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Sunday, 31 October 2010

TV News Reporting Week 5

With Angus back in the classroom again, we went on to look further at the ways TV News is put together, and how to do it for ourselves.

When out on assignment, there are some useful things that you should always remember to do in preparation to make sure that everything you do will run as smoothly as possible:

1. Do your research - all the research that you can do and all the preparation you can do BEFORE you go out makes the whole process easier, so make sure you know what you're doing before you even leave.
2. Know the library of shots you already have.
3. Know where you are going - make sure you don't get lost!
4. Forward planning - it all helps towards making things run smoother in the long run.
5. Check your equipment - if your equipment isn't all prepared before you're ready to start capturing footage, then you're already in trouble!
6. Get Permission - there will likely be certain areas or people that you might not be able to shoot, but in order to get what you need you have to push these kinds of things as far as you can and shoot wherever you can (like public areas) without causing a disturbance.
7. Be Punctual - this really means being early for any interview you might have so that you leave plenty of time to set up any equipment you need and prepare any notes you might have.
8. Get Shooting - don't hang around when you arrive, just start getting any material you need as quickly as you can.

When you actually start capturing film, there are some things that you will want to remember:
--> Shoot in sequences - getting a number of different shots to edit together will make for a much more interesting watch, as will getting lots of shots of different angles and sizes of your shooting subject.
--> Shoot Long - this means when you are shooting anything, let it run for a little while so that you give yourself some breathing space when you're editing.
--> Remember Continuity - So when you're shooting, make sure you are keeping things the same from one shot to the next, and don't "cross the line" when shooting as this will confuse people.
--> Remember to shoot Cut-Aways - it may be regarded as a bit of a cheap trick nowadays, but if you shoot some cut-aways of general things to do with your story you can use these to cover your edits later.
--> Shoot in Thirds - which means when you're shooting something, make sure it is framed correctly. There will be more about this in the next session when we start using cameras in a more practical sense.

There is a lot of terminology that gets used in TV News Broadcasts, and I have listed some of the more common ones and their meanings here:
--> PTC = Piece to camera, or a straight on talking piece.
--> SOT = Sound on Tape (can also be called GRAB or CLIP also)
--> UPSOT = Sound Up on Tape (can also be OOV - out of view). This basically means a bunch of small little snippets of news that can be placed alongside each other to fill out a news story.
--> NATSOT = Natural Sound on tape (can also be referred to as Actuality or Ambiance).
--> VO = Voice over.
--> TALKING HEADS = Interview.
--> GV = General Views - this is basically any scenery that you can use to set your news story scene.
--> CUT AWAYS
--> SOQ = Standard Out Que, or what you would say to end the report.

There are certain things that should be remembered about different areas of shooting for news. Firstly, when doing pieces to camera, these should only be used when absolutely necessary and you should NEVER start off your report with one! It must also only be used when it can ADD something to what you are reporting on. These are useful if you want to place yourself in the action of what is happening so that it brings the story to life a little more if you are also part of it, but otherwise they should only be used if they are necessary. On top of this, it will always make a PTC more interesting if you use movement whilst doing so - for instance, if you are walking down a historic street that is about to be paved over to make a new car parking structure. But always remember that it looks much better if you start moving, THEN start talking and NOT the other way round!!

The best time to start writing and building up your story is when it is still all fresh in your mind, so it's best to start work on it as soon as possible after shooting. You can always write it and then put the pictures to it, or use the pictures to build up the body of what you would write, but either way one should compliment the other. Also, its right after shooting when the best time to report back to the editor is, as well as organising your graphics for the piece.

When you're writing the story, its best to keep it simple and use one idea per sentence, always keeping it fresh by using the present tense. Following on from this, you should always speak in plain English and simplify any large numbers or statistics you might have.

Through packaging it all together, you should be aiming to:
--> Tell a story using a sequence of your shots, and always start with the latest and best ones.
--> Don't name your interviewee when a caption will do it all for you. Instead, use that line to tell more information to the watchers.
--> Limit your "GRABS" to 20 seconds maximum, and a maximum of 3 Vox Pops.
--> End with something meaningful and not just cutting away straight from an interview.

After this, we went on to write our own version of TV Shot Scripts, which are what you use when putting your video story together. Down the left-hand side is a list of all your shots and what order they appear in, whereas down the right hand side you have a list of the sound clips and the script of what you are going to say in accordance with the order of the shots on the left. After going over this, we wrote versions of our own about whichever news story we wanted from that days papers. This proved to be a very interesting exercise, as it showed us exactly what kinds of things you have to take into consideration when putting a story together (i.e. what you can and can't shoot and what you have permission to do and what you don't, etc). Needless to say, this was an interesting exercise and I look forward to trying similar ones in future.

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