Introduction: 

Vox pop= voice of the people

• collection of opinions on one specific subject
• public voice, genuine made media
• be between 1 minute to 1 minute 30 seconds
• be created in pairs and to be taken in turns to be the interviewer and sound recordist
• create the question to be linked to student life
• interview 8 people but use a minimum of 4 people in the final edit
• can include background music or effects
• a 500 word commentary must accommodate the vox pop

Question:

It is best to ask an open question using “who/what/how” to prevent receiving a simple yes or no response from the public. With the main topic being on student life, there is a range of sub topics that we can chose from to create an open question. Some options are;

• finance
• night life
• accommodation/ flat mates
• courses/lectures/lecturers/studying
• part time work/time management

I was able to create questions from each of these sub topics, however it became apparent that you would receive every similar answers every time this question was asked, not giving me much difference or variety. I therefore decided to create a question where there is possibility for a mass range of responses and any sub topic can be within the answer. This then became my final question:

“What has been your best experience of student life whether it be in or outside of University?”

Risk Assessment: 

Due to this being our first production and not taking the equipment we were using off campus, we did not have to produce a risk assessment for this task however, health and safety aspects were still applied as I will outline within my 500 word statement.

Finished product: 

This is my finished vox pop that I have created as my first assignment for my media production course at university.

https://soundcloud.com/user-965445871/vox-pop

500 word Statement:

For my vox pop, I decided to ask York St John University students what their best experience of university life has been so far which could include anything inside or outside of university campus. I carried out this project as a duo however, we asked different questions, giving us the opportunity to switched between roles. We switched between the roles of interviewer and sound operator depending on whose question was being asked. Due to this being our first task and being confined to the space of just the university’s campus, our brief was to ask a question on ‘student life’ so I thought it perfect to keep the questioned slightly broad to gain a range of responses but also ask a personal question to make responses appear to flow easier due to contributors not having to think too much.

The equipment we used for this task was a Tascam with a phantom powered boom mic. Although a risk assessment did not need to be filled out for this first task we did, there were still health and safety precautions that needed to be considered. As we were on campus when creating this production, we could leave any excess bags or unneeded equipment in a secure room, removing any risk of students walking past us to trip on the bags or have them block their access anywhere they needed to be. Once again, due to being on the university campus, we did not have to be concerned about roads or any traffic that could be a possible risk to the production crew or the equipment. The only affect the traffic could have would be to effect sound quality if when filming we were too close to the road so would pick up the sound of heavy traffic or any sirens that may be around. For safety reasons, however, we did keep the excess cable wire from the boom mic neatly tied together to avoid a member of the production crew or a student to trip over the cable if left dangling along the floor.

One of the primary reasons for creating this task was to learn about audio and sound levels. Using “Sound production: A guide to using audio within Media production” (2017) I established that audio levels needed to be of a natural tone to prevent the sound from being over bearing to its audience. This was the reason why I chose this task to present.

There were no issues during the recording process, however once recording was over it became apparent that the memory card I had been using had not been storing my recordings properly. The files were there however there was no content to them so nothing would play. This meant I had to complete the task again before I could edit my recordings together, however there was no way I could have prevented this however if I did the task again I would simply double check all the equipment.

The individual editing process for this task was very simple when using audacity as there was no video attached meaning you could remove any stutters and fillers used by contributors without having to match it up. I did however have to increase the audio levels on some of my response to make sure all responses matched on an equal sound level.

 

Lansley, A. (2017). Sound Production: A guide to using audio within Media Production. 1^st Edition. England. Routledge.