Download Radio Commercial Production Process

Radio Commercial Production
Process
By Nick Gameson
Production Facilities
Community Radio Stations
A smaller, lesser known regional radio
station will have to produce their own
commercials for radio shows as they
have less of a budget to hire out a
production house. They will most likely
have a small vocal booth in the studio
building and will do all of the post
production in house. By doing this they
can keep production costs to a
minimum while quality high and still
make money off the advertising space.
Commercial Radio Stations
As commercial and national radio stations can sell their advertising
space for a lot more money they can afford to hire out or contract
production houses to produce the adverts for them. The difference
here is that the client will get a much higher quality advert that will be
more effective and the better quality commercials will in turn raise the
quality of the radio station in general.
One example of this is London’s Capital FM station. If a client wants to
advertise on Capital their advert will be produced by their production
house Global Ideas.
Production Houses
Production houses are responsible for developing and producing advertising campaigns for
radio stations clients. Most production companies are only operational when they have
clients to work this and because of this most of the production staff tend to be freelancers
hired on a short contract and the only long lasting staff are the management team.
The first steps in creating the commercial is to write a script. The copywriter will finish the
final script then it is handed over to the pre-production team where the production staff
and actors are signed on and the details and dates of the final production are finalised.
During production, production houses will have the facilities and budget available to use
much better quality microphones and vocal booths as well as hire musicians and orchestras
to create music and sound effects. They can also hire voice actors or celebrities to narrate
the advert unlike regional radio stations. Most of the time with large production houses
they will then send off the commercial to a post-production company who will handle the
final mix while being overseen by the production house.
Music & Sound Effects
In post production music and sound effects will be added to the commercial. This is
done to fill in dead air and also makes the advert more effective to the target
audience depending on what music and sound effects are added. For example an
advert for a children’s movie is more likely to use a more upbeat happy song.
Sound effects are mostly used to create an illusion of where the advert is set. In
one of Snickers’ radio commercials the illusion is set that Mr. T is in an office talking
to a customer on the phone. To back this up keyboard tapping sound effects have
been added as well as a vocal filter added to the narration to make it more realistic.
A phone slamming sound effect is also used as a transition to lead into the tagline
and short narrative at the end.
The advert can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1CRJAySsqA
Studio Facilities
From the production and post production phases a lot of facilities are
needed for a successful, high budget commercial. These include:
• A vocal booth: a small room covered in acoustic tiles to eradicate any reverb. This room will have the microphone and
music stand for the script and it will be where the vocal is recorded.
• A live recording room: this could be a large rehearsal room in the studio or could be done anywhere for a different effect
but the purpose of this room is to record musicians or an orchestra for a piece of music. For this room generally there is no
acoustic treatment however landmarks like churches or halls can be used for orchestras to achieve a more realistic (but
less controllable) natural reverb and delay/echo.
• A control room: this room will have the computer and interface/mixer and the microphones from the booth and live
recording room will be routed here. Here an engineer can overview the recording as it is going and change any levels or eq
while recording. The computer in here will have a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) like Logic Pro X, ProTools or
Soundtrack.
• An editing work station: for radio commercials the computer in the control room will have all needed to mix and master
the final edit as in most situations the same DAW software will be used. However for large budget productions a separate
engineer/editor will be mixing the audio and so it is done on a separate machine. Logic, ProTools or Soundtrack will again
be used however this computer may also have editing and GFX software like Final Cut and Photoshop as well incase the
production needs a visual element. One example of this is if the commercial is part of a multi-media advertising scheme.
Production Rolls
Creative Producer
The Creative Producer is effectively the director and producer for radio
commercials. They work on overseeing the main production and will
make the creative decisions in the production. It will also be there
decision on who to hire to voice act and produce any music or sound
effects and because of this they also direct the budget and make sure
everything is accounted for.
Recording Engineer
The recording engineer will set up the microphone in the vocal booth and
will route all the audio throughout the studio. It is there job to make sure all
the audio is recorded at the right level with the right equalization to prevent
audio clipping and any hisses or background sound. They will also add any
effects the Creative Producer want in the live recording.
For example the Producer might want a small amount of reverb on the vocal
and for the voiceover artist to hear this when they record it. To do this they
will add the reverb plugin to the vocal chain and send that chain through an
output in the mixing board to a set of headphones in the vocal booth that
the artist can listen to.
Copywriter
The copywriters job is to write the script for the advert. This job
requires good understanding on taglines and what makes a good
snappy advert. In this stage the Creative Producer will read the script
multiple times and it will go back and forth until they are happy. They
also need to have a good idea on how fast the voiceover artist needs to
talk for the advert and the idea itself.
Voiceover Artist
There are three main types of Voiceover Artist: voice actors; celebrities
and session vocalists.
• Voice Actor: a freelance actor who will work on the main narrative of the advert. These differ
from celebrities as often their names are only known in the industry and what’s more important
than their fame is their voice. They may be hired based on the tone of their voice, previous
adverts they have worked on or how fast they can talk.
• Celebrity: very often a company will want a figure of authority to advertise their product or
service. Two examples of these are Heinz using David Tennant in their radio commercials and
Snickers’ use of Mr. T. These are used as they are more influential to the general public.
• Session Vocalists: session vocalists are used where singing is needed in the production, either for
the main narrative or just for the music underneath.
Music
Live Music vs. Production Music
Using production music for an advert can be a lot cheaper for the
production as the radio station commissioning the advert will have a
PRS license allowing them to use any production music in their library
for free without having to worry about royalties or licensing.
The use of live music is found a lot less in radio advertisement as it
requires hiring out the musicians as well as a composer if an orchestra
is being used. However for a lot of commercials the use of live music
can be more effective as the arrangement is specifically made for the
structure of the ad.
Style & Arrangement
The arrangement is how the music is actually written. It
dictates the different sections of the song (ie. verse,
chorus) and which instruments fit in at different places.
It is also the musical notes itself and lays out melodies,
harmonies, low end and many other important parts
that make up a song. What matters more than the
arrangement is the style of the song however as this
dictates how the music is arranged. For example if the
Creative Producer wants an eastern sounding song the
composer is more likely to incorporate this into the
arrangement and use a variation on the Phrygian
musical mode/scale.
Pastiche Music
Sometimes in productions the producer may want the music to reflect
a certain existing piece, artist or era without actually using that music
itself. This could be due to a problem with licensing the original piece
or the producer could want to create a homage to a certain era. This
can be seen a lot with some adverts who want to use Ska music or
music from the 40’s to 60’s.
Music Function
The music in radio commercials can have one of three main
functions and uses: sting, tag or bed.
A sting is a section of the music which introduces or exits one section of the commercial, we may think of it as
an audible transition between two different sections of the advert.
Music may be used as a tag which is where information is portrayed in music. One example of this is the old
Hastings advert which tags their phone number ‘0800 00 1066’. Putting information into song like this is a very
effective way to make potential customers remember details of your company.
Finally a bed is the most common way music is used in radio commercials. It is where you have one track
(normally an instrumental) playing underneath the narrative throughout the advert. The effect of this is to
thicken the advert to make it sound less dead and more appealing while not taking away from what the
voiceover artist is saying.
Financial Consideration
Production Budget
The production budget encompasses the money that will be spent on the
production of the commercial therefore doesn’t include the cost of airtime
or any marketing or anything like that.
If the client is working with a community radio station it is likely that the
budget will be worked out by that station’s in-house sales team. This is due
to the much smaller amount of money that runs through the station so like
the production, all the financing is also done at the station to reduce costs.
Whereas if the client is working with a much larger station they will most
likely have a contracted regional/national agency which will do a much more
accurate job of allocating how money is distributed and put to good use.
Production Music Licensing
To use production music for radio
commercials the radio station that is
making the advert or commissions a
production house to make the
advert will have to own a PRS license
called ‘Radio advertising production
music license’. This license gives
radio station permission to use
production music infinitely for that
year.
This is a chart of their current
pricings for this financial year. TSA
stands for Total Share Audience and
How Much Artists Cost?
Using popular casting website
TheVoiceRealm.co.uk I looked into
commission fees for TV and Radio
commercials and this is the chart I was
given. For a 30 to 60 second advert a
local or regional radio station will pay
under £200 whereas a national station
will be paying a total of £933 for one
voice actor. Also this much money only
allows the station to use the
commercial for up to a year. A 2 year
license will set them back double as
much and a lifetime license for 1 actor
will set back a national station almost
£4000.
Scheduling
There are two ways that a client’s commercial can be scheduled into the
radio broadcast which are ‘Run Of Station’ or ‘Flights’. The cheaper option for
companies is Run Of Station which means that after the radio time has been
bought, the station will decide where they want to put your advert in the
broadcast.
Flights is the much more expensive option however it means that the client
can choose what time of day, what day of the week and what time of year
their commercial is shown. This can be a much more effective way of
advertising, for example if the target audience is children the client will want
the advert to be played between 8 and 9 and between 3 and 5 when children
are most likely to be listening to the radio in the car.
Billing
The billing for the commercial will take place before the actual
production of the advert. Clients will contact the radio station with
details of what they want to create, how much airtime they want to
buy and how long they want it licensed for and the radio station will
reply with a quote on how much the bill would be. A client may email
multiple stations at this stage of production to compare costs of
production against the potential audience. After settling on a station
the lump sum bill will be paid and this money will go to the sales team
or agency (after the station take their cut) who will section off the
money into the different parts of the production budget.