Radio Evaluation (VoxPop)

Recording our voxpop for radio was very exciting as it was the first time that we went out with recording equipment. At first we were slightly nervous of approaching strangers in the streets and asking them to answer our question on Remembrance day, however after doing this a couple of times we got stuck straight into it and thoroughly enjoyed it.

We each asked someone our question, which after much deliberation amongst the group we finally settled on. It was, “Do you think Remembrance Day is still relevant or do you think it would be more relevant to remember those who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan?” We felt that this question would make people think about their answer and would also perhaps cause debate instead of a yes-no answer, making it more interesting. We each also had a go at using the recording equipment.

The role I played in recording the vox was that I helped come up with the question, as well as finding people to interview. I asked our question to someone, helping to gain the amount of interviews we needed as well as using the recording equipment. When we got back I also helped edit the vox on the Macs, taking out all of our voices and empty spaces as well as any unnecessary speech to leave just those of the public. I also used soundcloud to help the other members of the group upload the vox to their blogs.

Even though we managed to successfully achieve what we wanted, I feel that there are a few things that we could have improved on. Firstly I think we could have improved by interviewing more people. This would mean that we would have more sound bites to work with and so would be able to choose the best ones in our finished vox. I also think it could have been improved if we had held the microphone closer to some of the interviewees, as when listening back, some of the people appeared very quiet compared to others and were slightly difficult to hear. We should have assessed the volume of the person speaking whilst we were recording and should have adjusted the microphone accordingly. However, in saying this, we didn’t want to intimidate or scare off the person with the equipment, as being recorded can be quite daunting.