Jan
5
Social Action
January 5, 2011 | | Leave a Comment
The main way children in need as a charity implements social action is with a large TV fundraising broadcast every year, which features celebrities and members of the public taking part in sponsored activitys to raise money. They also use this opportunity to raise awareness of certain causes, eg. youth clubs, smaller charities etc, in order to raise more money.
They will also interview and broadcast/promote these charities in order to encourage people to pick up the phone and donate some money, and hold big fundraising events with the public, which again gets people involved in the fundraising purpose, in turn raising more money.
Some specific local charities and youth clubs Children in need have raised money for include, ‘Communities Youth Vision’, who were awarded £30,000 last year to fund sports projects for local youths, ‘YMCA Sutton Coldfield’, who were awarded $99,018 to provide help and shelter for local homeless people and/or children, and ‘Birmingham young volunteers’, who were given £111,995 to provide homework clubs for disadvantaged children and young people.
All grant information taken from the Birmingham grant list pdf. file on BBC Children in Need’s website.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey/grants/birmingham.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey/grants/09_10d_birmingham.pdf
Nov
10
Clearance Form
November 10, 2010 | | Leave a Comment
This is a link to our clearance form. 00206B62D3BD100915123935
Nov
8
YouTube URL
November 8, 2010 | | Leave a Comment
This is the YouTube URL for this podcast http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKqhI_PAV5c
Nov
8
Script
November 8, 2010 | | Leave a Comment
These are the questions we came up with for the interview with The Bridge in Shirley
- So how did it all start?
- Could you give us a brief outline of what your organisation does for children and young people?
- What sort of funding do you receive?
- What did you spend all that money on?
- If young people want to get involved, how can they take part?
- What are your aims and goals for the future?
This is a scan of the intro and outro we hand wrote – scan of script
Nov
6
Evaluation
November 6, 2010 | | Leave a Comment
Children in need are a well known national charity that raise money to help smaller charities around the UK who help children and young people who are maybe disadvantaged in some way. Their annual fundraisers often collect very large sums of money which is awarded and distributed evenly to the different charities in grants. To help support this charity, we were asked, in groups, to produce a three minute long podcast to be broadcast on the stratcast website, in order to help support the work they are doing for children in need. This podcast needed to focus on a specific local charity, who have received money or help from children in need to help support their own work.
We decided to interview a local charity called the Bridge youth club, which has received grants from different charities to help sustain the work and events they do for local children, including trips, youth groups and music workshops, but before recording it, we needed to learn how to use the portable zoom recorders. These were fairly straightforward to use and recording the interview was simple. I ensured that the wind guard was on the prevent background noise and I was very pleased with the quality. I believe this was my main role in the group, as well as taking part in a small portion of editing at the end of post production. I uploaded the interview with a memory card reader and sent the file to Nat using a program called dropbox, which is a tool being used in the media industry more and more recently, to edit on soundtrack pro. We decided to use this program as it is very professional and we wanted the overall sound to be as professional as possible. Nat removed all the ‘umms’ and ‘ahhs’ and removed a tiny bit of background noise.
To begin with, the majority of our class had little to no radio experience or skills, so having a ‘tour’ of the radio studio, focusing on the key features of the studio and how to work the various components, such as the mixer, myriad etc was very useful. We learnt how to queue up songs/sound clips, work the mixer, including how to set up the various microphones, and to ensure the volume was always at a certain level to prevent distortion. I would like to develop radio skills further, and to practice using it so I can use it with ease without needing to ask for help. I would also like to learn more of the technical side of things in the studio, and would like to use it frequently in future assignments. We used the radio studio mainly to record the intro and outro of the podcast. We were originally going to use the radio studio to conduct a phone interview with our original charity, which was canceled at the last minute. John showed us how to connect a mobile phone up to the desk so it would record both the interviewer and the interviewee’s voices.
Initially, we had to write a treatment and a script for our podcast. These documents came in extremely handy, especially the treatment which we frequently referred back to when recording/editing our podcast. The script was obviously helpful when recording the interview, and also when editing to ensure the questions weren’t ordered wrongly. The production schedule was also very helpful as it ensured everything was done on time and in order.
The purpose of this podcast was to help promote Children in Need, to encourage people to donate money to them, and also to promote local charities. The target audience of our podcast was a mix of people keen to donate to children in need, and also people who are maybe unlikely and uninterested in donating. We had to ensure our podcast would be suitable for both groups of people. To ensure our podcast was fit for the purpose and audience we ensured it was pleasing to the ear by adding upbeat music in the background, using friendly voices and asking appropriate questions, including ‘How has the money you recieved helped you?’ and ‘What do you spend the money on?’ in order to encourage people to donate money to Children in need. We also asked some questions with would help promote the youth club itself, such as ‘What sort of events do you hold?’ and ‘If people want to get involved, how can they do it?’
In the final stages of editing, I decided we should add music in the background of the podcast as it sounded a bit bare and to also give it a happy, upbeat feel, in order to help encourage people to donate money. I also decided the best way to get feedback on the podcast would be to upload it to youtube before the deadline, and to also post it on facebook to ask for feedback on how it sounds, the quality etc, and also what we could do to improve it. This is some of the feedback we received – ‘Interesting and informative I thought.’ ‘Sophie has a good radio voice!’ and ‘It’s really well presented and clearly spoken. The second voicing needs to speak up a little, though.’ Mainly positive feedback but I would be happy to take the blame for the voice not being loud enough. This would be an improvement I would be sure to make next time – ensure my voice is loud and clear and to put more expression into my voice.
Personally, I think to improve the podcast we could have included interviews with some other local charities, to add more variety to the podcast, and also made it slightly longer as we used the three minute long guideline as a maximum, not a minimum, and a longer podcast would allow time for more content.
The only problems we really encountered in this project was that the first charity we intended to interview pulled out at the last minute, and we had problems contacting our second choice charity, leaving us with no choice but to interview our local youth club, which hasn’t technically received grants from children in need, but has received money from other sources. I think the transfer to this charity was a good choice though, as it enabled us easy access to interview the charity with the little time we had left as they were very local to me.
Our group worked exceptionally well together, even through all the problems we has at the beginning of the assignment. These problems probably made us even more determined to make the final product as good as it could be. We didn’t really have any disagreements along the way and luckily there were no arguments! The introduction of Lawrence into our group halfway through the assignment was more a help than a burden also, as he contributed many ideas for the product.
I think my major role within the group was being the interviewer. This was purely decided because for ease, as I personally know the person I interviewed and I live fairly near the charity, but I think I did a good job in interviewing by using a clear voice and putting expression into my words. I also had a small say in the very final stages of editing, choosing to add music instead of sound effects/jingles. Technically, I think the overall quality of the podcast is very sound. The sound quality is very professional, credit to the editing, and the interview sounds professional and well written.
Nov
3
Production Schedule
November 3, 2010 | | Leave a Comment
| DATES | CREW | RESOURCES | DESCRIPTION |
| October 19th | Adam Wragg
Sophie Morbey Jake Bishop Lawrence Cole Alex Humphries Nat Barber |
Pen and Paper | Discussed and Planned script for Children in Need podcast, also wrote treatment. |
| October 20th | Adam Wragg David Skoppek |
Portable Zoom recorder w/ wind guard | Recorded interview for Children in Need podcast with Youth Worker |
| October 22nd | Nat Barber | Soundtrack Pro on Mac computer | Initial editing podcast on soundtrack pro, removing mistakes. |
| November 1st | Adam Wragg
Sophie Morbey Jake Bishop Lawrence Cole Alex Humphries Nat Barber |
Radio Studio | Scripted and recorded intro and outro for podcast. |
| November 2nd | Nat Barber | Soundtrack Pro on Mac computer | Finished editing podcast on mac computer, added music. |
| November 8th | Nat Barber
Jake Bishop |
Youtube on Mac Computers | Nat and Jake uploaded the finished Podcast to youtube |
Oct
18
Schedule
October 18, 2010 | | Leave a Comment
18th October – Possible Interview, Evaluation start
19th October – Paperwork and research (during Sharon’s lesson)
20th – Sophie & Nat Editing in morning
21st & 22nd – Nat extra editing at home.
25th to 29th – Half Term, completed some pre-production wok.
1st November – Finish off pre-production work. Script/record intro/outro to radio show. Finish Evaluation
2nd – Finish editing podcast
3rd –Finish Evaluation
4th –
5th –
8th – Uploaded finished podcast to Youtube
9th –
10th – Deadline
Oct
18
Diary
October 18, 2010 | | Leave a Comment
Week 1: 13th September – 18th September
- Researched charities
- Went through the assignment brief in great detail
- Introduced to blogging software
- Introduced to radio studio
Week 2: 2oth September – 25th September
- Were set into groups for the project
Week 3: 27th September – 1st October
- We decided that the charity that we wanted to interview was Robin Hood Junior School. Made initial contact with the school.
Week 4: 4th October – 8th October
- Telephoned school again and arranged an interview
- Telephoned school to conduct interview but were declined
Week 5: 11th October – 15th October
- Researched more charities to find a suitable one to intervie with little luck
Week 6: 18th October – 22nd October
- Decided upon a new charity, The Bridge youth club in shirley
- Attempted to make contact with the club with little luck
- Managed to get into contact and conduct an interview
- Edited Interview
Week 8: 25th October – 29th October
- Completed some pre production work
Week 8: 30th October – 6thNovember
- Scripted and recorded intro and outro for podcast
- Finished editing podcast on soundtrack pro
Week 9: 7th November - 14th November
- Got clearance forms signed by Dave Skoppek
- Uploaded finished Podcast to Youtube
Oct
4
Treatments
October 4, 2010 | | Leave a Comment
1st Draft -
How has ‘Children In Need’ as a charity affected the local area?
Treatment
“Three minute feature outlining how Children In Need has affected our area”
We have been given a project to make an internet radio broadcast circling around how Children In Need as a national charity has benefitted our local area. This is to be broadcasted at the college on the Stratcast website, which enables members of the public to listen as well as college students. The show will last around 3 minutes long, enough time for a short interview with someone from the chosen charity/organisation. Our chosen resource is a school in Birmingham, Robin Hood Junior and Infant.
The audience will largely just be students of the college, but of course the broadcast is available for anyone who is able to listen. Generally, we hope to appeal to the general public to urge them to make donations, as we want to prove that the charity does indeed benefit the local area. With some promoting, we could potentially get many people to listen to the broadcast. We can do this by spreading the event by word of mouth, posters and other visual advertising, and also by advertising it on the college homepage- http://studentnet.stratford.ac.uk/
Our broadcast will generally consist of a short interview with someone from the school and the presenter stating facts about the charity. The interview will talk about how much money was donated, what the money was used for, and how positively it has affected the school and its students. The broadcast is mostly narrative, serious and informing. It will be recorded as digital audio, which is basically “wav” or “mp3”, and is obviously an online audio show.
The radio broadcast is relevant at the moment because Children In Need is in November, which gives us plenty of time to be able to promote the charity. Also, because it is already beginning to be advertised, people will already be interested in the subject which enables us to gain more listeners, potentially.
As we are media students of the college, we won’t need funding or expenses, as we are able to book suitable equipment out such as sound recorders or cameras if necessary. We also have no external factors- the interview will be recorded over the phone and saved in the recording studio. This means it can be edited and produced on college campus, therefore there are no risks included in our project concerning outside of college.
As we have no budget needed, I have researched how much it would be to rent out a recording studio elsewhere, and came across “Blue Whale Studios” situated in Birmingham. Prices are around £20 per hour, weekdays between the hours of 4pm-6pm. The recording studio is mainly for music recording, but the studio also has basic sound recording and radio recording facilities. Information on the studio can be found at the following websites:
http://www.scenenotheard.co.uk/2010/01/recording-studios-blue-whale-studios.html
http://birminghammusicnetwork.com/2010/02/11/blue-whale-studios-birmingham/
2nd Draft -
After being let down by the school and failing to make any contact with Youthwise, we have decided to not waste anymore time and research an organisation we know will be happy to work with us. The organisation is a local youth club called the Bridge, which provides a fun and safe service in a good environment to the children and youths of the area. Because Adam knows the people who volunteer there, we are able to gain plenty of information and the person we are going to speak to, Dave, is pleased to be able to help us. Although they receive no funding from Children In Need itself, we are going to talk about the youth club with Dave and then compare it to Children In Need, and how small organisations like the Bridge are positively affected by the donations and funding they give to local communities.
We have been given a project to make an internet radio broadcast circling around how Children In Need as a national charity has benefitted our local area. This is to be broadcasted at the college on the Stratcast website, which enables members of the public to listen as well as college students. The show will last around 3 minutes long, enough time for a short interview with someone from the chosen charity/organisation. Our chosen resource is a youth club in Shirley, Solihull which provides various services and activities for the young people living in and around the area.
Although the organisation is not funded by Children In Need itself, it still fits the criteria we need for the assignment. The youth club itself hosts events to raise money for beneficial things, such as providing help for young people. For example, the adults who volunteer there also provide a counseling service at Light Hall School, a secondary school in the area. They also attend the school on certain occasions to teach personal and social development, regarding issues such as sexual health, citizenship and first aid.
The audience will largely just be students of the college, but of course the broadcast is available for anyone who is able to listen. Generally, we hope to appeal to the general public to urge them to make donations to Children In Need, as we’re going to talk a lot about that charity and how it could have a positive influence on smaller local charities, which fund the youth club. With some promoting, we could potentially get many people to listen to the broadcast. We can do this by spreading the event by word of mouth, posters and other visual advertising, and also by advertising it on the college homepage- http://studentnet.stratford.ac.uk/
Our broadcast will generally consist of a short interview with someone from the youth club and the presenter comparing it after to Children In Need as a charity and how it funds small organisations similar to the Bridge. The interview will contain questions and answers about how the Bridge affects the children and youths of the area; what they do for them and how they are beneficial. The broadcast is mostly narrative, serious and informing. It will be recorded as digital audio, which is basically “wav” or “mp3”, and is obviously an online audio show.
The radio broadcast is relevant at the moment because Children In Need is in November, which gives us plenty of time to be able to promote the charity. Also, because it is already beginning to be advertised, people will already be interested in the subject which enables us to gain more listeners, potentially.
As we are media students of the college, we won’t need funding or expenses, as we are able to book suitable equipment out such as sound recorders or cameras if necessary. We also have no external factors- the interview will be recorded over the phone and saved in the recording studio. This means it can be edited and produced on college campus, therefore there are no risks included in our project concerning outside of college.
As we have no budget needed, I have researched how much it would be to rent out a recording studio elsewhere, and came across “Blue Whale Studios” situated in Birmingham. Prices are around £20 per hour, weekdays between the hours of 4pm-6pm. The recording studio is mainly for music recording, but the studio also has basic sound recording and radio recording facilities. Information on the studio can be found at the following websites:
http://www.scenenotheard.co.uk/2010/01/recording-studios-blue-whale-studios.html
http://birminghammusicnetwork.com/2010/02/11/blue-whale-studios-birmingham/
Sep
27
Research Summary
September 27, 2010 | | Leave a Comment
Firstly, I searched the Children in Need section of the BBC website to find some local charities. On the ‘Grants’ page there is an option to find charities in specific areas – http://www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey/grants/map.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey/grants/09_10c_birmingham.pdf – List of grants awarded in the Birmingham area
I came across various different interesting charites in the Birmingham area, such as £22,742 being granted to Robin Hood Junior and Infant school in february to provide a new out of hours counselling service for pupils.
Another local charity was the Sutton Coldfield YMCA, which was granted £99,018 to pay for new workers to help disadvantaged young people on the streets. http://www.suttoncoldfieldymca.org.uk/
Another charity, called Local Leagues LTD, was granted £45,800 to fund sporting and recreation activites for disadvantaged young people. http://www.localleagues.com/
Out of these charities the one that interested me the most was Robin Hood infant and Junior school, mainly because it is local to me and would be easy to get to, and also because it would be interesting to learn about the new devlopment at the school.
We emailed the school to ask if we could interview them for our project at the school, or if we could arrange a diffeent time or place to do so, the email read as follows-
The school didn’t reply immediately so we phoned them and re-itterated the points in the email. They told us that it wouldn’t be possible for us to go into the school as it would infringe the rights on the teachers and puils, but kindly agreed to let us interview them over the telephone.
Next, we discussed what questions would be asked in the interview. We agreed we needed the right balance between questions to do with the charity itself, and questions used to promote the charity.
The questions we decided on were -
1. Could you give us a brief outline of how the funding has been used?
2. How has the new project affected the pupils and the school as a whole?
3. Have you done any fundraising for children in need in return?
4. Have you applied for any more funding for future projects?
5. Is the counselling service for just students or is it available to the public?
6. How does the service work? Would a pupil need to make an appointment or can they just go in?
On the following Monday we phoned the school to conduct the telephone interview we agreed on. We phoned them beforehand just to make sure there were no problems that could have jeopardised the interview, and they refused to be interviewed due to ‘confidentality issuses’.
So we now had to decide on a new charity. Luckily, Sophie knew someone who was linked to a nearby charity called Linden House, who have recieved a grant from children in need to help improve their work with disabled children. We deicided the quickest way to get in touch was to ring them direct and attempt to conduct the interview the same day due to time restrictions we had on the project. Again, we were unable to conduct an interview with this charity because we couldn’t get in contact with anyone on the phone.
When it came to conducting the interview over the phone with the school, they were reluctant to let us interview them because of ‘confidentiality issues’, so we had to decide upon a new charity to interview.We decided to interview a local youth club as it was the only option left. Luckily, I have close connections with this youth club so obtaining an interview was easy. The youth club itself hasn’t ever received grants from Children in Need, but receives other funding to organise clubs and events for local children and young people.
We needed to write a new set of questions for the new interview, and again needed to get the balance right between facts and promotion. We decided upon these questions -
1.Could you give us a breif outline of what your charity does for children and young people
2. How did it all start?
3. What are your aims and gould for the future?
4. What sort of funding do you receive?
3. What do you spend the money on?
4. Can you give me your top three highlights since when you started?
5. How could people get involved?
After this interview was recorded at the Bridge youth club, it needed to be editied. Since it was half term, Nat and I used Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) a file sharing tool to send the interview files to natso he could edit them on Soundtrack Pro on his Mac.
When we returned to school, we needed to record the other sections of our podcast, such as the intro and outro. This was our inital plan for the script of the intro and outro – scan of script
We pretty much stuck to this script exactly when recording these parts. After these were recorded, we again editied these into the podcast, ready for music and jingles to be added.
Sharon Walpole
Adam Wragg