Critical Analysis of New Production Project

Intro:

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.

Figure 1. Accessing new per device by household income – UK. (2013) [screenshot] At: http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2013/the-growth-of-multi-platform-news-2013/ (Accessed on 16/11/2015)

Even now in 2015 the key findings show that computer users has now gone up 83% and smartphones is now 66% and tablet users 57%.

Figure 2. The Growth of Screens and New Platforms. (2015) [Screenshot] At: http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2015/the-growth-of-screens-and-new-platforms-2015/ (Accessed on 16/11/2015)

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.

Figure 3. TMZ Homepage. (2015) [Screenshot] At: http://www.tmz.com (Accessed on 18/11/2015)

-        Audience

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.

Figure 4. Scripting For News. (2015) [online] At: http://lawrencematthewsedgwick.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/research-and-development-28102015-news.html (Accessed on 16/11/2015)

-        Video Packaging

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 was frustrating 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.

Illustration list:

Figure 1. Accessing new per device by household income – UK. (2013) [screenshot] At: http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2013/the-growth-of-multi-platform-news-2013/ (Accessed on 16/11/2015)

Figure 2. The Growth of Screens and New Platforms. (2015) [Screenshot] At: http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2015/the-growth-of-screens-and-new-platforms-2015/ (Accessed on 16/11/2015)

Figure 3. TMZ Homepage. (2015) [Screenshot] At: http://www.tmz.com (Accessed on 18/11/2015)

Figure 4. Scripting For News. (2015) [online] At: http://lawrencematthewsedgwick.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/research-and-development-28102015-news.html (Accessed on 16/11/2015)

Bibliography:

Chapman, J & Kinsey, M (2009) Broadcast Journalism A critical introduction. New York: Routledge.

Digital News Report (2015) The Growth of Multi-Platform News. At: http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2013/the-growth-of-multi-platform-news-2013/ (Accessed on 16/11/2015)

Flew, T (2007) Understanding Global Media. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.0

Halbooks, G. (2015) News Package. At: http://media.about.com/od/mediatermsandglossary/g/News-Package.htm (Accessed on 16/11/2015)

National Careers Service. (2015) TV Presenter Job Information – UK – 2015. [Online] At: https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/advice/planning/jobprofiles/Pages/tvpresenter.aspx (Accessed on 16/11/2015)

Utterback, Andrew (2007) studio television and directing. Abingdon: Focal Press