You never realize how much of yourself you put into a project until you’re finally done it. I was beyond exhausted with relief yesterday after I handed in my production work. I didn’t realize how much stress I’d put on myself and been under until I passed that USB drive with the finished content off to the P.A. (production assistant).
It was so worth it through. I really did have a blast creating those 6 station and music ids and 9 commercials. The coolest part for me is that this body of work is something I could show off as a marker of where I am currently and where I could go. It shows that I really do want to do well in radio. It shows how bad I want it. When I tallied up the hours it was about 35-40 hours I had put into this content. Industry wise that way too slow but as a student it shows that I care about the details and creating a good solid product.
One of my favourite parts was doing the ids. Even when I was having issues mixing the music to audio it was still fun. I think my favourite music id was either the CHR or Hot AC. Rock was its own beast. Which makes sense as its the second hardest music to mix. Alternative holding the number one spot. Mixing Panic at the Disco!’s “Say Amen”, with Imagine Dragons “Radioactive” and Queen and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure” was tricky. The end result however sounded pretty good.
Now the commercials where a learning experience and a half. From giving my announcers encouragement and learning EQ, reverb, and compression my head was spinning at times. I’m lucky because I have multiple people I can go to for help if I don’t understand something. Sure, there’s always YouTube but there’s something about having a physical person in front of you. That teaching experience just sticks better for me. Which is what happened in my production meeting. Particularly the room hiss and how to bring it down. After that lesson I was almost in hysteria over any hiss in my audio recordings.
That hour and a half long production meeting was one of the best meetings I’ve had so far in radio. I’ve gotten to know more about what I don’t know, and where I need to improve. I learned that I do have a solid idea of what I’m going when it comes to music mixing. It was beyond heart warming when my instructor said I’m brave for being me. For being out and transitioning while going through school. That I’m learning from him as much as he’s learning from me.
Being in this program, it really has let me define who I want to be and what I want to do. I can’t wait to see where the rest of this semester will take me.
PS. Hopefully I will eventually get to that appreciation post about the Witcher out. My production work was something that I really wanted to share and gush about this time instead.
Radio in Training 