VanessaMonaghan.com

Category: broadcast

  • ‘Reputations’ in the Press

    ‘Reputations’ in the Press

    At work in Premier, I’ve been working on a couple of radio series, the second of which is Reputations. The show, as with Holy Places, is presented by Roger Bolton and features six episodes.It was produced by Caroline Donne who is also a producer on BBC 4’s Woman’s Hour.

    Reputations looks at the lives and legacies of well known Christian figures and examines the impact they’ve had on Christianity today.

    My role in these, it started off that I was to be Production Co-ordinator on the series. Three of the programmes were recorded in external studios due to studio clash times, it turned out though that I recorded the remaining three and edited the entire series.

    To be honest, it was a lot of work, but I’m really happy with how the final programmes sound. The first show was broadcast last week and looked at the live of St Paul. You can listen here.

    The second show, looking at the life of Martin Luther, is due to be broadcast tonight at ten on Premier Christian Radio tonight at ten.

    So it was absolutely lovely to discover that Reputations has been mentioned twice over the past week in the Press. It got a lovely mention in The Sunday Times on May 25th but I was delighted to see that Reputations also featured in The Radio Times this week as ‘Monday’s Choice’ Eekk! The radio choice for today! Awesome! Well chuffed!

    RadioTimesSundayTimes

  • Soundtracking

    Soundtracking

    Well, that’s what I like to call it. Part of my job has evolved into coming up with some musical accompaniment for some videos we make at work, so I decided I’d share these with you. What so I have to put them together? Garageband, pure and simple. I don’t have a midi keyboard to put my own shape on things so I have to use the loops that come from Garageband and try and put an unique spin on them.

    Here are two that I’m happy with the outcome. The most recent one is for Mind and Soul’s promo video for 2014. Mind and Soul works to help alleviate the stigma mental health has in churches. The music had to reflect what they were speaking about but also drive the video forward so it doesn’t become monotonous.

    The second video had to have a contemporary modern feel as Antony Aris-Osula presented ‘Faith and Film’, discussing how faith and film interact and how some storylines and characters do have religious undertones.

    I was happy with how this turned out but when I listened to it on my computer, it seemed that volume was overall a little low and not just my music. After discussing this with the video team at work, it was agreed that all subsequent videos would have an overall higher volume. Afterall, this is online, it’s not television! Having to crank up your speakers, isn’t good! I still like my soundtrack!

    Both videos edited by Phil Maltz

  • Holy Places with Roger Bolton

    Holy Places with Roger Bolton

    One of the projects I have been working on since I started in Premier was editing ‘Holy Places’. The show is presented by Roger Bolton and features six well known names in the UK Christian world. Throughout the show they go on a literal journey to their ‘Holy Place’ and Roger finds out why each place is holy to them.

    Guests on the show include Rev. Richard Coles, Ann Widdecombe, Steve Chalke, Pam Rhodes, Martyn Percy who is the only living theologian to be mentioned in Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code and the now Cardinal VIncent Nichols, who was still Archbishop of Westminster when the programme was recorded.

    The show was recorded by Roger and his wife Julia and my job was to try to edit it all into an actual radio programme. Yes, there are dodgy sound pops and recording here and there but I’m not sure there’s any other way you’d get to hear Ann Widdecombe shouting at Roger not to crash into a cow!

    Personally, my favourite episode is with Rev. Richard Coles, one time member of the Communards and Bronksi Beat which gave me the fantastic opportunity to play Smalltown Boy on Premier Christian Radio.

    You can hear all the programmes on Premier Christian Radio’s site here. As soon as I can, I will upload them to my own Soundcloud account. The show is broadcast live every Sunday at 7pm.

    Photo of Roger by Steve Fanstone

  • Video: Adam & Kid – Happy

    Video: Adam & Kid – Happy

    A couple of weeks ago at work I had the pleasure of recording Adam & Kidd, well, it wasn’t pleasure at first, more of a frenzy. When the group arrived, to record a gospel version of Pharrell’s Happy, we discovered they were a five piece. For camera angles, that’s one headache for Phil. For me, recording the audio, I had to make sure that the final product was going to be good for broadcast.

    So, firstly, I had to figure out if I had enough mics and mic leads. This is when I wished I had my own ‘tool box’ from home with me. I always have a couple of extra dynamic mics and a condenser, just in case and of course XLRs, tons of XLRs. Do you think I could find any at work? No. Look out for the gorgeous yellow XLR running along the floor in the video.

    Normally if we’re recording anything, it’s a two or three mic job, which is fine. This session was a 4 mic job. I used two SM58s for vocals and then I basically had two shotguns that are normally used as video/speech mics. The band had brought a tiny amp to play electric guitar and bass through, so I mic’ed up the amp with one of the shotguns and basically had to trust them. The other mic is always an overhead so I maneuvered the overhead to over the djembe player. The djembe was LOUD! and also quite sharp so I had to take some top of that.

    As with the all the little set ups I do at work, we record it straight down to two tracks on a Zoom H4N. Simples, so I have to bring my A Game. On this track by Adam & Kidd though, I just added a tad of reverb afterwards to round out the sound.

    What do you think? I’m happy with it. Ok, sorry, I’ll get my coat.