TV News Workshop - Presenting a Live Piece with PTC at Location

Today's workshop was about creating a mini-news report partly using a green screen and partly a "live" report at a location.

Andrew was the Main news anchor whilst George presented live at the scene. We all took turns at using the camera and sound to all experience the kit. Luckily George and i had used the clip mics before so it was relatively easy to set them up. However creating this scene was very interesting as it really showed me how difficult it is to film in a dark studio.

For the green screen report we needed 4 powerful lights to make sure we had enough light on Andrew presenting and even one right too little created a bad shadow or not enough light. This made me think a lot more about if we wanted to include a news anchor part in our sequence. We had generally felt that we would not need one for our TV piece however we wanted to film one just incase. After this however we realise that this is not something that you can rush together in a few minutes. You need proper setup time to make the shot look right.

It was also interesting to see the teleprompter and how it is used. Helen let us use her ipad with a reflector near the lense to andrew could look at the camera and read the words at the same time. Andrew was who we wanted to host our news report if we did one with a green screen so it was a good experience for him.

We are still unsure if we want to have a news anchor but we still test one even if it does not actually get used because it would be a good experience for all of us. We also had a quick go with the JVC Camera that is available to us, Ferg said this would be good for on the shoulder work at a location and as it is heavier it gives better stabilisation whilst on the shoulder. It was a very useful workshop and we learned more about the cameras and how they operate in dark conditions. We did still struggle with the 4K Panasonic in dark conditions, it did seem to struggle, this made us think that we will want to have some time with the camera in conditions to the ones we plan to film in. We did arrange with Ferg to get some extra time with the 4k Camera outside university and this will really help us know how we will set up the camera when it comes to filming out actual news piece.

Here is the final news report that we have put together, George did all the editing to this and I added an audio track to try and make it feel even more authentic.

I really like how this looked, for a first attempt. This workshop really did help us understand much more about how and what we need to film when we get to actually shooting our final project!

Critical Perspectives Briefing & First Lecture

• Builds on contextual studies for last year
• Gives ideas for 3rd year dissertation
• Essay writing and structuring
• Time management
• Reading list

Assessment

ESSAY 50% / DISSERTATION PROPOSAL 50%

Teaching materials on MyUCA, Podcasts and more. Library at Rochester should be used also.

Project submission: 

• Draft Version: 10th November 3pm-4pm (hard copy on paper properly formatted with havard)
• Final Version: 15th December 10am-11am (Through turnitin as well as a hard copy on paper)

What is this questions asking you to consider?

What TV broadcast could you consider referencing as case studies?

How viable is this is a choice?

What are the challenges in answering this option and using your chosen case study?

Fiction:

Book or comic into a screen TV NOT Film to TV or Vice Versa

• "Successful" is subjective. Terms of reference. Could be box office successful/ critically successful/ lots of adaptation/ lots of series. barb status and rotten tomatoes as well as broadcast magazine can be a good source.
• "Traces of what it was formerly" Plot
• Audencies change...
• Plot, Character, Tone - how have these changed over the course of a adaptation if it all.

Journalism:

• Speed of citizen journalism can be quicker if we are already at the scene
• Could possibly not follow laws of journalism properly 
• Accuracy is important and mis-representation.

First Lecture

Questions to ask when creating and researching a case study.

• Where it was made, when it was made and who it was made by
• A media product could be made for the same thing in different areas of the world but be different because of the perspective and agenda.
• What has influenced the nature of the media product - it's character: physical or visual?
• Who made it and what are their influences and backgrounds
• Could be creative, critical, conceptual, technological, science bound and connect to contemporary and traditional modes of practice and cultural development

Find out- How it was made - processes, techniques and if it is a small or large production

Look around for critical reception if the piece of media you are analysing. Reviews, articles, critical writing, press work, books etc

What is the purpose of the creator, personal project or a small/mass scale production and who is it trying to serve and who is it benefiting? Does it support a ideological position or not? Is it part of a propaganda campaign or pushing some sort of agenda?

What meanings are being generated by the piece?

What are the social and cultural mechanisms of communication? (Meanings and semiotics)

What are the connotations and meaning being formed, are these "regenerated" intended or not?

Context is important - Consider reviews of meaning after time has evolved or after global events change.

Consider the intertextual relationship that exists now between all media products in culture and all forms of media.

Undertake reading to clarify or expand your opinions and knowledge

This will help you develop  rich case studies and select relevant and interesting examples of creative output to elaborate around and theorise around.

CRITICAL WRITING

Being critical in some way, a clear and confident refusal to accept the conclusions of the other writers.

A balanced presentation of reasons why the conclusions of the other writers may be accepted or may need to be treated with cauton

A clear presentation of your own evidence 

Avoid being over-descriptive of your writing. Make sure you go beyond the account of what happened.

You are not developing an argument with Descriptive writing, you are mearley setting the background within which an argument can be developed.

You have to use a "What" and a "Why" together otherwise it's just a description.

Avoid descriptive writing, otherwise you will get a low grade. Use evidence and arguments to describe more because it will get a higher grade.

PARAPHRASE

SUMMARISE

QUOTE

Are the three ways you reference using Harvard Referencing. 

Good habits:

Time management

Careful note taking

Using references

Use your own words

Rephrasing ideas rather than using sub words

quotation marks where appropriate

Cautious with Internet research 

HOMEWORK:

Setup Tutorial Log

Begin to plan your research and schedule for the coming 6 weeks

Choose at least one book from the reading materials to begin your research

Source adaptation/ news material to analyse and reference

Book a session with a librarian as appropriate 

Location Scouting and Contact With Smart Maidstone

As we had some free time before our workshop we decided to go location scouting once again. Andrew was the head of locations so he suggested some and George, Andrew and I went to check these locations out.

•  We looked for a location where we could film the still shots of the car, this car park located about 1 mile from the studios was a good option, has good access and is quiet meaning it would be good for the shots we would need, however the backdrop is not really impressive as we had wanted.

• We scouted possible locations that andrew had sorted, Lidsing Road just outside maidstone was a location with an interesting hairpin bend, we could stand behind a barrier over a meter behind the road. 

• Looking further along the car park we had previously looked at, there was a place that was a little more scenic that we could film the still shots of the car, it isn't perfect but as it is so close to the Studios it may be a good option for us.

• It could be nice to see leaves falling on the car for some artistic shots of the car.
• We also headed to Sutton Valence but no suitable locations where there so we decided to head back and head to the car dealership. 

• We went to Nissan and Renault who are located next to Mercedes/Smart to try and follow up contacts we had made on Friday.
• Renault shut us down straight away before we could explain our project even though on the phone was very different.
• Nissan where much more useful and gave us contact details for head office. Either George or I will follow up this lead on Friday.

• 
  

• Finally we wanted to visit Smart and talk to our contact Thomas who had almost guaranteed that we could borrow a car for our shoot.  Unfortunately Thomas had left but he did leave the contact details of Imogen in his email. Imogen was working today and helped us out and said that we would be contacted tomorrow and they should, all being well, be able to get one of us insured on the car for a few hours to shoot footage of the car, I did think afterwards that it might be possible for Imogen or one of her co-workers to explain a few facts about the car for the camera. It might make the show have a little more seriousness to it to have a Smart worker verify the facts we will include in the show.

A History of Electric Cars - Why not Earlier?

For some research, I wanted to look back at the history of electric cars and where the initial ideas came from. So I delved into the internet archives to see where it all started.

• In 1932 an inventor named Robert Anderson invented an electric carriage powered by non rechargeable primary cells. It may have been a very crude attempt but it was the start of something, he probably didn't know what we started! It only had a top speed of four miles an hour but it was this attempt into the world of electric that changed peoples views on how carriages could be powered. 
• In 1987, the first electric taxis where rolled out in New York. The company Pope Manufacturing became the largest scale electric automobile manufacturer and starts to pioneer this form of technology.
• In 1900 electric cars where really coming onto their own. 28% of the cars manufactured in the United States where powered by electric. That is a staggering number when you consider that number is 1.4% nowadays in the united states. Fact from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country
• 1908 - The ford model T becomes the first mass produced car in the world but it is fuelled by petrol, this is a changing point for the electric vehicle.
• In the 1920's electric car use is nearly dead, people wanted long distance vehicles and electric was not a viable option. Petrol was pretty much the whole market share right now and electric was dying off quickly.
• A long gap, but in 1966, Congress in the US passed a bit that recommended the use of electric vehicles. Apparently 33 million Americans where interested in potentially using and owning an electric car. 
  
• In 1972 "The Godfather of Hybrid" Victor Wouk builds the first hybrid car, an adapted version of the Buick Skylark, but in 1976 the programme was killed and the idea is lost.
• In 1974 Vangaurd's Citicar makes it's debut. It has a range of 40 miles and by 1975 they become the 6th biggest car maker in the united states. It was all looking positive for the Citicar (yellow thing on the right) but unfortunately the programme fell though a few years after it was looking so good.
  
• in 1975 the US postal service purchased 350 electric vehicles to test.
• In 1981 General motors in the united states puts efforts into making an electric car. the EV1 is created and is seen as "the most efficient production vehicle in the world"
• In 1990 California passes a mandate which required 2% of the states vehicles to have no emissions by 1998 and 10% by 2003. This really kick starts the push of electric and Hybrid cars.
• In 1997, the biggest announcement in the world
  
  of electric and Hybrid cars. The Toyota PRIUS is announced. 18,000 units are sold in the first production year.
• In the early 2000's electric cars are starting to boom with thousands of electric cars are being produced. Then suddenly, all-electric production programs are discontinued. 
• 2006 is a key year. TESLA announces the tesla roadster. It starts selling in 2008 but has a whopping price tag of $99,000. This would put a lot of buyers off as a similarly sized sporty, petrol car would cost you about $30,000. This though may not be an issue if you
  
  are interested in motoring and are looking to the future. Providing support to an electric car start up would always be positive. 
• In 2009, the united states allocates $2 billion worth of development into electric cars as well as $400 million to build the infrastructure. 
• 2010-Present: ELECTRIC only seems to keep improving. More and more cars that are being sold are electric. BMW, Nissan, Smart, Renault and Tesla are some of the biggest producers of electric cars in the united kingdom. The Nissan Leaf is the highest selling electric car in the UK and with more and more big car manufacturers are producing electric cars. As of the last few months
  
  Volkswagen have started selling the e-golf and also Mini are starting to delve into the world of electric. Electric cars are taking up more and more of the market share of new cars being sold in the UK and we just need to build the infrastructure to facilitate that. The car industry is going electric whether we like it or not! We just need to make sure that we do not progress to fast without having the charging stations in place first!
  I feel that we could have gone electric a long time ago but the decision to go with Petrol so early on into the cars life cycle, it was always going to take time to convert back once we made that decision back in the early 1900's. The demand for electric was always there but with advancing technologies it now makes it easier and easier to make an electric car that is viable. Many car manufacturers are pioneering electric so we could expect a fully electric car society in the next 20 years!

Planning For Thursday - Smart Electric Car Facts, Teamwork for Thursday

• George got a reply for the person what we are interested in interviewing who let us know his location. He is based in Camberley which is located not too far from Cailan but probably about 2 hours from George, Andrew and I. We still need to talk to him to confirm what questions we would ask him as well as what his expertise in electric cars is. After we have confirmed those we can then draw up a list of questions and then send them to him so he can prepare some answers.
• Andrew looked into tech channels on YouTube and has compiled a nice list of what brands use in terms of colours and text etc. This will help us get a good brand behind our product.
• Cailan is still currently waiting apon a reply from Maidstone council. This process really shows how unreliable some organisations are on getting back to you even when they confirm they will.
• I have looked into car stats for the Smart car Electric vs Petrol and this is what I have found so far. (Some stats I can only find for one model)

Electric Car

Horsepower: 81

0-60 Mph: 11.5 seconds

Price: £20,920

Top Speed: Limited to 81mph

Petrol Car (Base Version)

Horsepower: 71

0-60 Mph: 9.8 seconds

Price: £11,370

Top Speed: 97 mph

Some stats to get us sorted, we may not need to include too many facts as it may make the news piece too fact heavy and boring so we may only need to include the hard hitting ones. I really want to find out the cost per mile in fuel but this could be difficult as electricity prices vary.

It may seem obvious at this stage but this is now our confirmed idea. Andrew and I had not got any response that we could follow up to make those ideas a reality, whilst Cailan got a generic response which did not help move his idea forward. We are really happy with this idea and can see it has potential, whilst getting companies to help is proving hard we have some contacts that should propel the project in the next few days.

We have some locations that we plan to follow up for certain areas of our work too. This is a list created by Cailan.

1) Cobtree Manor House Forstal Road | Sandling, Maidstone ME14 3AX, England
- Contact No; 01622 715702

2) Leeds Castle Penfold Hill | Leeds, Maidstone ME17 1PL, England
- Contact No; 01622 765400

3) Lock Lane | Sandling, Maidstone ME14 3AU, England
- Contact No; 01622 763936

4) Thurnham Castle, Castle Hill Rd, Thurnham, Maidstone ME14 3LE
- Contact No; 01303 266327

5) Castle Farm - Lavender | Redmans Ln, Sevenoaks, TN14 7UB
- Contact No; 01959 523219 (Farm Shop)

6) Dungeness Beach | Dungeness Rd, Romney Marsh, TN29 9NB

• We think a castle or ruin would be a great contrast and backdrop to the still car shots.
• Dungeness would be a great backdrop to introduce the piece, with the nuclear power station in the background of our shot.
• We also as a group need to decide on a few roads that we could film on around the area, Maidstone council are not getting back to us but Laura had put out a news post saying you can film as long as you are 1m from the side of the road so we would need to clarify if we need permission to film or you can just use the guidelines presented in this post by Laura.

We where the first group to book out a camera which was nice meaning we know we have use of a new 4k camera as well as all the kit that comes with it. I also has 3 cameras that shoot 4k as well as 2 action cameras that shoot 4k so we can use them  mainly for B-ROLL along with the big camera which we will use mainly.

TV News Homework - Preparing a Script for Thursday "Southern Fail"

For Thursday we had to work on a script for a 1`45 News show from a press report that Helen gave us. We decided the best plan was to make a Skype call with all of us in to talk through the facts presented to us and decide how much of it we wanted to use.

Cailan read out the script and George and I stopped him when we thought relevant into was said and I wrote it on the hard copy of the press report that I had. By the end we had circled  mostly the facts that the viewers would be interested and affected by.

After highlighting the key info we started to arrange it into a script. Of course we can't have a new piece completely reliant on A Press release so we went online to try and find some information that was both relevant and also reliable. Here are the resources we used.

• Sources: 
• (1) The Croydon Advertiser - The Astonishing Number of Southern Rail Cancellations http://www.croydonadvertiser.co.uk/news/croydon-news/revealed-astonishing-number-southern-rail-491909
• (2) Southern Rail UK - Strike Action http://www.southernrailway.com/strike
• (3) Southern Rail UK - Delay Compensation Page http://www.southernrailway.com/delayrepay
• (4) BBC - Facts about the delays http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-39327154 

Pictures (PIX)	SYNC/COMM
NEWS INTRO	“On today’s news at 6. Student’s tuition fees continue to rise as debt skyrockets, Southern Rail’s disruption persists into another holiday season, and even more students are failing their degree”
GFX INTRO	*Generic News Music*
Wide Shot - News Anchor (Andrew)	“Southern Rail is planning to run a normal service on most of its routes during RMT’s latest strike starting this Friday. This will be the union’s 33rd and 34th days of strike action so far.”
MCU - News Anchor (Andrew)	“Passenger services director, Angie Doll stated ‘Southern plans to run more than 90% of their services as the strike continues.”
MCU - News Anchor (Andrew)	“Following widespread disruption to services around the holiday season last year, many customers were hoping for a better experience in 2017.”
MCU - News Anchor (Andrew)	“According to ‘The Croydon Advertiser’(1); nearly 59,000 southern services were either partially or fully cancelled last year alone. This equates to over 160 disrupted services each day.”
MCU - News Anchor (Andrew)	“Southern have asked RMT to reconsider the offers that have been made, including job guarantees made for workers. Regardless, it is clear that the people affected by this most are the passengers simply trying to get through their morning commutes.”
MCU - News Anchor (Andrew) On-Screen Text: “www.southernrailway.com/strike” (2)	“Gatwick Express, Thameslink and Brighton trains will still run select routes during these times. For further information you can visit the Southern Rail website on screen now for further details.”
MCU - News Anchor (Andrew) On-Screen Text: “www.southernrailway.com/delayrepay” (3)	“Passengers can claim compensation if they are delayed by over 15 minutes. You can visit the website on-screen to do so.”
Wide Shot - News Anchor (Andrew)	“Coming up next; Student tuition fees rocket skywards and even more students are failing their degrees first time, is the test too difficult? We discuss this and more after these advertisements.”
End	End

This was the script that we came up with. We feel that it includes all of the relevant information that customers of the train line would need as well as the reasoning from RMT and Southern. The information we found from the Croydon Advertiser was interesting as it was a case study they did showing that on average 160 trains are disrupted each day! 

Andrew is going to be our presenter for the mini-project so we decided that he should do a run through to see if it was the right length. After a run-through it came in at 1:34 minutes which was good, including a generic news intro it would be up to 1:45.

I like to think we mixed in facts from the press release along with facts and studies found via various sources showing a fair side of the story. It means that it is not all one sided with Southern blaming the RTM, as both seem to forget that this is affecting people who have no choice about how they get to work or school.

Car Manufacturer Response and Team Planning & Locations and Scouting

Over the weekend a few very positive things happened with our project.

• Smart (The car manufacturer) Located in Maidstone got back to me and said that they are very interested in helping my out in my project. They needed to check with upper management to check if it can go through with the project and in what way we would use the car etc. It was very exciting to finally get a contact on board and get the project moving, we have other contacts still tbc but we hope the Smart Car pulls through as it is very convenient for us!

The biggest problem is that they only have one car right now and if it sells then it's "tough luck" We have our fingers crossed because they seem interested in the project and hopefully will give us input into the facts they want broadcast.

After some more planning we have decided that we will split the show into a few parts, mainly we will be using the car for a Piece to camera whilst driving as well as "beauty shots" of the car while it is still. We also plan to get shots of the car moving but right now we are unsure how we would do that so Cailan has contacted Maidstone council as Kent Film Office did not answer.

OVER The weekend I made some jobs for us to have been completed for Tuesday as I wanted to keep us rolling along as a group. I probably know the most about cars in the group so I was happy to delegate roles in a way I felt was fair. (Apologies for the spelling I did it on my phone!)

I made a little system so we could mark when we had completed our part.

• George had been in contact with a electric car expert and he is happy to be a part of our project, we just need to finalise an idea of the direction of the project in terms of what idea we are trying to push before we can tell him what questions we are going to ask him

• Andrew continued to look at Branding for Electric cars, Car sites in general as well as technology websites so we could get the best idea possible of what colours and font styles were used most. He also looked at potential locations to film the car moving

• Cailan worked to find some more locations to film, finding places that could be an interesting backdrop for when the car is parked and we are getting the beauty shots.
• I had to create a very basic shoot schedule so we could have an idea on what we would film on certain Days. It looked like this...

Day

1. Shoot day with car: B-Roll of the car Moving - Beauty shots of the car motionless - PTC while driving the car, my thoughts of what teh car is like - Exploring the difference between a electric car and a petrol version (could be done at the dealership)
2. Interview with expert:  Talk to teh expert and he should give us his opinions on electric cars and why he likes/dislikes them. We would be interested in knowing the future and past of electric cars - We would film b-roll at the location that we could splice in later
3. B-ROLL & Intro sequence shots: We want to film some slick shots in the tech district in london to use for possible b-roll and prominently for the intro sequence where we will introduce electric cars why we are making this news piece about them. Possibly could present the intro and outro here - Also time lapse and mass motion shots could be filmed
4. Filming in a science museum or similar: In a location surrounded by science and knowledge we are thinking about rolling off some facts that we could use in our final piece. Alternatively on this day we would film at Dungeness and film the introduction of the project with the Nuclear power station as a backdrop.
5. Studio-piece: We don't think that we are going to have a new anchor but we may leave a day aside just incase we think the flow may work better with one.

Overall a 5 day shoot schedule which includes 5 very different days, when we confirm the day which we will be lent the car the other parts will fall into place. 

On Tuesday we went out as a squad to look at some possible locations. We had a look a location that Andrew had found and along the route we stopped at a few locations to see if they possibly could work.

A place that could be a nice shot is the car going under this railway bridge, there is access either side but of course it is a health and safety issue and would have to re-recce the scene to make sure it is safe to film. 

We want to recreate some of the shots you would see for example on top gear. We want the car to look like it is gliding along and going through scenic locations.

Whilst at the scene we had to consider access, filming locations, potential closures etc and we feel it is a nearby location so would work well if we get clearance to film there. 

We could film from a various amount of angles on this small road alone, we could do runs up and down the road with the car following a camera car for example as well as setting up shot around certain corners to get the car moving and in a location not to far from the studio.

All of this however comes down to if the Maidstone council would let us film here. Cailan sent off an email to them and we are awaiting a reply. The Kent film office did not answer when we tried to phone them so we may try again tomorrow.

When we got back to the Studios Cailan and I put together a simple idea of what the timeline of the news piece may look like, this is what we came up with:

• Intro - 15 to 20 seconds - Dungeness Nuclear Power Station ("So much of today's energy is generated by fossil fuel power stations.")
• Opening - 30 seconds of b-roll + narration - b-roll of tech, new cars, electric cars, modern architecture - London technology district
• Package on Electric Cars Vs Petrol Cars - 2m 30 seconds - Summary of either car's features, advantages, disadvantages. B-roll of Smart ForTwo going along the road and still, B-roll of petrol version vs electric at dealership - PTC while driving electric car, explaining why cars are being forced to go electric, as well as incentives to do so.
• History of Electric Cars (Cont. from PTC in the ForTwo /w overlay) - 20 - 40 seconds TBC - Where did electric cars originate from and why did we not go electric sooner.
• Future of Electric Cars (Cont. from PTC in the ForTwo /w overlay) - 20 - 40 seconds TBC - What happens from here? Do they start planning for ways to get electricity in a totally carbon neutral way?
• Studio Time - 20 seconds - Andrew Introduces the live interview context, throws to Alex . We're not sure if we want to do this yet, may include andrew sooner as well.
• The 'Live' Interview - 2 mins - Several questions which will be arranged once car and interviewee are in place
• Conclusion - 20 - 40 seconds - Wrapping up the show, what have we learned and am I tempted to go electric?

I also once again said we should designate work to be done by Thursday

• Alex: Find relevant Smart car info, facts and figures etc. Look at similar car news shows and see how they are presented.
• George: Get in contact with interviewee and see when he is free. Contact Kent Film Office
• Cailan: Get info from maidstone council. What items do we need to include in our channel intro.
• Andrew: Research tech YouTube channels - Branding and content, what do they tweet about, what social media do they actually use? Which social media do they have the biggest following on?

We also have to complete a task for Helen ready to shoot for Thursday. We are going to have a group Skype discussion tomorrow to get that work complete. 

TV News Lecture - Storytelling and Scripting

• Have something to say
• WE "All of us are in this together"
• Make it simplistic so that it easy to understand (plain and punchy)
• Don't tell what we can show with pictures
• Acting as it is happening in the moment and live but in reality it is recorded after the fact
• CONTENT, STRUCTURE, PURPOSE
• Pacing of the words is important, Too fast is not understandable and Too slow is boring and drags on for too long. Short sentences are important. Over 16 is too many words but it's got to mix it up a little to change the pace.
• Careful with words as people may think they mean different things
• Only one change to understand what you are saying so make sure you simplify the language that you use. 

Writing techniques

1. Allitertion
2. Avoid repetition
3. Wordplay
4. Rule of the three (one or two is too little but three is just right)

PAGE F TEST

Precise (spelling and grammar, speak clearly and concisely)

Accurate (check facts, are they reliable. ensure the information is up to date)

Germane (are the facts necessary, test the relevance, know your story, clarify your thoughts, top line)

Equitable (Balanced and fair news, make sure you give both sides)

Flow (Logic to form a natural order, tie writing using scripting to naturally go from place to place)

• Dont repeat ourselves in pieces in the same project
• Not too many facts and figures, detail comes later not right at the start of the project

Writing a good lead

• Attention grabbing (creative and well informed)
• Not overloading facts (headline moment, don't need facts right away - one sentence one thought) (too good to be true?)
• FRESH and NEW
• Active voice (subject, verb, object)
• Be creative
• Conversational tone (like you are speaking to someone - easily relatable) 
• Narrative to tell the story (avoid cliches and don't artificially exaggerate stories and thoughts)

Tips for News production

1. Using iconic pictures to go along with the words
2. Read out words you have written to see if they make sense
3. Use the right tone for the whole piece, is it right for what is being said?
4. Writing for a news anchor: certain words to link the story
5. Headline something that may be deeper at the top, lighthearted story will come after
6. Know your audience, info will make sense for different audience
7. Get the presenter to do things and get involved 
8. Make sure the story has a proper narrative and one that the viewer can easily follow
9. Know your story inside out so you can talk fluently on it
10. Follow rules and regs especially for filming on roads and in cars
11. Take timing on good soundbites so it is easier when coming to editing

TV News - Contacting Car Manufacturers and Getting Contacts for other Ideas

After some success through contacting the local car manufacturers via phone I decided to email them as well to give me the best chance of getting a reply.

I used a similar format to the one I used to contact tesla, trying my best to make sure that they know that this is all in good interest and prove that it would be a good investment in their time.

Here is what I sent to Tesla and a similar version to the rest of the local manufacturers.

I honestly feel we should get some more replies now, Whilst VW and TESLA asked us to email the others said that they would phone me back but have not done so as of yet so I feel sending an email they will be reminded and hopefully take their time to respond.

--

As for another one of our ideas, following a team or driver in a season finale at a motorsport event I have has one response which is very positive.

Bruno Spengler, a DTM Racing driver has responded saying that he is happy to do an interview with me which is very exciting. However before we could follow-up this we would have to get clearance from the racing series to film in the paddock.

I have contacted DTM and await a response.

There is a massive problem with this idea however, we would need to do international travel meaning Andrew understandably cannot make it And George is working meaning that he cannot make one of the days. I have the feeling we could not take this project further as a group so I really interested in personally following up this idea and using it for my personal YouTube and showreel.

I am really happy with how this unit is going, it's exactly the sort of work I would like to do as a job so It really is a great learning experience so far.

TV News - Phoning Car Manufacturers & People To Interview

After the Panasonic 4k Camera workshop George and I phoned up car manufacturers as well as some people George had planned to ask about an interview.

Car companies

• Tesla was the obvious choice as they are the pioneer worldwide for Electric cars, they were helpful and told us that they cannot pursue anything via a phone call but we had to contact the UK press office. Whilst this is frustrating as we cannot have a phone call and discuss the idea they seemed like the most "up for it" out of everyone we contacted. I have emailed Tesla and I hope they can get back to us before Tuesday when we are back as a group.
• BMW said that they were busy at the time of calling and promised a phone back.
• Renault and Nissan were the same as BMW and said that I would get a call back from the appropriate person but as of yet i have not got a phone call back.
• Hyundai stated they had a fully-electric car on their website however when I called they then said that this model is not available until 2018. Unfortunately we are going for fully-electric cars not hybrids right now however they are interested in the idea so we may get back in contact if we can see a use for a hybrid piece.
• Volkswagen was a bit of a mission to get someone to help but we finally got an email address for some place in north London that actually has a full-electric Golf however he was busy at the time (honestly whenever I walk into a car dealership they are empty) so we got an email in which I have contacted.
• Smart was super-confusing as we had Andrew's number provided as well as online but they all seemed to be wrong so we have held off on contacting them.
• Ford gave us no answer at all, George left a voicemail so we hope he will get a response.

At first that does not seem super promising but it was a big task to be confident enough to make these calls for me personally so I am happy I got over that hurdle and we now have some direct contacts and hopefully by our next lecture on Tuesday we will have some responses. We think Tesla might let us film from the way they are speaking however a test drive may be difficult due to the sheer cost of a Tesla. 

Hyundai sounds like the most promising as they seemed really up for filming however they only have a hybrid but we still could use that contact to get something from them to help propel the project. All others we are hoping to get a response back but it feels unlikely. I plan to ask the lads if we can go on a tour of these dealerships on Tuesday to possibly have a face to face conversation, it may be easier.

Andrew has done some positive work on web design as well as branding for car dealerships as well as electric specific sites. It helps us know what style to aim for when designing our channel site etc.

Cailan has done some good work on finding some electric facts and he has found important info we can use to propel the ideas to reality.

I was with George as he tried to locate an interview about electric cars, We had some "yes" answers which is great but I think we need to get some questions sorted next week before we confirm in a specific interviewee. 

I am happy with how the day went, George and I got on the phone and started to make things happen and I think it's only going to get better as we have now started the ball rolling.

4K Camera Workshop - 22nd September 2017

Today was our first workshop with the new Panasonic 4k Cameras, same in size and weight to the Sony EX we used last year but the quality is significantly improved as well as the possibilities for the footage we shoot.

I do own a few 4k Cameras myself but in a way I had never played around with the settings and just kept them in standard. However as Ferg and Sam explained with 4k there is more to it than just quality. If you still export in 1080p then you can still shoot in 4k but if you have problems with stabilisation then you can crop and edit it so it is smooth. With The Sony's you could do this and keep 1080p so this is great to know incase we have problems when filming. 

I addition to this the cameras now support SD Cards meaning we can all contribute by buying one instead of the old cameras which used a different style of memory. George, Simon and I played around with the camera and really liked 120FPS in 1080p as well. This means if you plan a particular shot you can film it in slow motion without sound to get a very different style in shot.

I am interested to see what Panasonic say next wednesday, I own 2 Panasonic 4k Cameras myself so it will be interesting to learn more about their techniques because personally they are really pushing 4k in consumer products along with Sony. V-Log was a format like RAW for DSLR's where it records in a format that makes it easy to manipulate in post editing. It may be tricky for us to film in this for our project but it is definitely an option. 

I have put together a compilation of a few of the shots that we took today, in 4k and also in 1080p 120FPS. I downscaled the whole file to 1080p to show even though you are not rendering in 4k it still looks better than the footage shot in 1080 as you have 4 times the pixels and much more clarity.

TV News - Expanding on our Electric car idea

After a lot of talking with Joe we started to expand on our Electric car idea, it had initally been our second favourite as a group but as my Motorsport idea doesn't seem to have as greater legs we decided for today at least to look at another idea and see how far we could get with it. Initally we had just came up with the idea of electric cars and not much throught about where the story could go but Myself, George and Cailan all got chatting on our group chat and we talked about the idea further, whilst still keeping the other ideas in mind.

We initially got started by researching all of the electric cars made in the UK, so we could see what we are working with,Tesla,Ford,BMW,Renault,Nissan,Hyundai,Volkswagen and Smart are the main electric cars sold in the uk so we asked Andrew to contribute by finding the nearest dealerships for each of these manufacturers so that we could potentially phone them up and ask them about the car as well as ideally hiring a car for a day. I am going to be ringing up the dealerships and as I am the oldest I am the most likely to be able to secure a test drive or possibly a whole day with a car.

Even though it was going to be hard to start location scouting right away because of course we needed a dealership to pull through with a car, we wanted to start looking at nearby locations so we could get an idea about what could be a possibility. George and I were keen to find some places to start phoning up just to see if there would be a cost involved or if it would even be possible. I personally wanted something that was in contrast to "the future" of cars by having a rustic looking area to shoot B - Roll and the package of our news piece. We have written down a few initial places to start phoning which George is going to do.

We wanted to have a look at branding and what other companies similar to the one we want to start and see how their websites look and if there is a particular theme that they all seem to follow. Just from memory, Blue and white always seem's to be related to electricity and a lot of the electric cars use those colours on their hybrid badges. Andrew is hopefully going to follow this up but as of yet we have had no feedback.

Another thing we wanted to have a look out for in this long weekend was key facts about electric cars. Something from an official publication and dealership would be ideal as we can know that it is legitimate. Cailan is going to follow up this and hopefully on Tuesday feedback some great facts that we can start planning into the script of our work.

Ideas for the main package have started to be discussed. We are interested in doing a range test in an electric car and if we could secure a car for the day we should be able to put that too the test. We are also interested to see how much pollution an electric car does emit, as usually you have to burn fossil fuels to create electric so we wanted to do the math and see how much it does actually use as in reality it is still not carbon neutral. We've also had the idea to compare it to a normal car, possibly with another version from the same company (Ford focus electric vs ford focus petrol for example) and then see what the practicality of going electric is, can it do all that the petrol car can? We'd also like to explore government grants as right now they give you a substantial amount off to go electric, we wonder if this may change.

As for the live interview we feel like a scientist or mechanic may be the way to go to get some real thoughts on electric cars, are they easy to maintain and are they expensive to keep going. A scientist would let us know how much better (or worse) going electric could be and we need someone not associated with the brand to tell us this otherwise it could be very biased as understandably the dealerships want to sell all the good points about the car.

Overall we are happy with how a day of efforts went into this idea, I felt like for the most part we all contributed a lot to this idea and going forward this is probably going to be our main idea for now. Here are the initial notes and brainstorms we have done for this idea.