TV News Project Evaluation

 

Project Evaluation:

From the moment our group began developing “U2D News” it was unanimously decided that we would be focussing on stories that concerned people in our age group, mostly big issues and sometimes a way to lessen these issues with good alternative mindsets. We decided that the best target audience to target would be the age range of 16-40 years old and we would go for a light and vibrant colour palette, commonly used on quick, digestible news programmes. We then began researching into issues that were targeting our demographic and we noticed that the most relevant and growing story would be that on the rise of spiking’s in the UK and how they have been affecting people. We also decided we needed to focus on a climate change-based story, so we chose sustainable fashion as a subject, a light but still serious story that people can actively engage in.

We then began researching the topics and figuring out the structure of the show, influenced by BBC Newsround and online News outlet Popbuzz. We figured we’d follow a kind of mixture or Newsround’s structure of story placement being that serious ones go before light ones and that we would take a witty but still serious when thing things have to be idea for the host from popbuzz. Over the workshops we were able to get an idea as a group of how the U2D News package would look as a whole, we played around with the camera we had been shown, the Panasonic AG DVX200, to create a very rough test of how the presenter would present the intro. It gave me personally the chance to start to come into my own with the presenting in how to properly maintain a constant focussed and engaging flow. During this time, we started working on our social media pages and we got some contributors who were willing to help us out for both our story on spiking and our story on sustainable fashion. This made it easier for me and my co-writer to start to make way on the script. I put in dialogue and questions to ask some of our contributors whilst my co-writer researched further into some of the topics we were covering.

 

 

 

 

As shoot week got closer, we had to show our scripts for our two respective segments, we changed some of the wording of the questions in the spiking segment as some could have come off as harsh and cold but that was most of what we had to change. We also had a few issues with acquiring location contributors, especially in trying to find a pub to talk to, however, eventually in the end, we found someone who was willing to let us film there despite how they could have seen it as a way of possibly pointing the finger at them and saying they’re to blame. Which is not the case.

So, we began filming once all this was sorted, we started off with filming our promo which took an hour to set up and about 10 minutes to film, we again like in the workshop had some issues with light reflecting in my glasses but we decided to put them all mostly above my head and it seemed to work, the final footage we got came out really good, we did a couple different takes to get the autocue set up just right, but when we did, it worked brilliantly. Later that day we filmed our first interview with Trent Porter for our sustainable fashion segment which couldn’t have gone better. We had set up a bit before the call to make our set ready and got a TV working which I could turn to throughout the interview as if Trent was actually there. Trent himself was a fantastic interviewee and we only had to do one take with him to get what we needed.

However, upon further reflection we did notice the messy nature of where Trent was joining us from on zoom, maybe next time we could have asked him to choose a less messy angle of the room he was in.

The next shoot we filmed the rest of my in-studio scenes, this included transitions into other segments, our pre-opening credits intro, giving important facts about the stories and our outro. It took us a little bit to match up our set with how it looked in our interview with Trent, but eventually we got there and could begin recording. Recording again went really well. After this I wasn’t needed on shoot for a couple more days, but by the sounds of things all shooting went well and judging by the footage we got its clear that’s the case. The next time I was needed back to film was when we shot our Vox Pops.

 

 

 

When shooting for this, we wanted to get as diverse a group of people as possible, we got 3 contributors which is less than we hoped for but each of the contributors were really good and individually brought some new opinions to the table, we asked a lot of people where we were shooting who unfortunately declined and we would have tried to get some more but then the weather turned out to be not on our side as it began to rain, so we decided to pack up our equipment, a little underwhelmed but still happy with what we got.

Then came time for the edit, I contributed to the edit by writing new bits of voice over dialogue when asked to and working with the editor to find a place to fit them. Doing the VO gave us the chance to see which parts connected to the story and which were necessary. We ended up cutting a lot out. Especially the humour we originally planned to keep in it, however we just saw it as unnecessary when it came to how it linked to some of the other stories. Luckily, we still had the tone we wanted to get for the programme. I did my last bit of VO a couple days before the final edit and that was basically me done on my part. I think we came out with a pretty great Final Cut, while there are a few technical errors here and there with our graphics and our TV prop, our package delivers clear, concise and entertaining news. I think we could have also done with maybe some more music in between graphics as sometimes it feels there’s a lot of emptiness between people speaking. Sometimes there’s also an occasional dip to black for about a second or two, which could maybe confuse the audience sometimes into thinking the show is over.

U2D news was a really fun and challenging project for us to sink our teeth into, I think for me personally it was fun to learn a style of writing I wasn’t as well versed in and learn the high-pressure quick turn arounds on it. It makes you really push out every idea you’ve got. Our final product came out really well I think, and our group worked together fantastically and really pulled together when we needed each other most. Definitely one of my favourite units we’ve done so far.