting my mp3 and video files. This will come in handy when using studio B as it isn't connected to the server at CSB. Recording anything in that studio is otherwise stuck in studio B without a way to transport it to another computer. Likewise, anything recorded in studio A cannot be retrieved in studio B.
Live Band Video Shoot
The other night, I had the opportunity to bring a camera to Murphy & Scarletti's to shoot some footage of my friend's new band - clarification: the band isn't new, but Vando only recently joined it. Tainted Cherry is a cover band based out of Meriden, CT. According to the band, Jamie, Jarod, Vando, and Damon make up "Connecticut's newest modern rock party band! We are the fresh alternative, playing your favorite modern rock, radio rock, and classic cover tunes."
I have known Vando for several years, now, having worked as the sound engineer for one of his former bands. Wanting to get some varied experience with the camera, I had asked him if it would be alright if I came to the gig. He, along with the rest of the band, was happy to have me record the event. It was a really good performance by the band and I was able to get some great footage - even though there were some issues with the camera.
Today, I am going to go into the studio to capture the footage into the editing program. I don't really care if I use AVID or Final Cut for the job but I had previously reserved some time to use Final Cut today, so that is what I will be using. Besides, the way CSB has things set up, once I get all the video footage captured into the computer, it is more convenient to use Final Cut.
Once I have captured and reviewed the footage for content and quality, I plan to edit it down to at least 3 or 4 videos. For most of the performance, I had the camera mounted on a tripod with the audio feed coming straight from the sound board. As a result, most of the footage is a wide shot of the band - though I did occasionally pan the crowd and zoom in on the individual band members. While the audio is constant, there will be some transitions when I had to re-focus and such that I will want to edit out of the video segment. For the purpose of filling in those spots, I took the camera off the tripod (and switched to the shotgun mic) to get some close-ups of both band and crowd from different angles during the last few songs of the night. Because I can maintain the integrity of the audio track but splice in the various video clips, I should be able to produce some really nice videos for several of the songs. My goal is to at least do a video for their performance of Guns N' Roses' Sweet Child o' Mine and RUSH's Tom Sawyer. I have to admit, Jamie did justice to both Slash and Alex Lifeson. And while no one can match Neil Peart on drums, Damon was impressive on Tom Sawyer. After I review what I have captured, I will make the judgment as to what other songs will be edited and posted to YouTube. Hopefully, the stuff that I produce will be good enough for Tainted Cherry to use to promote themselves as "Connecticut's newest modern rock party band!"
I have known Vando for several years, now, having worked as the sound engineer for one of his former bands. Wanting to get some varied experience with the camera, I had asked him if it would be alright if I came to the gig. He, along with the rest of the band, was happy to have me record the event. It was a really good performance by the band and I was able to get some great footage - even though there were some issues with the camera.
Today, I am going to go into the studio to capture the footage into the editing program. I don't really care if I use AVID or Final Cut for the job but I had previously reserved some time to use Final Cut today, so that is what I will be using. Besides, the way CSB has things set up, once I get all the video footage captured into the computer, it is more convenient to use Final Cut.
Once I have captured and reviewed the footage for content and quality, I plan to edit it down to at least 3 or 4 videos. For most of the performance, I had the camera mounted on a tripod with the audio feed coming straight from the sound board. As a result, most of the footage is a wide shot of the band - though I did occasionally pan the crowd and zoom in on the individual band members. While the audio is constant, there will be some transitions when I had to re-focus and such that I will want to edit out of the video segment. For the purpose of filling in those spots, I took the camera off the tripod (and switched to the shotgun mic) to get some close-ups of both band and crowd from different angles during the last few songs of the night. Because I can maintain the integrity of the audio track but splice in the various video clips, I should be able to produce some really nice videos for several of the songs. My goal is to at least do a video for their performance of Guns N' Roses' Sweet Child o' Mine and RUSH's Tom Sawyer. I have to admit, Jamie did justice to both Slash and Alex Lifeson. And while no one can match Neil Peart on drums, Damon was impressive on Tom Sawyer. After I review what I have captured, I will make the judgment as to what other songs will be edited and posted to YouTube. Hopefully, the stuff that I produce will be good enough for Tainted Cherry to use to promote themselves as "Connecticut's newest modern rock party band!"
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