7th May 1999
Some idiot turns up with 6 packets of Monster Munch today; it was me. After working through my plan that I did a couple of weeks ago I decide to record my Vox Pops as well as munching away. This didn�t go as planned as no one plans a disaster. There are several mistakes I made. The first was to get all my wires in a colossal tangle before I even walked out of the room. This trend continued as I wander around Honeywell tripping over wires and yards of knots. I give the impression that even tying shoelaces is beyond me as I hunt down people and ask them about God. My levels are everywhere apart from where they�re meant to be and there�s dreadful feedback. I learn to combat this by precariously moving the mirance into several positions - making me look like a drunken ballerina rather than a sound man who will be released on the real world in only a couple of years. The feedback is coming from the mike or the headphones, Jaz later explains. I have the limited on which is really bad, this makes me have to hype up the gain to such an extent that feedback is the result. It�s also really quiet, so I don�t think I can use that much of it. Still, I�ve learnt loads and it�s much better to spoon this bit up rather than an interview or something that isn�t as easy as wandering around sticking a microphone under people�s noses. Must get a hanky.
Friday 14th May
Today I want to re-record my Vox Pops. However I can�t. It�s due to a lack of batteries for the mirances. I end up recording some material - my cue. This takes absolutely ages, as it should be perfect, due to being recorded in the studio. I have about seventeen attempts. �God!� In the end I get it done, but I�m aware that I�ve got about 15 seconds worth of material for my 4/5 minute piece. Get out a mirance and hope for better luck over the weekend.
Sunday 16th May
I haven�t planned today at all, but I have a mirance so I decide to try my luck, hunting down members of the cloth in their busiest day of the week. I really should have arranged something but there were other deadlines to contend with. Anyway I set sail on my bike (that aint right) and cycle around looking for churches. I find one 50 yards away from where I live and ride home to put my bike away. Armed with a mirance, just in case I get lucky I traipse up to the church, which is open. I ease my way in and I am confronted with a man. He�s not a ninja or anything but we have some kind of conversation in which words are exchanged. I explain who I am, what I�m doing and what I�m after and he explains that the church hasn�t actually got a minister and it�s a complete waste of my time, and God�s - I�m sure he�s busy.
Some woman comes in every Tuesday though and he says that�s my best bet. Refuse the temptation to go to William Hill.
Tuesday 18th May
After spending a ridiculously long period of today in the dark room with nothing but a bunch of pictures to show for it, I have Jaz�s sound package to contend with. Upon the advice of the person I met down the street I arrive at the church at around a quarter to seven. A helpful old lady helps me out in a helpful way. She says that talking to the minister from Pennystone is a bit of a no go really, as she�s really busy and has a meeting. She puts me onto a Reverend who lives about 2 minutes away. I stroll up, knock on the door and he opens it. It was just like that, honestly. I explain what I�m doing, or more importantly what I�m meant to be doing. He agrees to do it almost straight away so long as he can see the questions before hand. I show him the questions, then my hand. I�m slightly disappointed he wants to see them before they�re asked as I fear my replies might be stock and rehearsed. However I understand what he�s getting at because people can be harsh and I look like a person. Some of the wording in my questions has mutated slightly, keeping the same essential points but re-wording them. �How do you know you�ve picked the right religion?� transforms itself into �How are you sure that Christianity is the one true religion?� as I had visions of him striking me down with lightening. It�s essentially the same question but I felt he would be more receptive to the latter version. Other tweaking involves the �good thing/bad thing question, which the original emphasis was, �is it more trouble than it�s worth?�. I put some examples - do you think the good points about religion such as people finding a purpose in, life outweigh the misuse, that can result in wars etc.
The interview goes really well. I�m well pleased with some of the responses. He debates the existence of Jesus, slags off films for portraying a world without religion and says people see religion as wet and not at all hip. A slight grin reaches over my face as I picture him in a field surrounded by flowers listening to �Sgt pepper�. The interview is over when it ends.
Friday 21st May
Enthusiasm is with me today. It�s an important day as far as this project is concerned. My last practical session before the deadline. I get to school an hour before the lesson and sample my interview in. Unfortunately all my levels are way too high, often the little wavy lines flicker out of the box. Jaz says it would be better if I just re-sampled the whole lot and shows me where the level control is on the creative mixer, something I�d forgotten and kind of hoped I could sort it out afterwards. But apparently this could result in major distortion - so I might as good re-sample the whole lot.
Other people start to filter into the lesson, and despite the odd temptation to go to the refectory I sample it all in properly and let other people have a go. I can start to assemble the product, although my scope is somewhat limited at this stage because I�ve only sampled in the one interview and no other material. Soon I get really annoyed with the drone of this nice mans voice, so have to buy loads of Maltesers to get rid of my headache. Gentle chat and Deb offers me a quote from the crow �Man made God�. Might be quite handy but the sound recording is a bit muffled and I�m not sure what it�s saying. I�ll keep it in mind, and a tape box.
When other people have passed through the sampling thing, or actually left and the second year class arrive, then I sample in some of my music. I�ve changed my plan concerning this recently. �What a wonderful world� - I hadn�t been able to find it so I found a piece of ambient music instead. I sample another future sound of London track in as well - it kind of starts out all dark and mysterious then breaks into holy type chanting. I think it might work with several samples played over the top. I visualise the Reverend�s description of a world without God over it - breaking to more holy statements of hope and joy with the build up of the music. I then set about achieving this - it takes ages but I�m fairly pleased with the result. The start of it is achieved. I stopped there because I consider putting alternative views about religion on there. However I don�t know if this would go with the overall nature of the piece.
We�re elapsing into the afternoon lesson as I sample my introductory voice overs and mix it with another FSOL song. This takes me right up to 5 today. My main criticism of myself today was that I automatically copied all the reverend noise to the top window, where it was then pruned. This meant I was grappling with vast quantities of dialogue, when it would have been much simpler just to copy the sections that I wanted.
Monday 24th May
Today, after Simons lesson, I set about re-recording my Vox Pops. However John says that all the mirances have gone so I can�t really do it. I can�t do anything for my package really. Book out one for tomorrow and commit suicide.
Tuesday 25th
Rise from the dead in order to complete my assignment. This is totally optimistic. I�m still half dead as I wander in and the assignment isn�t completed. However progress is made. At eleven I get my mirance and hassle people, again I have problems. I must be doing it wrong as some feedback is still in evidence. The limiter is off, but I find myself doing that ballet dancer thing again. It�s the inconsistency that�s puzzling, but Paul later suggests that it could be due to the battery running out, something that cuts the operation short. I then sample in the valid bits of what I�ve recorded. I start to chop together my Vox Pops. I think I pretty much have it in the bag when, my unobservant mind notices something with the help of my eyes. I�m only on the one channel. AAAAHA! It turns out that the 2 phono to minijack lead was effectively a one phono to minijack. It�s replaced and, slightly annoyed, I sample in a bit of REM on two channels.
The voice overs at the start get completed, although there is a bit of a glitch between them.
I re-sample and re-do my Vox Pops and decide not to incorporate the question into it. Got kicked out by the caretaker again.
Wednesday 26th
Put in as many hours as I can today. We�ve been filming in Sheffield so Stace drops me off at college at around 6ish. 2 hours seems to zip by, I grapple with my project, sneaking off to the refectory a couple of times to think about the beast. Soon, it�s kick out time and it takes about 30 minutes to save it.
Thursday 27th
Today was yet more time spent on the radio piece. The most annoying thing that happens to me today is when I loose about one and a half-hours work. I nip off to the refectory and when I come back someone�s turned off my computer. AAAAHA! After recovering and calming down from this revelation I complete the project, knowing I could have spent another hour in bed. It gets done by about fiveish. I have to record my concluding speech, re-sample some fire noises from my failed radio story and manage to record the whole thing onto tape. Unfortunately the adapter is very dodgy, so only one channel comes through, I discover later. The whole thing adds up to 4 minutes and nine seconds. I never want to listen to it again.