Pitch

I intend for my package to begin with a piece to camera, introducing viewers to the idea behind the package itself, and also giving them an indication of what is to come by talking directly to them. We will then have a voice over come in, further introducing the subject, and will probably start off with a statistic or figure that may potentially surprise people, coming off something like this: “In the UK, the media sector employs just 550,000 people, encompassing roles in animation, computer games, film production, interactive media, radio and television,” and then finish off by asking the audience; “What does this mean for the thousands of budding hopefuls trying to merely get their foot in the door of the industry?”

Ideally the package would end with just a piece to camera, where the presenter will be seen walking towards the camera, finishing up by rounding up and summarising the findings, then giving a sign off - possibly in Media City – with the camera craning up at the end cutting to the intimidating figure of a BBC tower.

There will be several voice overs throughout, the first of which was mentioned earlier, they will be used primarily to explain statistics presented, to explain the concept of the VT itself briefly and to introduce VoxPops or talking heads within the VT. The package should only require a relatively small kit, with one camera, one boom mic and a wind jammer, a spare battery, tape or SD card depending on camera and a tri-pod (and plate) is more or less all I should need.

There will be various locations for the shooting of the VT, ranging from within the Fielden campus section of the college, talking to our student body and tutors, gaining relevant opinions and information on everything from the state of the media industry to the realities of work after education. I intend for the VT production to also venture into more exclusive surroundings, in the form of Media City for example, and if there is a chance of relevance, I hope to take the package onto the streets of Manchester as well, to gain the opinions of the general public.

A crew of two should be adequate, maybe three if possible, one to interview and present, one to man the camera and one to operate the sound aspects of the shoot. Filming will hopefully be done over one long weekend, with me living in Liverpool, it is difficult to lug the equipment back and forward, so if I aim for it to be completed over either the weekend of 12^th April if the equipment is available, alternatively the following weekend at a push.

Copyright

  Copyright is the legal term that describes the event of someone creating something original, and then to ensure that no one else 'copies' or steals any aspect from this idea - for commercial gain - they will seek out legal protection in the form of a 'copyright' trademark. 

   The length of this protection is usually fairly short, with the creator having the option to renew copyright generally on a year to year basis, but they will always have exclusive rights to renew it before anyone else, once the copyright been granted has been granted in the first place, unless a court of law intervenes and rules otherwise.

  All the time you see people and companies testing the limits and pushing boundaries, in terms of dealing with copyright, and trying to avoid the trap of being caught within its grasp. Some people seem to know how to deal with the laws of copyright better than others, and are able to find loopholes and faults within the system, to then profit or gain some sort of advantage, while some simply ignore it entirely; something we have seen over and over again in the world of illegal downloading. Just this year we have seen one of the biggest cases of copyright infringement of all time, with the now infamous founder of Megaupload Kim DotCom, being found guilty of copyright infringement on an unbelievable amount of different charges to do with the filesharing website.

  It is something that we as students of Broadcast Journalism must learn about in great detail, as the extent of being in breach of it comes with very hefty consequences, and I personally wouldn't like to be employed by a company and to somehow fall into the trap of copyright infringement, as the potential is there to not only lose your job, but a serious jail sentence is very possible.

News Package Research

 

For part of my research into this project, I have been looking at various types news packages, this first one being one that aired on the BBC in 2005. This is as good a place as any I feel to start, as this video was on YouTube, so to be able to research and look at a BBC news package without having to deal with the usually strict and precious nature of the BBC, it makes things much easier.

  I felt this was a good video to look at, as although the content is of a very heavy nature, and the package itself is actually shorter than our required package deadline time, it still manages to tick some the boxes that I will need to tick with my VT, in terms of the pre determined requirements that feature on the module handbook and have been mentioned in class. For instance, once the piece begins we have a voice over that comes over the top of related GV's, we have an interview which also features a lower third - an example of a graphic we should use - and we have a sign off voice over that comes at the end over the top of more related GV's.

Booking Equipment

I will hopefully begin filming over the weekend of the 13th April, aiming to get everything done over the four days, so that all I have left is to edit and do any voice overs that are needed. The equipment list for the shoot can be seen below, and should be all i'll need for a two man shoot:

1x Sony V1

1x Tripod w/ plate

1x ECM Tie Mic

1x Boom Mic  XLR wire

2x XLR cable

1x Sony battery

1x Headphones

Collecting - Thursday 26th April at 12pm

Returning - Monday 30th April 9.30am

Personal Development Diary

Following on from last week, when we found out our teams for the project, we have now found out the roles that we will be undertaking on the final 30 minute show, it will be as follows:

Daniel Ainsworth - Director
Jack Ware - Vision Mixer
Nyasha Tsikai - Floor Manager
Andy Tabner - Sound
Ashley Artingstall -  Autocue
Matty Jump - Producer
Danny Jack - Cam 1
Luis Winder - Cam 2
Mikael Hasanzad - Cam 3
Erin Roche - Presenter


Fred Velody - Runner

When gathering ideas as to what people seem to want to do as a VT, it looks like the news programme will consist of the following packages:

Jobs

Local Community

Drugs

Sport

Music

Comedy

Technology

Animals

Crime

Current Affairs

Personal Development Diary

  For the last few weeks in News Room Operations, we have been gradually becoming more and more familiar as to what our task for the year will be, and we have been asked to begin putting into practice our ideas for the news package that will come to form part of the final 30 minute, back-timed programme at the end of the year.

  This Project will account for a large portion of our final grade, so rigourous planning is essential, I have been putting ideas onto the form of a Prezi, which is a handy tool for creating presentations. I will eventually put the finished document on this blog, when I feel its completed to a good enough standard.

  We have also been told that the Project will be done by two teams, so the class has been split down the middle, with two sort of team captains picking their sides, with Ashley picking one team, and Josh picking the other team, they are as follows:

Ashley Artingstall
Luis Winder
Jack Ware
Andy Tabner
Mikael Hasanzad
Danny Jack
Erin Roche
Nyasha Tsikai
Matty Jump
Daniel Ainsworth
Fred Velody


  The general idea behind my news package, will be looking at the realities of first-time work in the media industry, and the difficulties this can bring with it, as one of the most exclusive and selective industries in the UK today, some students - including myself - may have their sights set too high, I aim to look into the best available routes and to gain some valuable first hand insight from industry professionals.


* Edit - 15/04/12

http://prezi.com/ztp_8csnbzoo/idea-pitch/

My Roles

17/01/12

My roles on this day were as follows:

Performance 2 - Camera 1

  The second act of the day was Yu Min Kang, a long with Andrew Tarling on backing vocals, she performed 'Until I See You Again'. For this act I was assigned to Camera 1, which was the camera on the far left side of the studio floor, with Yu Min Kang closest and Andrew Tarling on the other side.
  I enjoyed this role a lot, and feel that I offered up a variety of shots to the directing and vision mixing team of Andrew Greenland and Rebecca Quarmby, respectively. As the perfomance was relatively sedated and rather static throughout, there wasn't a lot to offer in up in terms of action shots, but it gave us as a team, time to be more creative with our output, for instance, I tried to offer Andrew a couple of shots that moved in and out of focus, among other things, but the main shot he seemed to like that I gave him was a sort of close-up of Yu Min playing keyboard and moving in and round that area.

Performance 4 - Sound

  Next up, it was my turn to take on the role of the sound mixer. For this, I would be working from the gallery, right next to the director and the vision mixer (Jack & Kassem). The act that was performing during this were Charlie Cheesecake & the Corned Beef Inspectors, a three-piece consiting of Andrew Tarling, Elliot Beese and Mike Devaney.
  With never having done the sound mixing properly in a practice session - or otherwise - before this, it was safe to say I was fairly apprehensive when I found out it would be the role I would be taking up at some point in the day. However, during the third act, I was able to stay in the gallery and watch over Imogen as she did this role just before me, so I was able to take note and ask her some questions about it afterwards. With Imogen's input, I felt I was equipped and ready to perform the role to a good standard.
  With the act I was mixing being a full band, as opposed to Yu Min Kang on acoustic guitar, which is what Imogen took care of, I was wary of the fact that some of the settings may have had to have been toned down somewhat. The green room interview ended, and the performance began so I raised the dials, but it quickly became apparent that my caution was too heavy handed and the sound output was far too low, I reacted as quickly as I could to improve the sound and thankfully was able to fix the problem, keeping everything pretty well mixed from then on, despite the early hiccup.

Performance 5 - Camera 4

  During this performance I had to take charge of Camera 4, which is the camera used in the green room where the post-performance interviews take place, with this camera not coming equipped with a tripod I had to use it as a standalone instrument, I went with the technique of harbouring it on my shoulder to film the interviews, which let me keep the camera quite static and left me able to capture the interview more or less as though I was using a tripod, but still granted me that kind of gonzo feel, and the option to move around freely during the interview.
 
Performance 7 - Online

  For what should of been the final performance of the day, I was assigned to do the online broadcasting, so I was in charge of the UStream and making sure the production itself was properly broadcast, on the Manchester College UStream site.
  This role was another one I hadn't really had much experience in, something I had only really seen people do, or watch Colin do from the practice sessions. All that was required really was to know when to stop the broadcast in order to save what had been filmed, name it and then save it, in order to start recording the next section which would be the interview, if this was done properly, then the role is pretty much done with.
 The event was broadcast without any real problems, and I was quite happy with my individual input during this performance, however, although I had recorded the broadcast, it was unfortunately not captured on the tri-caster which meant the only version of the performance was a slightly pixelated copy that I had recorded from the live stream.
 

My Roles

10/01/12

My roles on this day were as follows:

Performance 3 - Vision Mixer

  During this performance, I was scheduled to be the vision mixer. This was one of the roles I was very keen on doing at least once throughout the performance, I really enjoyed doing this from back when we first started doing it with Colin in the studio. Also, this is the role I have to undertake in Ricardo's assessment, so I thought it would be good experience to try and get some experience during this task.
  I feel I performed this role very well, and was probably my best effort throughout the day. I had Ashley as my director, and we had discussed our codes for when to switch and when to preview etc. We had also decided the effect that the lower third would use and when it would come in. I felt that I was quick and efficient with the tricaster equipment, and could use it without looking at the buttons, and provided every shot that Ashley asked for.
  I think I was able to this role so well because, first of all, I enjoy doing it. Secondly, the direction was very good, with only one issue when Ashley forgot to ask me to provide the lower third at the time we discussed, but I was able to remind him without affecting his own work. Finally, I think that while some of my classmates tend to use the top bar of buttons on the tricaster, I always work with the lower bar which is the preview section, which may seem like more effort but makes it a lot easier, especially when fading to black etc.

Performance 5 - Camera Assitant 2

  For performance 5, I was supposed to be doing the role of Floor Manager, however, as I was down in the gallery, I was slightly late coming back up to the studio, and a classmate had already picked up the talkback and taken over, which was slightly frustrating as I had waited all morning to get my first role, however we agreed that I would do it for the next act.
  So instead, I was the Camera Assistant 2 for this performance, an important but rather uninteresting role, consisting of tedious manual labour carrying the cables so that camera 2 can run on the track properly, but seen as it is all a team effort, I was more than happy to do it.

News Package Research - Minutes

Groupwork

Minutes of Meetings

14/11/2011

Agendas

1. Find location to film interview

2. Location Recce

Minutes

1. Through discussion, Jack suggested we choose his halls of residence as the location to film

interview. We all agree to film here on 21/11/2011.

2. We have discussed how to travel to location and produced a location recce and agreed to

also film exterior shots of Mansion court. There is also scaffold site nearby and Jack stated

there won’t be ambiance noise that disturbs the sound recording as the noise is hardly heard

from the location, but bear in mind (the scaffold site) during risk assessment as we have to

walk past it.

21/11/2011

Agendas

1. Interviewee unavailable

2. Filming at various student halls for GVs.

3. Contingency plan

Minutes

1. Matty Jump is unavailable for interview today due to a job interview so we will reschedule

interview for next week (28/11/2011).

2. We cannot film at Weston court or Victoria halls as you have to be a resident. Freddie is

a resident at Weston court so he has agreed to ask the reception. After contacting the

reception, he was told that they need to get confirmation from the managers.

3. Instead of shooting interview, we are going to film GV cutaways of The Manchester College,

interior and exterior.

11/01/2012

Agendas

1. Re-shoot

2. Book equipment

Minutes

1. Need few more GVs of Manchester city centre so it establishes that the VT is filmed there.

We agreed to film around Piccadilly on 16/01/2012.

2. Although all of us are busy today with studio show and set-up, we need to try and find time

to book equipment. We can email Dave to book us on to the google calendar (moodle) at

least 48 hours before shooting.

News Package - VT Script

Groupwork

Good Morning Manchester - News Package

Joey Kerrigan

Josh Lloyd

Luis Winder

Jack Ware

FADE IN:

EXT. THE MANCHESTER COLLEGE- FIELDEN CAMPUS

PRESENTER

Higher education comes with many challenges. One of these is

finding accommodation.

Approximately 300 students study undergraduate courses at the

Manchester College.

CUT TO:

GV Cutaways.

Manchester college sign. Students around college, library,

canteen, rear outside.

PRESENTER VO (CONT’D)

The Manchester college is a great place to study, and has

students coming from all over Britain to study at University

degree level.

Students in class working

PRESENTER VO (CONT’D)

Excellent facilties, high quality teaching and one of the

cheapest places to study. Sounds too good to be true, eh?

PRESENTER VO (CONT’D)

Matty Jump is a student at The Manchester College and has had

to travel from Liverpool to get here. He has only just found

accommodation after a few good stressful weeks.

CUT TO:

INT. STUDENT FLAT- DAY

QUESTIONS TO ASK INTERVIEWEE:

1. Do you think there should be more support for students?

2. Are prices reasonable?

3. Have you found accomadation that fits your needs and price

range?

4. Where are you living currently? Is it practical?

5. What more can be done to improve the process?

CUT TO:

EXT. THE MANCHESTER COLLEGE- DAY

Presenter looks into camera

PRESENTER

Liberty Living, one of Britains top student accommodation

providers has partnerships with 18 universities around the UK,

even colleges, but not this one. Why?

CUT TO:

GV cutaways

PRESENTER VO (CONT’D)

Why not email those big companies (you know who they are) and

suggest the change?

Just don’t go setting cars on fire and smashing bus stop

windows in to prove your point (laughs)

After all it is your future.

Well, what are you waiting for?

"This is Josh Lloyd, Good Morning Manchester"

Program Rehearsal - News Package

Today we had our rehearsal for next weeks UStream program broadcast for our assessment, which will take place on the 18th January. With our group going first, scheduled at a 1pm start, we assembled all of our paperwork in the morning, in order to decide upon a proper way to shoot our program. We went off on our briefly in the group to ensure everything had been done and everything needed for the shoot was in order. The roles in our group were as follows:

1. Director - Josh Lloyd
2. Vision Mixer - Luis Winder
3. Producer - Joe Kerrigan
4. Floor Manager - Jack Ware

As I am acting as the vision mixer for our group, I had to make sure that the VT we made as part of our work with Dave was ready to be implemented into the tricaster. With a copy saved I began trying to load it in via USB from my hard drive, which proved to be harder than I expected, eventually we had to add our VT in through the public Lacie server, then accessed from the Tricaster itself so it could be loaded in. With that done, we were more or less ready to begin the shoot, with our cast growing ever more restless, we decided to do a shoot, with some aspects running smoothly, and some not so much. However, the day did prove to be quite important as it showed us that we were still not totally prepared, letting us discover what needs to be done before next week.

Lever St Shoot: Practice

Today we had our official practice shoot at the Lever Street campus, starting off by retrieving the equipment from the van, then hauling it all into the main room where the band would be playing, then downstairs to the studio, which was acting as our Vision Mixing suite. The day was and will be an assessment for a few different courses at the college, so we had to work directly with sound engineers, mixers and performers themselves, who are all due to be assessed as well as our group.

The day got off to a slow start with the setup taking longer than usual, working out technical hiccups and issues with everything from performers not turning up to a general lack of communication in some cases - despite our fancy headsets - and the sweltering heat in the main room, coming from the lights, the abundance of electrics and the high body count. However, once everything was sorted technically, things ran a lot smoother with changeovers getting quicker and quicker, the sound engineers became less disillusioned with the whole thing and we began to get some decent results.

Some tedium:
http://www.ustream.tv/embed/recorded/19678281

My scheduled individual roles for the day were vision mixing for the third act, floor managing for the fifth and camera assitant for the sixth (which we didn't make it to). With my roles completed to what I felt were a good standard, a long and stressful had come to a close. All in all it served as a valuable experience which will no doubt serve to be very important indeed for next week's official shoot, if the people from the other courses decide to turn up we should have a very productive and exciting day on our hands.

Individual Idea Pitch

 Our news package will revolve around student accommodation; looking into why the Manchester College doesn’t provide accommodation for its students as a standard, the same way in which almost every other higher education outlet in Manchester does, and the lack of help or advice from the college in aiding students to find private accommodation elsewhere. We hope that through our research, we will be able to present a news package that is well rounded, in-depth and evenly balanced, that we can then incorporate into our UStream program to serve towards igniting an interesting and healthy debate. We also hope that through providing this information to students at the college, along with students throughout Manchester, we can make more people aware of the issue at hand, and in the process, maybe even change the accommodation problem at the college itself.

 We will research a range of information and statistics; including numbers of attendees going to all Manchester College campuses who are living away from home and students that had to stay at home who would of liked to move into accommodation. We will conduct interviews with people attending the college, who have been directly affected by the issue - in some cases students in our own class - and we will try to gain an interview with someone who works at the college such as the finance counsellor, and finally we hope to gain an interview with someone from an external private hall; e.g. a student welfare officer, all of this serving as our primary research for the assignment.

 The secondary sources we will use to bolster our package will come from a number of places; such as the college website, private accommodation websites, magazines giving listings on available accommodation and accommodation that is available to students of certain Colleges and Universities, but have restrictions on students at the Manchester College, also from a wide range of other news packages on UStream and YouTube.

 In order to create the news package, we intend to film our interviewees at their respective places of residence or work, so for students at the college, we hope to obtain and complete all of the paperwork necessary to film at his/her private halls of residence, as for the staff at college we aim to film the interview at their desk, then the same with the staff at the private halls, hopefully providing a sense of realism and some variety to the package. We will then hope to gain some GV's from in and around the college, the private halls and then around Manchester itself, focussing mainly on student orientated areas, finishing the whole program with a timelapsed film of Media City as a backdrop.