For the main part of this week research is why I chose Riverside Country Park as one of my locations.
The old rusty broken down boat
I wanted this in my film to show symbolism of life which in some terms is what I thought the poem was all about, especially at the beginning. The boat is rusty, old and not doing it's job anymore, I had a thought on what if machines have feelings? This boat (back in the day) I imagined what it was like back in the day when it was young, brand new and had a purpose by helping people crossing the water. But now it's rusted and abandoned and my character comes to this boat and measures it like as the poem says "You weren't made just to die".
The Power plant
At Riverside at a distance you can see a massive power plant that I wanted to represent the power and corruption of men and how it's destroying our planet as it's described in the poem.
I had planned todo the beginning of the poem with my main character going to a old broken boat on a beach to then look at a power plant in the distance in resemblance to the corruption of power by men and the boat being the symbolism of human life.
Even I have to admit luck was on my side as the weather was beautiful and some of my shots came out even better then I originally thought.
As planned I used the 50 frames per second function on my Nikon D5200 so that when I put it into editing I could slow the footage down so it would look more dramatic yet smooth at the same time.
My actor John Redding did a fantastic first job and what relieves me the most is that there are some actors that directors can't work with daily because of their attitudes but me and john got along like a house on fire.
What I didn't know was that John is in fact a part time comedian and thats why as he read my poem he was loud, passionate and clear.
A successful first day recording the only issue was that when I contacted the Kent Film Office they told me that a track and dolly was not aloud on location so some of my vision was changed and I had to wing it with most of the time I had while on location.
The poem by Anthony Anaxuguru was for me quite a challenge as it tested me about how much I knew about what the poem is trying to represent.
Since I knew who my actor was as well as the main locations I would be using, I had a better vision of what I wanted but as they say sometimes taking that first step is always the hardest as it is often writing a script. But I knew how I wanted to end it but what I wanted from the beginning was the hardest part. I had to get help for my other peers on how I could start the video and they suggested, trying going simple and not over thinking it, as making the video too complicated would require more work then it already needed it to be.
News is the most relevant source
of global media out there as unlike television shows or other media driven
entertainment, news gives out stories that impact audiences and keeps them up
to date on our world today.
In this critical analysis I will be
using my group’s news show (Film House News) as my case study as well as
showing my general knowledge of news production and how it’s evolved. How news
teams find and develop impacting stories, the importance of the news agenda,
and reflecting on my experience working on this project and what I have learnt.
To achieve this I will be looking at many different examples of professional
news and comparing the issues they have to tackle to how my news production had
to tackle with those same problems.
How
has the News evolved?
As
we look at news now we see that it's accessible within all sorts of formats.
From newspapers to television and now the internet, with all sorts of blogs and
company websites dedicated to keeping us, the human race updated on what’s
happening on our planet right now.
As
our technology has become stronger and faster as well as information becoming
more easily accessible, we are living in the age of evolution when it comes to
ITC and all aspects of media.
As
Terry Flew wrote, “At their simplest, theories of new media propose that the
information and communications technology (ICT) revolution that has gained
momentum from the 1080s onward”.
With
our up to date electronic devises, the news seems to be more part of our daily
lives wherever we go, it’s everywhere weather your sitting at home watching
television, surfing the web, the news is everywhere and in 2013 studies show in
the Digital News report that 76% in the UK alone use their computers and
combined, 79% use both tablets and smart phones (e.g. IPhones, IPads) to access
the news.
Here
is short video on how people access the news on different multi media platforms:
Case
Study
-Preparation
Preparation
is one of the most important things to do when it comes to any media related
production especially news as you need to know what you’re doing before you
head off into the field doing interviews or going into the studio preparing to
be broadcasted to lots of people at home ready to be updated.
-Finding people/ Interviewees
My
team used Casting Call Pro to help us find a professional presenter for our
news production. Casting Call Pro is a production company based in parts of the
UK, USA, South Africa, Czech Republic, Romania, Argentina and Uruguay. It’s an
online database filled with actors and actresses for hire. The process for us
was quite long and some interviews and auditions had to take place via the
online video calling website Skype.
When
it comes to presenting in news there are a few things that a presenter needs to
have. According to The National Careers Service the requirement to be a
presenter is that you would need to have excellent personal presentation and a
clear voice. You’ll also need to have a good memory to recall facts and be able
to improvise if something unplanned happens.
Flowing up on
this, there are not significant qualifications needed into becoming a presenter
although most presents do have a degree.
-Concept and Branding Development
With
the concept for my group we decently wanted to do something film related.
Unlike BBC News that cover major stories on a more global scale like top
stories, sports, weather, and politics, some news blogs and online shows go for
a different approach like TMZ, a news show edged on celebrity gossip and
propaganda.
Depending
on the branding often depends on your audience your trying to tackle. Audience
research is very important as they are the people your trying to grab and in
some cases take part in your show, maybe ask them for an interview for a
subject or story your trying to cover.
-Scripting
Firstly it
would be good to address from the book, studio television and directing that...
·'Scripting is a production function -
writing - that has a good deal of impact on how a Director actually cues a
program' (Utterback, 2007 :136).
Unlike film scripts, documentary and news scripts are almost
similar as they put what are sounds and what actions are going to be presented
on different sides of the paper. As explained again from Andrew Utterback's
book.
·'The first column indicates production
information. The right-hand column is where the actual script will follow the
protocol of the rundown' (Utterback, 2007 :136).
This script
shows -
·On the left the timing of which an
action will take place
·In the middle, the video/ action
showing what will happen on screen
·Lastly on the right, The audio/ words
that people will say during the production
When it came to my teams script, we had the right angle but
since we were running low on time due to a complication and we had no idea what
the day would be like when it came to filming. So we made sure to have the
video/ actions at the right, and the words I was going to say on the right.
When
my team did our video package, we had to make sure that...
1.We had an audience-grabbing story,
which was well developed.
2.We get our interviewee
3.An accessible location
According
to media.about.com:
News packages usually run for 1:15 to 2:00 in length. In the case of
magazine-style news programming, packages can be 20 minutes or longer. This
type of news presentation is best for complicated stories or ones that have
multiple interviews. (Halbrooks: 2015)
-Live Report
Unlike
a package report that has already been recorded and edited together a live
report is done on the spot and is broadcasted from the news studio right to the
place where you would see the news reporter at their location ready to
summarize what event they are covering and what is happen at the present time
he or she is being filmed.
But when it comes to conducting a
live interview there are a certain amount of skills that a professional news anchor
would use when doing it. From Broadcast Journalism A critical introduction by
Jane Chapman is says that;
The
more planning that goes into them, the better they will be.
You
must find out from the producer how long they would have for the
interview. (They being, the news anchor reporting and their interviewee).
Be
realistic about how many questions you will fit into that time.
For this type of news report it
was decided that we would have to pre recorded and edit our live report into
our live show like a news package. Our studio was just us in a small room with
a green screen with our presenter. We did not have the right technology in
order to execute a live report. To achieve we had to make sure that our script
for the presenter was edited to make it sound like we were going from one
location to another to convey going from one place to another as well as making
it look like we were still in the present time that our show would have been
shot.
Conclusion:
What I have learned throughout
understanding journalism and news production is that it’s definitely harder
then it looks. Finding and developing stories, finding the right people to talk
to, finding locations to shoot, and even preparing to present the news all
require 3 things, research, research and even more research. It wasfrustrating I have to admit but in order to get the best out
of our show, it had to be done. With my news production in a whole, I thought we
did pretty well for what we had in terms with the stories as well as the
stories we had to put down. The only set back was the BFI story as we believed
didn’t really have a well developed enough story and had not much of an impact.
It was informative but in terms of a story there was nothing, so for the show
we had to put it down. The news genre is a lot bigger and more global then some
people take it for, even on social media such as Facebook and Twitter people
will share stories that people can stop and look at and then click the link to
the news blog/ website to find out more about the story that caught their eye.
All in all I have found a new
resect for those people who have to deal with deadlines shorter than mine and
have to really get out there and get us the stories we need to hear for our
benefit. It is a very stressful job being a journalist, I know that now and
thanks to this experience I found a more handy way to research deeper into
subjects that is just in front of our eyes. There is a difference between
looking and seeing, you look at a story and depending what you red you can
choose to believe it or not. When you research and go deeper into the subject
of the story then you could instantly change your opinion and see the story in
a different light.
There is a saying, you learn
something everyday, and with this news project I can definitely say that is
true.
