TV News: Shoot schedule & Shot list

So we had scheduled two days to be our allocated time for filming. These two days were to be Monday 16th October, and Wednesday 18th October. We had everything organised and prepared for these shoots to be as efficient as possible. 

On Monday 16th October, Melissa, Katie and Alex would be going to Broadditch Farm to shoot the Live package. Katie will be the presenter for the piece, Alex the camera man and Melissa the runner keeping everything running smoothly. 

On Wednesday 18th October, All of us would be filming all day at various locations throughout, Alex's sisters house and his house. The day started at roughly around 10am and we finished filming at around 8pm. I would be presenting this piece, an partly taking role as a camera operator, Alex would be camera op and presenting also as we'd be shooting some of the trailer and opening sequence here at these locations. Katie would be on camera, and Melissa also on camera. 

Here is a shot list created by Melissa - 

TV News: First edit & Helen's feedback

Having filmed and acquired all of the footage on our hard drives, we began quickly to edit the footage to have something to show Helen for the rough cut. 

We split the editing up between us as a group, Katie did the Live news sequence, Alex did the promo, Melissa did the first scene of the package and I did the rest of the package.

PUT PICTURE HERE

In total honesty we didn't have a great deal to show Helen as we'd only just got the footage together, but what we had to show we received positive feedback on. As we were going for a quirky, interesting an humorous feel, Helen supported that an stated she felt it also. 

There was something that we as a group wanted to ask Helen, basically to get the all clear on a shot that we wanted to include in the package sequence but to no surprise it wasn't granted clear passage. We had shot two kinds of end sequences so fortunately we didn't just rely heavily on that one. 

Feedback was clear and concise, Helen had mentioned she already felt it had a quirky, fun, engaging tone to it and that she could see people watching this within our target audience. 
Feedback - 
- A few more cutaways on the Live news sequence.
- Get more down on the timeline for the package. 
- Think about the music choice for soundtracks.

Overall the 1st Edit meeting went positively and filled us with confidence and belief. We now just need to keep it coherent and have the same themes running throughout it. 

TV News - Shoot Day

Having booked my train for 9am, to be at Gravesend for 10am, I was ready for a long day ahead of me. Kids, bloody kids had already disrupted the shoot day, holding me back atleast 30 minutes due to causing disruption on the train, the filming hadn't even begun yet but we were behind on our shoot schedule due to this, thankfully other members were late too so it didn't feel like all the weight was on me.

We adapted to this and planned to have everything ready to be shot at Alex's sisters outhouse by 11am, unfortunately we got side tracked and had several things to purchase for production purposes (Fry up scene). We eventually got there at around 1pm, and began to shoot the first scene in which I was presenting, I found it hard and increasingly pressured with each take as inevitably mistakes would be made and I found myself putting even more pressure on. I managed to learn most of the script, enough so that I could piece to the camera an eventually be able to look at the script as then we could cut out the bits where i'm not looking down the throat of the camera. 

We had got through half of the day unscathed, slowly but surely working our way through the script, trying to get as much coverage and shots as possible so that when we came back to the edit we had a vast amount of varying footage to play with. We were following the script but now and again go off it to do some improvisation like the intro, and a certain scene with the lemon, but mostly sticking to the script throughout. 

As the day got later, and my stomachs got hungrier, stress began to sink in and we just wanted to get this done and wrapped. We were put on hold as to think of a way to get the dogs attention for one of our shots, when suddenly Alex just started screaming at the dog, an boy did it work, we didn't have a clue what was going on until we saw the camera rolling. We ended the day with pizza freshly baked by Alex's mum. Nice.

What worked? 

I felt on the day everyone pulled their weight, we had great luck with Alex's friend being so cooperative and positive throughout the process, that made everything that much easier. I believed we got all the shots we wanted, we weren't rushed at Alex's house for time so we had ample time to think through fully on how to create the best possible shot and way of telling the sequence. What also worked nicely was the metaphor sequence, even though we didn't have a vast amount of material, we did well with what we had.

What didn't work/ could be improved?
Well with everything going to smoothly on the day there were only a small number of things that I could realistically flag up. One that could definitely do with some improving is time keeping, making sure we stick to the schedule as we had some crew needing to leave to go to work and if we had all been on time and ready/prepared, we could have avoided those situations. Another one potentially, bringing up creativity to the game, and this comes in to preparation of a shoot, writing up more potential concepts and creative gags on screen to play out. I felt we lacked at some points a real creative point, or not lacked, but it just took a lot longer than it should of, and especially when we're on shoot I felt like we should of had those concepts/ideas down and ready to test. Maybe that could be a point to establish in the next unit, to test out more ideas first to see if they actually work. Also wishing we got more coverage of the metaphor sequence, we didn't have much to play around for that sequence and I felt that was a shame. 

Overall I thought the day went to plan by 95%, productivity levels were sky high and morale never stooped lower than 110%. We worked creatively together and brought the best out in one another on the day and managed to get everything done on the script, so I couldn't of been happier. I think for next time if we can just mange our time a bit better we'd be overall a bit more efficient but apart from that it was a great shoot day. 

TV News: Location reccs & Risk assessments

Location recces for both primary shooting locations were not taken as we couldn't of gone there before the shoot date, however for one of them we had done filming their before so we knew what we were getting ourselves into. Risk assessments for both locations were deemed a risk free environment. 

Alex's home was used for one of our projects last year so we knew as a group how to approach this location in a safe and orderly manner. We just needed to be careful of wires covering the ground and any other trip hazards. Any tracking shots needed to be planned out meticulously before we started using the equipment so that we could ensure safety of people/kit. Obviously making sure that whilst we're filming we don't accidentally block fire escapes that would result in putting everyone in danger. 

Overall the locations deem no real risks to ourselves or the kits so the risk assessments were signed off as low level risk.


  

TV News: Research and Development

So having our concept be around myths and social misconceptions we all decided to go off and do some research into those specific fields. 
We created a google doc. which we as a group contributed into and stored all our files and findings. 

We kept our research material in here for all of our 'debunking' myths material in the package, information regarding the cures for hangovers etc. 

The shoot script, created by Alex, would be put on here for everyone to see and edit, especially for me as I would then create and input my own twist on my presenting output.

The script was something to always go back to throughout the production process, I would go through it and edit certain bits appropriately, adding my own spin on certain sentences and phrases that I use. 

TV News - Research - VICE

One news brand that I chose to focus on an to try gain some inspiration was VICE, a print magazine and website which focuses on arts,culture and topical news. 

As our groups target cross section was aimed at young adults, I felt this brand personified perfectly what we were trying to capture and focus on. Vice tracks current affairs, it covers topics in contrasting ways from the mainstream media, as it is primarily a social media brand, its reach on those platforms is vast and easily accessible for its users. We wanted to create that user friendly feel, to have it engaging and interacting with its demographic via website homepage, twitter, facebook etc, on all social media fronts. 

Also the way in which Vice covers its stories was something that had quite an influence towards some of the input to the project. As a follower of VICE for quite a few years now i've noticed its general themes and topics of affairs it covers, ranging from one end of the spectrum to the other. I enjoy that it can laugh at itself but yet also take a serious approach whilst still maintaining the humour, as that in essence is what we were trying to capture from the get go with our piece.  

Obviously, the branding of vice as well is attractive, it gives off quite a vibrant, trendy, different aesthetic to many other news brands like it and that's why I think it does so well at maintaining its popularity an overall success. That is clearly something we had to think of as well, to create this consistent aesthetic and I thought especially through the project we did that through the use of text and titles. 

Taking time to research further into VICE definitely helped with the branding side of things and if ever I was lacking with ideas, it would help to look on their webpage to give me some inspiration so I could give more input towards the project.

TV News: 25 Word Pitch

We wanted to keep our 25 word pitch relevant, engaging and creative. It took us quite some time to figure it out, but in the end it came to Alex like a switch of a light bulb. -

 " Hello and welcome to THE BUNKER, Youtube's answer to debunking weird, wonderful myths and theories you may or may not even know existed."


This sentence actually came from our opening of the script but we felt that worked really nicely in terms of placement and how it generally fitted. It tells us enough and leaves us asking more of it, intrigue and excitement come to my mind when I read it.