After a few sleepless nights and Mike continually telling me to ‘relax and not stress’ this week has gone a great deal better with the participatory production project with the Good Shepherd learners. Marc and Mike were more involved this week which took a bit of pressure off me and things went smoothly. The kids were more excited and seemed to be more in the swing of things, the majority of them had done recordings and we were really impressed by the content. As expected from junior school kids the sound quality on the tiny recorders isn’t always amazing but I think what is more important is the content they gathered. They interviewed people about bullying, emotional abuse, drugs, crime and a lot of topics that are quite heavy for children this age and they did it with vitality and a mixture of wisdom and innocence that makes for very interesting listening. I began to breathe again.
We decided we needed to get a bit more hands on this week, to aid the production with our own participation. We went to the school during break and helped the kids do interviews with their peers, everyone was so inquisitive. When Marc took out his camera he was mobbed by tiny people. When I walked around the playground with my recorder I got the same response, kids surrounding me like I was stuck in a river of little people who all wanted to have their voice heard. The attention to the ‘special’ kids in our project seemed to pay off, the next day at workshop one they were rearing to go. We decided to try set up some interviews with people in the community who keep us all (and especially children) safe, we approached the police, social services, the fire department, the traffic department and HiTech. Although not everyone was willing we organised an interview with the media liaison from the police services in Grahamstown. All the kids came up with questions for her and then the two anchors, Simphiwe and Mawande, did the interview with Mike. It went really well and they really came up with good questions and Mike said it was a great interview. Then the following day we had an interview with a social worker set up and they once again all came up with questions and then the three who had not done the interviews the day before, Bukho, Azi and Lihle, did the interview. It once again went well, they were having fun and bringing in content, I continued breathing.
With the workshops this week we did a lot of important things like interviews and scripting but we also had fun which is what I think was lacking last week. While the two anchors were doing the interview Marc and I sat with the PSA team and scripted five PSA’s about road safety. Each PSA covers a different aspect of road safety but all end with the tag line: “Be streetwise, be street safe. Put safety first”. I was so impressed with their ideas for the PSA’s. Azi really came out of his shell telling me how he is glad he is in the PSA team and not an anchor. Lihle came up with some great ideas for dialogues and voicing for the PSA’s, we had fun and they scripted all of the PSA’s themselves and came up with the tag line. I typed them up and we recorded the next day, each of them playing different parts. They really enjoyed this aspect of acting on radio. We also recorded some stuff for the jingle and sting for the show and after we were done we kept the studio mic’s rolling as the kids all stayed in studio chatting, doing spontaneous raps and generally just having fun. It was a good laugh and we got to end the Thursday session with smiles. The elevator kept going up. So all in all it was a good week, now we just need to knuckle down and get all the content edited. I’m not saying that all the problems from last week are gone but with the ups and downs we definitely are on the up and this coming week is going to be a big one, I will try to keep breathing,
Untill next time, let sound flow in your life and enrich your world, it continue’s to enrich mine…
:)
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