TV Masterclass - the do's and don'ts...

So, just a few important points made at the TV Masterclass

Overall:

contact book - contacts, relations - not only phone calls, face to face contact will give you more information and more detail straight away

targeted audience - think WINOL land - 500 viewers would be the golden target

be more ambitious than last year since were a bigger team - team work absolute vital!

Generally: sport - men, feature - women (balance)

Bulletins:

put work in before monday morning - always bring at least two stories - it's about people not an issue

press officers will not help you and call you back and won't be helpful

talk to the affected people first - for example the Union if job cuts - then council

hit problems and overcome them = success

no need to explain how we've done things or haven't been able to do something

we are journalists

persistance!

right place right time!

you need to write text stories and have photo to go with it this semester and publish on the site alongside with the VT

Harry Evans book! to get the style right

take still photos when you're out and about

fight for your stories to get them in the bulletin and justify why you want it in there

prep before output - watch and scrutinise daily TV bulletins - half hour every day

running order - why to put which story in what order - think of your audience (1,2,3 story)

organisation of bulletin

balance

reporters - hero reporter/presenter that you respect, story crafter

deconstruct, interpret and use in your own work

listen to links (!) - worst aspect at minute - ours are being overlooked at minute - not least important - explain it in link prior to it

*start piece with natural sound - not through reporter

*conflict = story = angle

*develop a story

*soften things - it makes things more natural

*humanise/personalise the story

*change camera around to get different angles for same shot (sequence)

*framing - we shoot in thirds

*best picture first to engage people in your story

*don't start with PTC (piece to camera)

*no guilty signs

Phrases to ban:

I couldn't find a story/feature (- lots of stories going all the time)

I want to do a story about the ... recession (worse than 1)

you have to talk to actual real people, most read papers - especially local ones, listen to radio stations, bulletins

I couldn't do the story cause they didn't ring me back - you can't be passive as a journalist

too little too late - don't use

remains to be seen - don't use

I spoke to (name)... / I'm at (place)... - don't do - use captions

Targets:

women sport and other sports (not only football) better mix

not rely on highlight packages every week

one featured team from campus in bulletin each week

cultivate sport

Production:

a bit more ambitious with production - especially since we've got the tricaster now so use it more from outside the studio (OB's preferably 1 a week etc)

work on projects, not only the bulletin, such as updating the intro, the look at the show, green screen

team has to get trained in using Joomla (CMS - content management system)

and also some Flash training to be able to make headers and such on website

Features:

a lot more pictures, photography, think visually!

feature program to go on back of WINOL bulletin

booker - someone to book guests etc - maybe a first year student?

need to be more fun and eye catching

cross pollination between departments to promote each other

WINOL Debrief - May 12th

Last weeks live edition of WINOL was probably one of the slickest, best looking and most news worthy bulletin we have managed to put on air so far. The stories were all in on time, luckily there was not many technical problems in the studio, or out on the field, and everybody knew what they were doing and everyone gave 100% in doing so. I think mostly this was thanks to the live general election coverage we hosted the week previous to last, when we all worked producing live television for hours and hours, and thanks to everything we learnt this evening, it was easier to put together the 10 minute WINOL bulletin than it has been before. Overall, the bulletin ran over with 10 seconds, which is the best running time so far - and I am sure it would have been spot on if the VT-computer had not frozen at the start of a package. Sound is still a hard nut to crack, and it seems we might need to focus on this issue in our practice run on Wednesday to perfect this, and as director it might be worth shouting even louder for the sound guy to hear what is going on.

The traffic was unfortunately not very high, only just under one hundred people watched it on LiveStream, and as Chris pointed out that we need to promote ourselves better with leaflets, social networking and other ways to promote what we are doing. One thing that might help is bringing back 'Date of Fate' which attracted quite a big audience every week, and maybe develop other similar type of shows that can attract an audience which might stay around our website to not only watch this, but also read our text stories and familiarise themselves with who we are and what we are doing every week, and hopefully want to keep coming back to our news service.

"Symmetry is boring"

Chris Horrie

Some technical details... Chris mentioned that we should not keep the presenter in the center of the camera, as this is very symmetrical ... and boring. Play around with the angles and get a more interesting and asymmetrical shot so that the audience can be a bit more entertained... Also, we should zoom in tighter on the presenter to give a feeling of him/her telling the news in your face, like a friend would. Additionally we have to get better at writing the scripts. At the moment they are alright, but they need some polishing and we definitely need to simplify them. We are telling the news. Simple. Not features. Complicated. So we need to keep the language structure simple so that everyone can digest what has been said first time around, cause you will not hear it twice. A more factual, less poetic script!

First package on air this week was Stuart's which, as always, delivered an excellent piece - this week about Winchester's own Conservative candidate Steve Brine and his first day in Westminster after the coalition had been made official. Potentially, there could be some juxtaposition going on in the piece when speaking about a former member of Parliament as the same time as the Cromwell statue is being shown - Cromwell former member of Parliament? Throughout the package the scripting improved and towards the end it was excellent, and the piece the camera was spot on perfect.

Secondly Grant provided a very well balanced package with an almost perfect script. As a pay off we all have to improve though, and cannot keep saying "wait and see" and such, it needs to be more concrete and definite! Like Chris said, a "near perfect package"!

Following these two political packages, Joey contributed with a well balanced piece about a race row that broke out at the University of Winchester during one of the BOP nights. Even though the angle was good, it might have been possible to have made it even more distinct. It was technically not excellent, but the script was simple and very good for a news package.

Last one of the more heavy news packages on the agenda for the bulletin was Claire's report on teenage pregnancy in Hampshire, and how it's risen throughout the last years. Unfortunately this was more of a featury package than news one, but a very good one. There was also quite a lot of comment going on, which tends to lean towards feature as well, since you are not allowed to comment in news.

At this point sports should have made an entrance, but this week we didn't have very much at all, except for Josh talking for a minute about rugby and what will happen later on this year. This basically due to the football season being over, and the sports team not being able to find very much else going on in and around Winchester.

Finally, Paul added some flavour to quite a heavy bulletin with his story about award winning tea - even though it was good it missed a bit of balance, and also that sting that makes people more interested in it. A nice puff piece to finish off one our best bulletins so far, which we all were very pleased with.

Hopefully, with BJTC coming around for an inspection this week, we can produce just as a good bulletin again!

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