This week me and my 3rd year Audio production course received a guest lecture by Bryan Rudd. Bryan is a Principal Lecturer in Media, radio, music and sound production and has worked closely with many audio production students. The purpose of this lecture was to understand a range of deep lessons from the reflective process of Bryan’s project ‘Chronicles of Freedom’ and apply the reflective criteria to our own projects. 

‘Chronicles of Freedom’ was a 5 part radio drama originally broadcast on BBC Radio 7 about the life journey and conversion William Wilberforce towards ending slavery in Britain. Bryan’s role was Producer, Co-director, editor, technical production and music composer. Bryan highlighted that we should be sure of project criteria like the Idea/story/narrative, Audience/market and Timeframe with research that underpins all of the project criteria.

In terms of Bryan’s project management he approached ‘Chronicles of Freedom’ by identifying the problem, options and decisions. In terms of problems the project had a 12 month schedule which Bryan came into 9 months in so certain problems like the budget not being large enough and already chosen actors had been established. For Bryan’s options he made swift decisions given the limited timeframe. One example is Bryan wanting to record in one of the original buildings where the drama was set however Hull council requested a non-negotiable £1,500 which wasn’t possible due to the under budgeting of the project. As a result, Bryan recorded the scene at a pub in Lincoln which had noise issues from a loud drinker. To deal with the loud drinker Bryan simply payed him £5 to move away from the scene which allowed the recording to commence. Bryan put emphasis on having a plan B for your options due to unforeseen circumstances that can hinder the progress of our projects.

Bryan gave a critical reflection of his technical and creative skills that were either done well or had an area of weakness that could have been improved. Bryan finished his presentation with all the details that were kept after completing the project to support him in the reflection process.

I learn’t a range of lessons that I have and will continue to apply to ‘Timeline X’ such as underpinning all of my project proposal criteria with research, having a plan B and keeping all of the production and research details. I will keep these lessons in mind when doing my viva voice.