Digital News - Idea Development

In order to research further into my initial idea and to broaden my knowledge on what the charity are currently doing, I looked for their Facebook page as I thought this would provide me with some up to date news to give me some story ideas. I originally thought that focussing on the dogs that are housed at the farm would make for a good story as they are a very popular choice with visitors and people in general. I had a look at the page to see if they were hosting any events involving the dogs and found out that they just hosted a 'Dog Day' featuring agility shows, a fun dog show, raffles and stalls so there were plenty of activities and attractions for both dogs and visitors to take part in. This shows great enthusiasm to raise money for the charity and promote the cause and the dogs living at the farm. I think that a story like this would make for a great news piece as this shows the good work they're doing which is something people always want to see. It would also put a very positive spin on the piece, as we quite often hear news that is not so good, therefore good news can be quite refreshing and engaging, something that I have found when watching news myself.

Digital News: Script Writing with Zoe Sale

Yesterday we had a workshop, introducing us to script writing for a news piece. We had a guest speaker come in - Zoe Sale, who started off in Journalism and has since worked for Channel 4 on many different projects. It was very exciting talking to her as it sounds like she has enjoyed a good career so far in television. Helen asked us to get into pairs and gave us all a press release. Ellen and I decided to work together and were given a press release from 2014, talking about the Government funded 'Rent to Buy' scheme that was announced by Eric Pickles MP. It was created to allow young people living in the South East and London to make their way up the housing ladder with hopes of buying in the future. The South East and London are the most expensive regions in terms of housing in the UK which makes it virtually impossible for many first time buyers to actually put down a deposit for a house. The scheme aimed to reduce rental costs and allow people to save for a deposit in future. When Ellen and I first received the press release, we found it rather difficult to comprehend, however, after researching into the scheme further, we were able to understand it a bit more. We decided to look into whether the scheme had been a success or a failure for the most part. With expectations of failure, we were very surprised to find a few articles where the scheme had greatly helped individuals. This gave us something to base our script on. We started the script with an intro piece by the presenter in the studio and then introduced the scheme with the statistics from the original press release. To develop on this and make the news piece more up to date, we introduced our findings of progress.

‘Government Housing scheme proves a success for families across the South East’ - Presenter in studio

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles MP announced his scheme back in 2014, promoting a ‘Rent to Buy’ approach for first time buyers. The price of housing in the South East has rocketed in recent years making it almost impossible for those looking to put down a deposit. The scheme allows people to rent cheaply whilst saving with the promising outlook for buying in the future. 

2 years on, we have investigated stories of progress. 

Adam Stephens and his family became one of the first to join the Rent to Buy scheme, paying £635 per month, which is 20% less than on the open market. They found that the biggest bonus is receiving a 10% gifted deposit from ‘Rentplus’ which should allow them to buy the house within 10 years.

(Cut to interview on location - with Adam Stephens and Reporter)

Questions:

1. Would you recommend the ‘Rent to Buy’ scheme to first time buyers?

2. Do you feel as though the scheme has successfully set on your way to putting down a deposit?

(Cut back to Studio)

On another note RentPlus, a business that supplies rent to buy homes, have received 20% increase in funding to put towards the scheme. This is positive step for young first time buyers as the daunting prospect of renting and never being able to afford a mortgage is a ever growing issue.     Although this scheme has proved to so far be helpful, the time it takes to still get a deposit together is approximately 10 years and this alongside the rent and increasing price of housing. - Presenter in studio

Digital News: Research - The History of News

Television News history is filled with many changes and development. If you have turned on the TV to watch the news within the last 50 years, you will have seen the same stories - court cases, political races etc. However, the way the news is told and presented on TV has changed dramatically. An event that could've changed TV News significantly was the assignation of Kennedy in 1963 - this is classed as one of 12 events that changed TV News coverage forever. Coverage of this event was documented all over the world when the news hit, providing news channels with a huge challenge.
Things changed a decade later in the 1970's when Barbara Waters was the first woman to co present a network newscast. A trend seemed to take place which involved local stations using teams of people to present News rather than just the one journalist sitting at a desk. As colour TV evolved, this immediately advanced the news with lots being spent on logos and promotion. The 1980's saw an introduction to reporters having computers at their desks and in newsrooms, making research so much easier. In the 2000's - 9/11 brought new challenges for news coverage on television, news anchors were having to keep regular updates going as the events unfolded whilst simultaneously providing reassurance for those affected. News rooms and also heard rumours of further attacks and had to make a quick decision on whether to broadcast this or keep it under wraps until they had all the facts.
Today, we are able to watch news on TV several times a day, along with access to the internet, which has in some ways become even more widely used than TV for news coverage. There has been a clear advancement in not only technology but the way in which news is documented on Television.

Digital News: Initial Idea

We were asked to get into our groups yesterday and brainstorm some ideas for this unit. It is an incredibly broad brief which allows us to focus the news stories on pretty much anything as long as we think about a certain target audience and tailor it towards them. During the briefings with Helen, she advised us to think about a subject area that we were particularly interested in as a starting point. She also said to think about elements in our own lives, jobs, volunteering and so on. This made me come up with my initial idea. I thought about when i've volunteered at Foal Farm which is an animal shelter and charity, home to many animals from dogs to small pets. I got into this as my dad applied to be a voluntary dog walker in his spare time and I often went with him. Animals are a great interest for many people, particularly pets. Therefore I think this would be a good focal point for the channel. The good thing about Foal Farm is they promote each and every one of the animal members, providing you with some background information about them. This makes it easy to tell everyone their story so that people will want to re home them. Here I selected an image of one of the dogs that live at the farm. It tells us about his past home which wasn't suitable for him and a little about how he's getting on. I think if we were to go forward with this idea we could centre it around a particular dog or other animal which had an interesting past in order to promote the farm and the animals that currently live there to encourage people to re home them. By focussing on a particular story, this would provide the channel with depth and allow viewers to get some inside knowledge about some of the animals. As I have met and worked with the owner and staff at the farm, there is a good chance that they would be willing to allow us to film a project there as it would provide some promotion for not only the charity, which is run mainly through donations but also help to re home some of the animals and gain some interest in them. By focussing on a tragic story, this could also make the work very emotive and moving, therefore achieving interest and making people feel more invested in the cause.

Digital News - Unit Overview

I have just started the 2nd year of the course with a brand new production unit to focus on. It is titled Digital News and will be comparable to the Documentary unit in that it is classed under a factual genre and will include similar elements such as an interview and presenter. We are required to create and develop in small groups, an online news channel, this could be an independent website or could feature as a page on existing video channels such as Youtube. After a unit briefing with Helen today, where she gave us plenty of background information about the requirements for this unit and the style of Digital News in general, we had to decide on our groups. I'm going to be working in a group with Ellen, Laura and Nikki. I am feeling confident about working with them as we worked together last year and get on very well.

Project Evaluation

Out of the three practical units this year, I would say that the documentary unit has been the most challenging. In terms of the duration, this piece is the longest at 10 minutes in total. The structure of it and editing was the most challenging. This is because it is far different to anything we have done before.
When we got the brief, I was quite daunted as wildlife is incredibly broad but also very challenging. To capture some great shots of wildlife takes extensive planning and patience. Therefore, when it came to choosing an idea for the documentary we all came up with ideas that featured animals that could be easily sourced such as at a park or centre. We decided to choose Laura's original idea as we felt that it would be the most interesting. It was also very accessible as we would be filming in one location and would have easy access to the birds. The main storyline for the idea was to promote awareness of decreasing vulture numbers in the wild. Laura already knew Jo and Leigh Holmes who ran the Hawking Centre at Doddington Place Gardens and found out that they had set up a conservation charity called Vulpro in order to raise money for the cause to help to protect the vultures in the wild.
When it came to planning, we didn't assign certain roles to each team member, we just decided that all of us would contribute to every aspect in order to get the widest variety of ideas to make some creative decisions. I would say that we worked very well as a team, communicating effectively throughout and assigning small jobs for each of us to do so that we were all contributing. We wrote the script and commentary together, deciding on the general vibe for the piece which we wanted to be professional but friendly. When it came to shooting, we enlisted the help from Josh to operate the drone for our opening sequence as well as to take on a role as an assistant camera operator. The first shoot day was quite stressful and unsuccessful as weather issues meant that we had to think on our feet and shoot the interview with Jo in the Hawking Centre. This resulted in some sound interference which proved to be very difficult to eliminate in the edit. However, we have looked at the audio channels and tried hard to tone this down. The second shoot day was much more successful. We were able to film the drone footage, as well as the flying footage with one of the vultures and the bald eagle. We also filmed much more action as our previous footage had quite a yellow tint to it that was difficult to edit out. The edit itself has been quite challenging because of the sound issues but overall I would say I am pleased with the final outcome. I think we worked well as a team and communicated well so that we could solve problems effectively. The final documentary has quite an upbeat feel about it with my personal favourite sections being some of the flying shots of which we used a Go-Pro to capture. I think that sound is still proving to be a huge challenge, having issues with it in every unit so far so that is something I would like to really improve on in future units.

Recording Commentary

Today, we finalised our commentary, making any last minute changes to the writing. We added in some more description and here is the final script for it. As Darren is the only person talking, we just typed out each sentence as it is with descriptions of the shot that will be accompany them next to it in brackets. This will help us during editing so we know when to add the commentary at certain points in the edit. Like the script, we wanted the commentary to be quite formal but friendly and inviting at the same time so that the audience would engage in the documentary. Today we recorded the commentary with Darren in the studio using the Pro tools 10 software to do so. This is a piece of advanced recording equipment which was necessary to get good quality sound so that the commentary would be clear and uninterrupted. The recording went well, we took several takes to get a variety of options to choose from when editing and to get the best possible quality. We took it in turns to listen with the headphones to assess volume and interruption. 

- Welcome to Doddington Place Gardens in Kent - (Wide shot of lake)

- I’m here today to meet some fascinating birds of prey - (Darren walks into frame) 

- The picturesque landscape at Doddington is set in the grounds of a Victorian mansion, abundant with many plants and wildlife that stretches 10 acres of land (House shot)

- The Hawking Centre is the main attraction here at Doddington with the falconry experiences proving to be a hit with the public - (sign and hawking centre)

- Home to many birds including owls, falcons and vultures - (clips of birds) 

- I will be meeting Jo, the owner, to find out about what goes on here at the Hawking Centre - (action gvs)

- Here at the Hawking centre they train all of the birds to fly for the falconry experiences. I’ve been lucky enough to have been given the opportunity to be the first person to see Irena fly.  (Shot of Irena) 

- Julie is a falconer here at the Hawking Centre, she takes care of many different birds of prey. I’m about to meet the youngest vulture. (Julie’s intro) 

- I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to hold Morticia - (flying shot)

- The birds are all fed dependant on their weight. Morticia here, gets three chicks a day - (Morticia wandering around)

- The chicks come from an egg farming company that donates them to the Hawking Centre instead of disposing of them - (Morticia feeding) 

- Vultures aren’t always able to get a regular supply of food in the wild, we spoke to Julie about the common threats they are facing - (Morticia feeding) 

- Vulpro, a vulture conservation charity based in Africa are working hard to educate local farmers about these endangered creatures. - (Vulpro website) 

- In order to support the charity, people are able to purchase wristbands, t-shirts and other merchandise to raise money and spread awareness. (Wristband shot) 

- Vultures were critically endangered in the wild, however, with the good work Vulpro have been carrying out through education and captive breeding programmes, the vultures numbers that were so badly hit are now slowly turning around (gvs)