In the second half of the first semester of WINOL, everything became a lot more professional as each member of each team started going from strength to strength, with more ambition and greater expectations than when we started.
WEEK FIVE:
At the start of this week, we had our de-breif of the previous week and our usual meetings to organise the coming week. Among the production team, there was a lot to sort out as this was our very first test broadcast of our on-going weekly lifestyle show, at the time named Good Morning Winchester. There was a lot of preparation involved in order to get this show going, and it all culminated in this week. Our meetings for the preparations went well and we sorted out everything that needed to happen for the next day, as well as re-arranging roles for the WINOL bulletin. We decided that the graphics needed to be changed after Easter on WINOL so that everything stays new and fresh, and this way we would also be able to have different backgrounds for different camera angles.
During the features meeting, we arranged that articles would be submitted in such a regular way that it would mean the content on the website would change every 48 hours and always have fresh content. This would include a regular Film Guide from myself, which I will submit on a regular basis in order to have a new feature on the page each week.
When we filmed Good Morning Winchester, everything started by going according to plan until certain technical difficulties arose when we were filming our cocktail specialist from an angle which meant that the bottles and equipment he was using conflicted with the greenscreen and the graphics we were using. As such, when we came to film, there was very little time for rehearsals or run throughs. Eventually, though, we managed to get everything filmed and edited together with all of the correct graphics for each piece as well.
Unfortunately, after the editing was done on the piece, it was mentioned from one of the tutors that the fact we had a cocktail specialist mixing drinks on a show with "morning" in the title represented a massive OFCOM violation, and as such the pilot run of the show never made it out to air. But, as with all mistakes, everyone learned from them and knew exactly what to correct for next time so that we didnt experience the same problems again. Everything about the first show of this lifestyle series helped us learn new techniques and filming challenges, so the fact that the show didn't make it onto the website wasn't disheartening in the long run, as it meant we could all still take something away from it.
When it came time to shoot the bulletin for WINOL, I was put on Vision Mixing duty, which meant being in charge of the appearance of the green screen and moving from camera to camera or VT's whilst recording the bulletin. It was an interesting task, as it meant having to have perfect timing according to the script and taking cues from the director at the right time as well. There were a couple of mistakes that I made with it being my first time using the vision mixer, including one time that I cut to the wrong camera coming back to the studio before an OOV. Obviously, after watching this back, I noticed it and knew how to avoid it in future, learning from the mistake that I made.
Other than that, the rest of the bulletin went exceedingly well and without a hitch. In the de-brief, it was discussed how in headlines, if you see someone speaking then you should be able to hear their voice on the VT and not have it spoken over too much. We also discussed how it might be effective in future to put up written headlines with the VT headlines, making them short and punchy and helping to identify who people are in the headline shots and what is happening in the news item. We also talked about how the strongest and most affecting images should go first in the bulletin, and then carry on from that point letting the script of the piece build up from there.
WEEK SIX:
After the de-brief, we went about the meetings for the week. Our production meeting consisted of the usual organising of the roles for the bulletin this week, and the organisation of the shows that we had to do. Good Morning Winchester changed to Good Afternoon Winchester this week, so we didn't experience the same problems as last week with recording our show this week. The theme for this weeks Good Afternoon Winchester was St. Patrick's Day, and as such we went out to the local Irish pub O'Neils to film a package on the history and celebrations of St. Patrick's Day and talk about the traditional Irish drinks and food of the day.
Filming for Good Afternoon Winchester went very well, as we were more prepared after last weeks filming session for what we would have to do today and managed to film everything in good time. As well as this, we also managed to film Sportsweek around the rest of the show.
When it came to filming the bulletin for the week, I was on Autocue and was in charge of making sure the autocue was typed up and running on the prompter properly. To add to this, I also offered to help with writing the script for the bulletin as I have had a lot of experience in this area before. Filming for the bulletin went very well, except for a couple of minor technical difficulties on the final sports video, which was eventually resolved before the bulletin went onto the website.
In the bulletin de-brief, it was discussed how it is better to be saying "Hello" rather than "Good Afternoon" as it is less time specific, and how the links should bear more relevance to the actual story and the content of the packages without giving too much information away in the process. This adds flesh to the story rather than taking information out of the story during the link. Also, there should always be a local angle on the story, even in cases where the international news is so huge that it is across every medium. We decided as well that after doing news stories on tragic events in foreign countries, we can't then describe something as "total destruction" when referring to a joyride accident.
When we discussed the technical difficulties of the videos, Angus told us from his experience that hitting the wrong buttons occasionally during bulletins happens, so it is best not to let it get the best of you as it is more about how you deal with it after it has happened to resolve the situation that shows how easily you cope with these situations.
The main topic of discussion for the de-brief was over how during the rehearsals and the bulletin, the Director is the person in charge of keeping the order and giving people tasks, and not the Editor or the Presenters. Inside the Gallery and the general Studio, the Director is the person who is in charge of the running of those areas, and outside of that the Editor takes care of everything else, so it is important to remember who is in charge of what so that there is no confusion over who is telling other people what to do.
In the Monday de-brief, we discussed how the headline words should be fine tuned to be more accurate reflections of the content of the packages, and how you should be more aware of the surroundings you are in when doing pieces to camera and what they say about the package as a whole.
WEEK SEVEN:
After the Monday de-brief, we went over the work ahead for the final week before the Easter break. I was on Autocue again this week for the bulletin, and as such I thought I should help out with writing the script as well so that I could put my previous education to good use on the WINOL project as well.
The Production team this week decided to discontinue Good Afternoon Winchester until a later point in time where we could dedicate more time to it to get it to an even better standard than it already was whilst also not letting it affect the work being done on Sportsweek or WINOL. We didn't, and still do not, consider it a failed attempt in any way though. In fact, I'm under the impression that we decided to discontinue it purely on the basis that we were doing way too much for each episode that we had too much material to edit afterwards. As such, we are now focussing our efforts on making one larger episode at the end of the semester as a showcase of our various efforts and packages.
Our guest editor for the week was Maria Milano, the editor of In Style Magazine, and the bulletin went very smoothly through the rehearsals and we were on time for the majority of the day. Unfortunately, three minutes into filming the bulletin as-live, we were interrupted by a fire alarm and everyone had to evacuate the building. In light of this situation, I think it went to show how organised and prepared we were as a team that we could go straight back into the studio after the alarm stopped and went out again as-live only 10 minutes later than we otherwise would have. I think this managed to show a lot of teamwork and everyone sticking to their responsibilities well.
After the disruption of the fire alarm, the filming went very well and there were no technical difficulties at all. During the de-brief, Maria Milano had fantastic things to say about our performance on the bulletin and the general mix of news that we had going. It was mentioned that our ability to stay cool and continue on with our job after the fire alarm showed how much we were stepping up our game on the production front.
We discussed how the straps should all be in CAPS and have a larger font from now on so that it is easier to read when they flash up on the screen, and that people should film a headline shot for their packages when they are out filming so it saves them having to extract one from their package. It was also discussed how the director should make a habit of saying "Stand by for..." before counting down into whatever we are cutting to next to make sure that everyone is listening and on their marks ready to make the next transition into the studio or into a VT.
We finished this final week before Easter with the news that we had broken the original WINOL record of 553 views for the last bulletin, which was obviously cause for cheers and good vibes all round as our next bulletin will not be until after Easter.
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Thursday, 17 March 2011
Work Attatchment at Wave 105 FM
The staff at the Wave 105 team were among the nicest and most patient people I have worked with, as well as very easy going. They knew that I had come from a Masters course, but I assume they didn't quite know what to expect as far as my background knowledge of capturing audio and working in radio went. As it happens, a lot of what they asked me to do (especially in the first few days) was stuff I was already experienced in and I felt very confident going out in their news car and getting plenty of Vox Pops (peoples opinions) on current news stories that were top of the news agenda of the day. They then introduced me to their audio editing software, which took some time to get used to as it was not something I was very used to using at all. The on-going joke among me and a couple of other people on the news team was how much easier our lives would be if we had Adobe Audition 3.0 installed on the computers, as this was the software I was more used to using.
The news team themselves were very accepting people who were willing to teach me a lot of new tips and tricks for writing and reporting in a radio news team that I wouldn't have picked up anywhere else. Shaun Aquilina was very helpful in teaching me different techniques for reading the news. He helped me improve my diction, my phrasing, my tone of voice and above all helped me learn that there are a couple of key words in each sentence that you should hit harder than the other words in order to give the sentence the most emphasis possible. After going through around 20 different recordings of me reading various news bulletins , there was a noticeable improvement, which I owe mostly to the helpful tips of Shaun and the others.
Both Charlotte Butt and Liz Allaway helped me out a lot with improving my news copy writing to be used in the bulletins every hour. Apparently, when I came on to the team, my writing was "way too formal and BBC-like" when they take a more conversational approach to the news, telling it how you would tell someone you knew well. I really felt like it was a case of Nature VS Nurture at the Wave news room, as I was going more against what I had been taught to write into their realm of writing for a way that people want to listen to. By the end of my time there, there was a noticeable improvement in my writing as gradually there was less and less that someone else had to edit on my copies (particularly Charlotte, as she went through my pieces with me and helped me notice more and more which parts of the sentence didn't need to be used). I didn't get to work much with Shireen Jordan, as she was more based in the Morning News segments, but any time I had to check facts with her she was very helpful in teaching me.
And of course, news editor and head of the team Jason Beck was paramount in my learning curve over my two week experience. Jason oversaw my entire process from start to finish every day that he was in and was incredibly helpful in teaching me about the technology they use at Wave. In particular, he showed me how to set up phone interviews so that they run straight through the editing software on the computers. He was also in charge of organising which news stories I would be covering on which days, and who I would have to call in order to set them up.
Nothing was set up for me at Wave - in fact, it was more like being thrown into the situation, which I actually enjoyed as it became more of a challenge rather than doing the same things I had already experienced in my Radio classes. Any interviews that needed to happen weren't previously set up - I got given a phone number to call and I had to organise the entire interview and make sure I could make it there on time. It really did feel like I was a part of the team at times like this, when we would get certain breaking stories and someone would hand me a name and number to call, and I would go out and interview them, normally straight away.
One of the biggest claims to fame during my two weeks working at Wave was that I got sent out to interview the Lord Mayor of Portsmouth, Paula Riches, about the ceremonial weekend marking the decommission of Ark Royal. When I turned up to the Portsmouth Guildhall, I found my way to the office of the Lord Mayor, and she ushered me into her private study which, square foot for square foot, was probably about five times bigger than my lounge. Although I was told I could only refer to her as "Lord Mayor", she was very welcoming, and we sat in two massive armchairs for our interview but not before she offered me tea and biscuits. Out of all the interviews I did in the two weeks for Wave 105 (including covering the protest marches in Southampton over Union jobs, and the scrapping of EMAs at colleges) I truly think that interviewing the Lord Mayor was one of the highlights.
When my last day came, I was truly a little sad to be leaving as I felt like I had picked up quite a lot from the helpful and welcoming Wave 105 news team. It was truly an occasion that called from the bringing in of cake, which I happily provided. I had a great experience at Wave 105, and I would thoroughly recommend it as a work experience placement for anyone interested in following a career path in radio and wants to work in a warm and inviting workplace.
Thanks go out to Shaun, Liz, Charlotte, Shireen, any presenters I may have made tea for and had a joke with, and above all Jason for allowing me to come and work for them for two weeks.
Monday, 7 March 2011
WINOL Weeks 1, 2, 3 & 4
After coming back from a long winter away, there was no time for slowly getting back into the swing of things as we dived straight into working and contributing to WINOL. Out of the positions and jobs that were available on the project, I opted to be on the Production team as I feel that with my past experiences on production sets I could bring the most to the table in that particular department. I also decided that I would contribute to features as well, as that would also give me a chance to write and submit articles in the time that I would not be needed on the production team.
WEEK ONE:
In the first week, we decided to do a dummy run of the WINOL news broadcast with a couple of older news stories and whichever new ones the news team would be able to do. As a dummy run, the pressure wasn't fully on for everything to be new and fresh, but there was still some encouragement for it to be the best that it could so that if it went right, in future weeks we would have set a good example for ourselves to follow.
The first couple of days, we got ourselves together into our respective teams and discussed our aims for the project and for that week in particular. The production team that I am a part of also aimed to start producing an Entertainment and Lifestyle show to accompany WINOL and the Sports news bulletin SportsWeek on the WINOL online portal. So we started mapping out some ideas for that, as well as getting accompanied with the Gallery and Studio areas which we would be working in on the Wednesdays for the broadcast.
As for the Features team, we decided that everyone would contribute articles on a regular basis that they feel are accustomed to writing in a good and interesting style, and I opted to submit film reviews and a film guide on a regular basis, as well as Sub-Editing other peoples work regularly so that it can be published on the website.
The next day, we went over some fo the technical aspects of the Joomla! Web Hosting site and how to properly sub-edit articles using HTML so they appear in the correct format, and how to correctly upload photos into the articles we sub. As well as this, we went over the house style and how articles should be written so the punctuation and grammar are all correct, i.e. unless its in a quote, "it's" and "wasn't" should be "it is" and "was not" in all articles.
On the actual day of the dummy broadcast run, we started encountering a lot of technical difficulties throughout the day which needed to be sorted before we could go out on air. Among these problems was the correct format for exporting the video packages for the bulletin so that we on the production team could run them throught the VT viewer. Another problem was with the greenscreen, with the studio lights and the house lights conflicting with each other and creating issues with the visuals of the greenscreen and the foreground lighting. This was something I took note of in order to sort out the issues as soon as possible.
Although we ended up postponing recording as-live at 3 o'clock until closer to 3:30 in order to sort out the various technical difficulties, when we did manage to do a run through and record it, the broadcast ran through fairly smoothly with only a few re-takes needed in order to put the entire bulletin together. In hindsight, it is probably did everyone better in the long run that these kinds of problems and mistakes made themselves apparent in the first week so that we could learn from them straight away and make all the future bulletins run that much smoother after knowing what went on.
In the De-Brief on Monday after the previous first week, we went over a lot of what went wrong and what was good about the bulletin. My role in that first week (and for quite a few of the future weeks) was to be on Sound and Lighting in the studio, and the sound on the mics needed to be improved only slightly so that it was possible to not hear the rest of the studio floor when the VT's were running. I decided I would study the sound board more in my free time and learn more about the studio set-up, as well as getting professionally trained in the Lighting rig in the studio as well in order to eventually give the lighting on the bulletin a more professional look.
It was decided that the SOQ's on the news packages needed more uniformity, and the production team had to create some new headlines after the previous ones could not be found. As for the bulletin overall, the first week was a dummy run and as such was excuseable for a lot of the mistakes as long as we recognised what they were and improved on them in the upcoming weeks.
WEEK TWO:
After the weekly Monday Morning De-Breif, we went about our meetings for the week so that we could establish the aims of the upocoming few days. In the production meeting, we decided to work further on the Straplines for the news packages and get the to all look the same, change the graphics for the backgrounds slightly, get the music re-worked for the titles on WINOL, make sure that the Script for the bulletin is clearn and concise for the Autocue, and that all the headline slips and straps are consolidated onto one Hard-drive for the gallery so that everything gets run off from one place, helping everything to run smoothly.
The new aims for the second week's bulletin would be to set up an Outside Broadcast (or an OB kit) in the news room so that during the Wednesday bulletin we would be able to do a live cut-away to the news room to get breaking news from the news editor. Because this came under a technical aim, it was my job to learn about the OB kits and how to set them up, as well as my own personal aim of improving my knowledge of the studio sound functions and the lighting rigs.
OB KITS - The aim of the OB kit is to be able to do live cut-aways from the studio and have it streamed from the camera set up straight into the gallery. There are three different OB boxes within the vicinity of the Gallery - in the Newsroom, in the Multi-Media Centre and outside the back of the studio. For this weeks bulletin, I leanred how to set up an OB kit by setting one up in the Newsroom. Putting together the OB kit requires the use of different cables to go from the equipment in the kit to the OB box in the wall which effectively extends the studios vision to whichever OB box you decide to use. As part of the OB kit, you can set up a visual screen which outputs whatever video is running from the Gallery and a crew intercom headset to communicate with the production team, effectively allowing someone in the Newsroom (or wherever the OB kit is set up) to see and hear what is happening in the Gallery, and allow the Gallery to see and hear the broadcast from the OB kit.
SOUND - After taking it upon myself to study into the sound set-up for the studio more, I found some useful tips to remember when operating the sound board. Firstly, when doing sound checks and setting levels, its always best to bring the fader on that mic up to zero, and then set the levels using the GAIN at the top so that all the mics on the faders stay in the same place and give you room to move them slightly if there are sudden loud noises or if their voice levels dip down. The levels should peak at about zero on the levels above where that mic is on the sound board, or between 5 and 6 on the master output levels. The PFL/SOLO button above each different channel stands for Pre-Fade Listen, which isolates that one channel through headphones so you can listen to that one channel by itself whilst multiple different channels are running, allowing you to set the levels before fading that channel in to the master fader. The Master Fader, it should be mentioned, should always be set to Zero as well, as that way each channel comes through at the same level in stereo, and one side is not louder than the other. It also makes good practise to keep track of which channels you are using, and remembering to fade each of them down when they are not needed and be ready to fade them back up when they are needed.
LIGHTING - Moving on to the Lighting rigs in the studio, to start with the DMX switch in the Racks room must always be ON when you use the lighting. When using the lighting board on the studio floor, all the lights must be down when you switch the board on, and then bring the Grand Master switch up. There are test buttons underneath each of the light faders to test whether they are working or see their location in the lighting set up. The Blackout button kills all the lights for a short amount of time if there is a problem, which gives you enough time to bring the lights down on the board if you need to. The "On Air" switch in the Gallery kills the house lights whilst also switching on the On Air light outside the doors. After learning more about the set-up of the lighting rig in the Studio, I took it upon myself to draw up a floor-plan of the Lights in the studio, and a rough guide for the directions each of the lights you use should be pointing in and how strong they should be in order to light the Primary Position for the bulletin in the correct way. I intend to make more of these when other positions around the studio come into use so that other people know which lights are best to use in order to light different areas properly. This floor-plan is pinned up in the Studio above the lighting board, as well as a Troubleshooting guide for the lights also of my own creation. There may also be one which I soon make for the Sound in the Gallery as well.
When it came to the bulletin in Week 2, everything went a lot smoother after the difficulties from last week being considered and appropriately avoided early. The headlines were all recorded in time and the bulletin was recorded on time at 3pm. As for the bulletin itself, the packages were of a much better quality and the technical difficlties from the week before did not become a problem this week. For production in particular, the sports graphics were much better than the previous week.
In the bulletin de-breif the following Monday, the aims for the third week were to create more ambition with the packages and the production of the bulletin, extending what we can do to encompass new ideas, checking through the website on subbed articles more for older articles, correct ordering and correct spelling in each article.
WEEK THREE:
In the third week, the focus was firmly on creating a way of doing an outside broadcast from the back of the studio so that the Sports report could be done from outside near the sports field. This meant setting up an OB kit outside the back of the studio in the OB box with enough reach for a camera to stand near the field. A personal goal of my own would be to have a set lighting plan for Sportsweek and the Bulletin for the week that I could then write up into a floor-plan as a set guide to the lighting placements. I feel, looking back on this, I achieved this personal goal to the very best of my abilities. Another goal for the week was to go through the website and take off any old news articles on the front page that had been up for too long and re-do the new news stories to go up instead, which also got achieved by the team.
In the features meeting, we decided that we should get some more regularity to when the new features articles appear on the features page rather than just going up whenever they get written, much in the same way the news articles go up with regularity each week. There was also a goal to create some more diverity with the features articles in order to get a larger female viewership. It was also decided that this week we would record an alternative Polish version of the WINOL bulletin from the previous week to be put up on the website, in order to expand viewership.
When the bulleting came round this week, everything went smoothly again, and the production team did well in keeping things running. During the de-brief, it was said that the news stories in this weeks bulletin were a lot weaker than previous weeks and had very little hard news, but was very strong on the sports instead. The grammar in the script had to be looked at a little more closely, as terms like "off of" were used when "off" would be enough. I was decided that the term "... has more" is now banned from the links, as the links into the packages have to intice people into watching them without giving away the story, and so saying "someone has more" suggests you have already said most of what the story is about. As well as this, there should be less "pointing out the obvious" in packages through using terms like "I'm here at..." or "I spoke to..." and instead writing these things in different ways in the news packages to create a better script.
The balance of the news stories is important in the bulletin, so the placing of each news story has to be carefully thought through as it makes all the difference. In this bulletin, we changed the final sign-off so that it was recorded in the Gallery to promote the Polish version of WINOL which we now record each week as well. This was tricky to handle, but it was suggested that it could have been handled differently by cutting back to the Studio, but it was done in the best way possible for what it was and added a different dynamic to the bulletin.
WEEK FOUR:
For this weeks bulletin, there was some confusion about doing an off-site outside broadcast from Eastleigh football ground, so it was eventually decided that the idea should be scrapped due to lack of information over technical compatabilities with the equipment at the ground and our own equipment and a lack of interesting background to give the piece the quality it deserved. Instead, we decided to use the green-screen to display a league table alongside a presenter.
The production team also began plans for an entertainment and lifestyle show to run alongside WINOL and Sportsweek, eventually named Good Morning Winchester. In the Monday meeting for this show, we came up with plenty of ideas for our first ever broadcast on Shrove Tuesday and the second show celebrating St Patrick's Day. After coming up with all the ideas for the first show, we went about making preparations for the shooting day in just over a weeks time - writing the script, organising the guests and props and creating any packages that would be needed.
For the Features Meeting, we wentover the structure of the website page and how to make it look better through re-organisation and taking down any old articles which are out of date. I also contributed a run-down of The Oscars for that week, and the weekly competition managed to start off as well.
This weeks bulletin only hit a few bumps in the road, one namely being a last minute change to the shooting script which meant that the recording of the "as live" bulletin had to be postponed by 20 minutes in order to make appropriate legal changes to the news story so it didn't conflict with court law. Other than that, the only other slight mistake on the broadcast was not running an OOV on one news story, but instead staying on the presenter. The rest of the bulletin went very smoothly and was generally a success.
In the Monday de-brief, we went through the bulletin step by step. Editorially, it was the strongest bulletin we have made yet, making more use of technical tricks like OOVs and underlays to add style to the bulletin and make it visually more interesting. Even though the bulletin made it to the website at 4pm as it should normally do, the fact that we were 20 minutes late in recording it was something to be discussed. As such, it is now a discipline that 3pm HAS to be the deadline for the bulletin, and if a story has to be changed at the last minute without much time to change it before going to air, it should simply be dropped from the agenda instead. In the end, its better to stay to a deadline than to keep in a story that needs to be changed that close to air.
It was discussed that the Headlines might occasionally need jazzing up a bit more. The headline "A former resident of Winchester wins an Oscar" isn't a very exciting way of getting people interested in the story, and should ideally make more of an impact. We're going to eliminate black holes after the headlines by leaving the headlines to run longer so that there is time to cut to the presenter before the visual leaves the screen as well.
And lastly, all cut aways should be done so that they are relevant, or enhance the story somehow and aren't thrown in for the sake of having cut aways, and there should be no need to introduce vox pops in the news pieces.
And that rounds off the first month of being on WINOL. Come back again soon when I'll have the next few weeks, and coming up I'll have the delevoping features, the progress on Good Morning Winchester and of course a weekly rundown of the WINOL bulletins.
WEEK ONE:
In the first week, we decided to do a dummy run of the WINOL news broadcast with a couple of older news stories and whichever new ones the news team would be able to do. As a dummy run, the pressure wasn't fully on for everything to be new and fresh, but there was still some encouragement for it to be the best that it could so that if it went right, in future weeks we would have set a good example for ourselves to follow.
The first couple of days, we got ourselves together into our respective teams and discussed our aims for the project and for that week in particular. The production team that I am a part of also aimed to start producing an Entertainment and Lifestyle show to accompany WINOL and the Sports news bulletin SportsWeek on the WINOL online portal. So we started mapping out some ideas for that, as well as getting accompanied with the Gallery and Studio areas which we would be working in on the Wednesdays for the broadcast.
As for the Features team, we decided that everyone would contribute articles on a regular basis that they feel are accustomed to writing in a good and interesting style, and I opted to submit film reviews and a film guide on a regular basis, as well as Sub-Editing other peoples work regularly so that it can be published on the website.
The next day, we went over some fo the technical aspects of the Joomla! Web Hosting site and how to properly sub-edit articles using HTML so they appear in the correct format, and how to correctly upload photos into the articles we sub. As well as this, we went over the house style and how articles should be written so the punctuation and grammar are all correct, i.e. unless its in a quote, "it's" and "wasn't" should be "it is" and "was not" in all articles.
On the actual day of the dummy broadcast run, we started encountering a lot of technical difficulties throughout the day which needed to be sorted before we could go out on air. Among these problems was the correct format for exporting the video packages for the bulletin so that we on the production team could run them throught the VT viewer. Another problem was with the greenscreen, with the studio lights and the house lights conflicting with each other and creating issues with the visuals of the greenscreen and the foreground lighting. This was something I took note of in order to sort out the issues as soon as possible.
Although we ended up postponing recording as-live at 3 o'clock until closer to 3:30 in order to sort out the various technical difficulties, when we did manage to do a run through and record it, the broadcast ran through fairly smoothly with only a few re-takes needed in order to put the entire bulletin together. In hindsight, it is probably did everyone better in the long run that these kinds of problems and mistakes made themselves apparent in the first week so that we could learn from them straight away and make all the future bulletins run that much smoother after knowing what went on.
In the De-Brief on Monday after the previous first week, we went over a lot of what went wrong and what was good about the bulletin. My role in that first week (and for quite a few of the future weeks) was to be on Sound and Lighting in the studio, and the sound on the mics needed to be improved only slightly so that it was possible to not hear the rest of the studio floor when the VT's were running. I decided I would study the sound board more in my free time and learn more about the studio set-up, as well as getting professionally trained in the Lighting rig in the studio as well in order to eventually give the lighting on the bulletin a more professional look.
It was decided that the SOQ's on the news packages needed more uniformity, and the production team had to create some new headlines after the previous ones could not be found. As for the bulletin overall, the first week was a dummy run and as such was excuseable for a lot of the mistakes as long as we recognised what they were and improved on them in the upcoming weeks.
WEEK TWO:
After the weekly Monday Morning De-Breif, we went about our meetings for the week so that we could establish the aims of the upocoming few days. In the production meeting, we decided to work further on the Straplines for the news packages and get the to all look the same, change the graphics for the backgrounds slightly, get the music re-worked for the titles on WINOL, make sure that the Script for the bulletin is clearn and concise for the Autocue, and that all the headline slips and straps are consolidated onto one Hard-drive for the gallery so that everything gets run off from one place, helping everything to run smoothly.
The new aims for the second week's bulletin would be to set up an Outside Broadcast (or an OB kit) in the news room so that during the Wednesday bulletin we would be able to do a live cut-away to the news room to get breaking news from the news editor. Because this came under a technical aim, it was my job to learn about the OB kits and how to set them up, as well as my own personal aim of improving my knowledge of the studio sound functions and the lighting rigs.
OB KITS - The aim of the OB kit is to be able to do live cut-aways from the studio and have it streamed from the camera set up straight into the gallery. There are three different OB boxes within the vicinity of the Gallery - in the Newsroom, in the Multi-Media Centre and outside the back of the studio. For this weeks bulletin, I leanred how to set up an OB kit by setting one up in the Newsroom. Putting together the OB kit requires the use of different cables to go from the equipment in the kit to the OB box in the wall which effectively extends the studios vision to whichever OB box you decide to use. As part of the OB kit, you can set up a visual screen which outputs whatever video is running from the Gallery and a crew intercom headset to communicate with the production team, effectively allowing someone in the Newsroom (or wherever the OB kit is set up) to see and hear what is happening in the Gallery, and allow the Gallery to see and hear the broadcast from the OB kit.
SOUND - After taking it upon myself to study into the sound set-up for the studio more, I found some useful tips to remember when operating the sound board. Firstly, when doing sound checks and setting levels, its always best to bring the fader on that mic up to zero, and then set the levels using the GAIN at the top so that all the mics on the faders stay in the same place and give you room to move them slightly if there are sudden loud noises or if their voice levels dip down. The levels should peak at about zero on the levels above where that mic is on the sound board, or between 5 and 6 on the master output levels. The PFL/SOLO button above each different channel stands for Pre-Fade Listen, which isolates that one channel through headphones so you can listen to that one channel by itself whilst multiple different channels are running, allowing you to set the levels before fading that channel in to the master fader. The Master Fader, it should be mentioned, should always be set to Zero as well, as that way each channel comes through at the same level in stereo, and one side is not louder than the other. It also makes good practise to keep track of which channels you are using, and remembering to fade each of them down when they are not needed and be ready to fade them back up when they are needed.
LIGHTING - Moving on to the Lighting rigs in the studio, to start with the DMX switch in the Racks room must always be ON when you use the lighting. When using the lighting board on the studio floor, all the lights must be down when you switch the board on, and then bring the Grand Master switch up. There are test buttons underneath each of the light faders to test whether they are working or see their location in the lighting set up. The Blackout button kills all the lights for a short amount of time if there is a problem, which gives you enough time to bring the lights down on the board if you need to. The "On Air" switch in the Gallery kills the house lights whilst also switching on the On Air light outside the doors. After learning more about the set-up of the lighting rig in the Studio, I took it upon myself to draw up a floor-plan of the Lights in the studio, and a rough guide for the directions each of the lights you use should be pointing in and how strong they should be in order to light the Primary Position for the bulletin in the correct way. I intend to make more of these when other positions around the studio come into use so that other people know which lights are best to use in order to light different areas properly. This floor-plan is pinned up in the Studio above the lighting board, as well as a Troubleshooting guide for the lights also of my own creation. There may also be one which I soon make for the Sound in the Gallery as well.
When it came to the bulletin in Week 2, everything went a lot smoother after the difficulties from last week being considered and appropriately avoided early. The headlines were all recorded in time and the bulletin was recorded on time at 3pm. As for the bulletin itself, the packages were of a much better quality and the technical difficlties from the week before did not become a problem this week. For production in particular, the sports graphics were much better than the previous week.
In the bulletin de-breif the following Monday, the aims for the third week were to create more ambition with the packages and the production of the bulletin, extending what we can do to encompass new ideas, checking through the website on subbed articles more for older articles, correct ordering and correct spelling in each article.
WEEK THREE:
In the third week, the focus was firmly on creating a way of doing an outside broadcast from the back of the studio so that the Sports report could be done from outside near the sports field. This meant setting up an OB kit outside the back of the studio in the OB box with enough reach for a camera to stand near the field. A personal goal of my own would be to have a set lighting plan for Sportsweek and the Bulletin for the week that I could then write up into a floor-plan as a set guide to the lighting placements. I feel, looking back on this, I achieved this personal goal to the very best of my abilities. Another goal for the week was to go through the website and take off any old news articles on the front page that had been up for too long and re-do the new news stories to go up instead, which also got achieved by the team.
In the features meeting, we decided that we should get some more regularity to when the new features articles appear on the features page rather than just going up whenever they get written, much in the same way the news articles go up with regularity each week. There was also a goal to create some more diverity with the features articles in order to get a larger female viewership. It was also decided that this week we would record an alternative Polish version of the WINOL bulletin from the previous week to be put up on the website, in order to expand viewership.
When the bulleting came round this week, everything went smoothly again, and the production team did well in keeping things running. During the de-brief, it was said that the news stories in this weeks bulletin were a lot weaker than previous weeks and had very little hard news, but was very strong on the sports instead. The grammar in the script had to be looked at a little more closely, as terms like "off of" were used when "off" would be enough. I was decided that the term "... has more" is now banned from the links, as the links into the packages have to intice people into watching them without giving away the story, and so saying "someone has more" suggests you have already said most of what the story is about. As well as this, there should be less "pointing out the obvious" in packages through using terms like "I'm here at..." or "I spoke to..." and instead writing these things in different ways in the news packages to create a better script.
The balance of the news stories is important in the bulletin, so the placing of each news story has to be carefully thought through as it makes all the difference. In this bulletin, we changed the final sign-off so that it was recorded in the Gallery to promote the Polish version of WINOL which we now record each week as well. This was tricky to handle, but it was suggested that it could have been handled differently by cutting back to the Studio, but it was done in the best way possible for what it was and added a different dynamic to the bulletin.
WEEK FOUR:
For this weeks bulletin, there was some confusion about doing an off-site outside broadcast from Eastleigh football ground, so it was eventually decided that the idea should be scrapped due to lack of information over technical compatabilities with the equipment at the ground and our own equipment and a lack of interesting background to give the piece the quality it deserved. Instead, we decided to use the green-screen to display a league table alongside a presenter.
The production team also began plans for an entertainment and lifestyle show to run alongside WINOL and Sportsweek, eventually named Good Morning Winchester. In the Monday meeting for this show, we came up with plenty of ideas for our first ever broadcast on Shrove Tuesday and the second show celebrating St Patrick's Day. After coming up with all the ideas for the first show, we went about making preparations for the shooting day in just over a weeks time - writing the script, organising the guests and props and creating any packages that would be needed.
For the Features Meeting, we wentover the structure of the website page and how to make it look better through re-organisation and taking down any old articles which are out of date. I also contributed a run-down of The Oscars for that week, and the weekly competition managed to start off as well.
This weeks bulletin only hit a few bumps in the road, one namely being a last minute change to the shooting script which meant that the recording of the "as live" bulletin had to be postponed by 20 minutes in order to make appropriate legal changes to the news story so it didn't conflict with court law. Other than that, the only other slight mistake on the broadcast was not running an OOV on one news story, but instead staying on the presenter. The rest of the bulletin went very smoothly and was generally a success.
In the Monday de-brief, we went through the bulletin step by step. Editorially, it was the strongest bulletin we have made yet, making more use of technical tricks like OOVs and underlays to add style to the bulletin and make it visually more interesting. Even though the bulletin made it to the website at 4pm as it should normally do, the fact that we were 20 minutes late in recording it was something to be discussed. As such, it is now a discipline that 3pm HAS to be the deadline for the bulletin, and if a story has to be changed at the last minute without much time to change it before going to air, it should simply be dropped from the agenda instead. In the end, its better to stay to a deadline than to keep in a story that needs to be changed that close to air.
It was discussed that the Headlines might occasionally need jazzing up a bit more. The headline "A former resident of Winchester wins an Oscar" isn't a very exciting way of getting people interested in the story, and should ideally make more of an impact. We're going to eliminate black holes after the headlines by leaving the headlines to run longer so that there is time to cut to the presenter before the visual leaves the screen as well.
And lastly, all cut aways should be done so that they are relevant, or enhance the story somehow and aren't thrown in for the sake of having cut aways, and there should be no need to introduce vox pops in the news pieces.
And that rounds off the first month of being on WINOL. Come back again soon when I'll have the next few weeks, and coming up I'll have the delevoping features, the progress on Good Morning Winchester and of course a weekly rundown of the WINOL bulletins.
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