Over the last couple of weeks, students in Room 1, have started developing content for the first episodes of their own class project: a weekly podcast for students, by students. We'd love to share some of our progress so far, and give you a heads up as to what to look forward to...   

The idea is to create a platform for students to share their ideas and stories in an authentic context. Each week we will have a theme, and then bring you a variety of stories on that theme. Our first theme is ‘Not-So-Superheroes’ which saw students creating some fantastically flawed superheroes and then ‘pitching’ their ideas Friday to get them onto the show. 

10 students were selected to produce their content of the next two weeks, whilst the rest returned to the pool of writers; ready to tackle the next week’s theme: 2spooky4me.

I’ve been super impressed with the enthusiasm and energy that students are putting into their work, and the quality of their first pitches. As time goes on, I expect the bar to keep getting higher and higher, and that all students will have a chance to produce their own content for the show. 

Field Trips

To learn more about sound production and recording, R1 students have been visiting studios across Wellington to find out more. Last Monday, our Sound & Music team (plus a few extras) visited Underground Sound, a recording studio in the heart of Wellington. We got to tour their studio set up, and experience their fantastic foley (sound effects) space. It was a really informative visit, where we were able to ask our questions about recording and editing sound.

On Thursday, another set of 10 students were able to tour Park Road Post Production in Miramar. We were shown through the building by an ex-Raroa student, and got to see the theatres, studios and offices of Peter Jackson’s film company.

After the tour, we had a sit-down chat with Sound Designers, John Neil & Nigel Scott, who were able to provide us with expert advice on recording audio and setting up our podcast. They also shared with us some of their work on previous films, to demonstrate the extremes of what is possible in Sound Design. It was a fantastic experience that inspired our team and kept us talking the whole ride back to school.

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Our final trip for students is going ahead in in the beginning of next term. I’ve made some contacts within Radio New Zealand, who are excited about helping us develop our podcast, and are offering us a tour of their studio and some recording workshops for creating our content.

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Online

Another exciting development this week is that our class website has gone live! This site will become the home of our podcast, and currently hosts our prototype site where we share our writing samples from earlier this term. You can check out the site by visiting https://www.raroapodcast.com.

We will keep you up to date with this exciting project, and look forward to sharing our final product with you next term. Watch this space...