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Sophia Square

• Message 1. 

  Posted by Rhys Phillips (U15624331) on Thursday, 21st February 2013

  Hello everyone,
  
  So I've been tempted back to Mustardland for it's swan song. Hello to those who remember me, greetings to those that don't!
  
  I'm going to keep my discussion to the Absent Friends thread really but thought I'd use the opportunity to mention this community project I'm involved with.
  
  My love of the Archers is what got me into student and later community radio. I now present breakfast, jazz, science and quiz shows as well as news bulletins. But more relevant to here, is something that started last summer.
  
  Three of us at Radio Cardiff, brought together by our common love of TA, decided we needed our own soap on the station. We decided to launch it as a community project.
  
  Sophia Square had a pilot episode in August, a series of five episodes in October and a two part xmas special. We're currently developing series two to go out around Easter and before that, we're attempting a live broadcast with some members of the public stepping in to help as extras and doing sound effects at the start of March (that one tying in with a National Theatre of Wales event taking place in Cardiff the same day).
  
  It is entirely a voluntary project - the cast of over 20, the small writing team of 8, the director and myself as producer are all doing this unpaid in our own time. It is a looong process - story planning meetings followed by the writers going away and writing - a week later they present their scripts to by reviewed by the whole group, our director who also acts as script editor then puts everything together, making the storylines and characters consistent and it's rehearsals.
  
  Series 1 was recorded in one day - 9 hours to record what became 5 x 10 minute episodes. We recorded in a tiny boiling hot studio with only two working microphones. Each episode took me 2-3 hours to edit and do the audio production on - editing takes, adding in sound effects, music, ambient background sounds etc. But we're really pleased with the results.
  
  The cast and writing crew are both made up of a mixture of pros giving their time for free and people with no previous experience. Of course the quality isn't ´óÏó´«Ã½ standard but I think it's pretty good for what it is. We're learning from our mistakes as we go along and improving - the xmas specials are definitely the better episodes.
  
  It's been a really rewarding and fulfilling project - very time consuming but we're so proud of it.
  
  I'd love to hear feedback from the Bull regulars. It is based on a fictional community in Cardiff - for those not familiar with the Grangetown/Butetown/Bay area of Cardiff, there is a strong Jamaican and Somali population and our soap reflects this along with "outsiders" (students) and strong 'Taf' accents.
  
  I won't put the website address just in case but if you google for "Sophia Square" you will find it. If you get chance to listen to any of it and have any comments - storylines, script, acting, audio production - I'd love to hear it, either on here or by emailing me (link at bottom of SS website).
  
  Rhys

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