News Production Unit - Studio Testing

We had a workshop with Helen and Ferg today to learn more about green screen, auto cue and pieces to camera. I learnt a lot from this as this was the first time id ever used a green screen or an auto cue. The speed of the auto cue was hard to get to grips with as it was very sensitive and we spent of time making sure the green screen was evenly lit but we eventually got there in the end.

You can view what we did below:

Critical Perspectives Unit - Introduction

1) discuss and critically analyze the view that with a successful adaptation, the original work is transformed into something new and different, although retaining many traces of what it was formerly with reference to at least one text adapted for broadcast on television (2500 words)

2) analyze the implications of online journalism and extent to which 'we are all journalists now, making reference to examples both traditional broadcast journalism and citizen journalism.


1)
what is it asking you to consider
what television broadcast could you consider referencing as case studies
how viable is this as a choice
what are the challenges in answering this option and using your chosen case study




BOOK -> Translation -> SCREEN

SUCCESSFUL -> box office, multiple adaptations, viewing figures, critical response

TRACES -> plot ( how its developed for modern audiences, is it split into episodes), characters (clothes etc), tone (multiple people involved on screen).

NEW & DIFFERENT -> Technology, Modernised.



 

News Production Unit - Location Ideas

Since we are doing an events project we needed to do some in-depth research on what was happening this month. We decided that being Halloween there was going to be a lot of events happening around the country to do with this so we started there. We came across an event called 'Shocktoberfest' which is a world famous scream park happening in Crawley. They had a press office number so I decided to give them a call. I spoke to someone who was happy with what our project was and gave us press access to the event as well as an interview with the owner. We will be using this event reporting as live from the location.

In order to build upon and improve what we achieved in previous units, we all felt participation was key to this project so the audience can really see what the event is like. We decided that the interview will take place on 'The Haunted Hayride' so that it would make it enjoyable to watch for the viewers.

Another location we have thought about is Oktoberfest as it gives a nice mix steering away from halloween as the whole thing. Since our video will be aimed at young adults we felt this would appeal to our audience as well as the Shocktoberfest event.

After deciding on this event we did some research into what Oktoberfest events were happening around the U.K. We decided that Hemel Hempsted looked like the best one visually as it was Europe's largest traveling Oktoberfest and they had a jam packed event schedule with plenty to see and do. I have contacted them to see if there would be any chance of gaining press access to the event.

Our final idea which we feel would be plausible to the channel we are making would be Diwali festival at trafalgar square in London. Its been running for 16 years and we felt it would be great to add diversity and culture into our film to appeal to a wider audience of the age range we are aiming towards.

News Production Unit - Our final Idea

Over the past week and discussing with Jo, our group have been thinking about how we can look at our initial ideas and develop them into a more solid and workable product. We decided not to concentrate on just Halloween but look at October as a whole focusing on the events that were taking place in that month. Our brand will be looking at the events covered throughout October and to cover them for our target audience so they can see whats happening over the country.

Our target audience will be young adults aged 18 - 28 so we would cover events that would appeal to them. We could see that working in a real working environment creating a well-developed brand that people would be able to associate and look at for events over the month to come as well as promoting companies for what they do creating more custom.

Over the next week, we will start to look at locations of the events taking place and book onto these places hoping to gain press access and interviews to give viewers an insight of whats to come around the UK.

News Production Unit - Initial ideas and research

After we got into our groups, our team decided to sit down and brainstorm ideas. after an initial few I started to think about something that was relevant to what was going on at this present time and I suggested to the group that we could focus on Halloween. Its relevant and its interesting as well as something that we can participate in to allow the audience to follow with us.

Where halloween began:
The first signs of people celebrating halloween can be traced back to nearly 2000 years ago where it was called Samhain meaning summers end in Gaelic. This is where a communal meeting would take place to gather all crops and foods ready for the winter months where nothing would grow. There have been vast links to say they believed the dying crops was linked to the visitation of evil or the dead. Since this time, in the 1800s the festival was well adopted by the American and Canadian countries but had evolved into the time of year when people (especially teenagers) would play pranks such as egging houses. As the pranking got more escalated and out of hand it was encouraged that people should dress up and knock on peoples doors in return for sweets. This tradition has vastly spread all over the world and is highly associated in modern times as the main things to do on the 31st of October. There are also christian links to halloween that suggest satanic rituals and witches would be carried out on this day to summon evil.

Commerciality:
There is some serious financial gain when looking at how independent and big commercial companies can make money off the halloween season. In the UK, it has become more and more popular over the years rising up 3000% in products brought since 2001. This includes things like fancy dress costumes, fake blood, pumpkins and party decorations. Tesco forecast there sales to be over £400,000,000 so it pretty clear that us Brits are loving the festival more and more each year.

Events:
There are lots of events that take place in October for halloween. Although the season is a high staple to Americans to attend events, its more and more popular in the UK as well. They range from family fun to the scary extreme, all ticketed to make profit in the commercial sector. Below are some of the things the British public can expect to engage in over the October period.

Scare maze attraction events (Thorpe Park, Alton Towers, Chessington World of Adventures, Tulleys Farm - Shocktober Fest, Fort Amherst - Halloween Horrors

News Production Unit - Introduction

Today I had a lecture on a new unit I'm starting all surrounding news. Its objectives break down into finding stories and constructing a narrative, involving contributors, finding locations, scripting, interviewing, sequencing and GV's to pull together a finalised project. Team work, organisation and time management skills will be vital to the project and with being very involved in the documentary we did last year, I believe a lot of these skills will be brought forward.

Some new skills that I will need to learn over the course of this unit are reporting, branding, news anchoring and sourcing talent. With the project being submitted in 6 weeks I will need to put everything to practice and learn fast to ensure a good project is received at the end of it. I want to achieve an in depth critical understanding of news and to create a body of work that shows the true meaning of how news for an online channel is created.

To start off we looked at some previous work from the course. In the art news project, although it was structured together well, the scripting was very repetitive and seemed very stiff. This showed me that our group will need to make sure the script is well written. It was fairly boring and with the repetitiveness from the writing the whole thing needed a bit more energy with something that viewers will enjoy watching.

We looked at some others and Helen pointed out some key elements that we could concentrate on in terms of structure, lighting, sound and editing. From the documentary our group learnt a very important lesson, show the audience don't just tell them. This is important to anything factual as it allows the audience to come on the journey with the presenter rather than just telling them about it.