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.

TV News Notes - Sourcing Stories

Intro

• A broadcast Journalist relies on a wide range of sources and contacts (Find NEW NEWS)
• The best journalists don't wait for the news to appear they go and find it
• Some people in authority or a big company put on press releases but they will only tell the good parts of the story and what they actually want you to know
• Make sure that you don't give certain stories or people priority to keep it fair

Primary Sources

• Own direct contacts
• Original sources and material from the archive
• Public appeals
• Press releases - stats - official statements

Secondary sources

• Stringers (freelance)
• Other platforms / media

Wires

• Press Association provide a range of news stories and content for print and digital media for the UK And Ireland
• Reuters
• Try to do less work on google, search for an actual group rather than a generic word to try and find results

Correspondents

• Subject specialists work in newsrooms and are prized for their depth knowledge and well honed contracts
• Lobby politics Influenced groups Lobby the government in such meetings to get their views across and attempt to influence policy  

Foreign News Sources

• Journalists, editors and correspondents based permanently 
• Valued for local contacts and on the ground knowledge and access
• Often long hours and lots of travelling due to wide area covered and can be in dangerous and politically unstable areas
• International news agencies and large scale news organisations such as ABC and SKY
• Eurovision news exchange - Facilitates the exchange of stories between european countries. 

Fake NEWS

• They look like news packages and sound like them, but stories are to be approached with caution as they are often propaganda
• Think about why you are being told this story, Who is sending them to your timeline?
• Blurring the lines between Marketing and News
• Verify and check these stories

Communication

• Whatever source of information and stories you will need to be consummate communicator in order to access these.
• As with the documentary you need to know the essentials before you make a call, do your research and know what questions you want to ask
• Get used to using your telephone 
• Emails are good  for exchanging information but nothing beats a telephone call to help talk about something. Building a rapport, gauge the person you are talking to and make a decision about them and the story. 

Keep them on side

• Sometimes you need to be creative with ways to contact people
• Providing you are being ethical find good ways to negotiate obstacles to gain the access you need
• Often you need to have stamina and be prepared to push to get a story
• If people are unsure if they want to give part try and let them know this a great way to prove their point
• Don't give up on trying to find the right contact
• Art of tracking people is down is one you need to master, research to get those KEY CONTACTS
• Think outside the obvious to get what you need
• Possibly find someone on the other side of the story if you are struggling

Deadlines 

• You will always have deadlines so that you can deliver on time

Angle

• A news angle is a way to develop your story
• It can be defined as the main significance of the story to your particular audience, is there a particular viewpoint.
• There are several angles on any story your job is to decide which one appeals to your audience the best.

What makes it newsworthy? 

• Need to know
• Public interest, justifying what we are doing to tell the story to the massive
• Different agendas for different groups
• Lead story might vary at different times of the day
• Deciding what's important, and putting it in an order that makes the most sense 
• What is behind the news
• You will normally see between 15-20 new stories per day
• what is going through and what is not being told. This is how Fake news is rumbling the more established news sites
• They have to balance the good and bad news together even if it is mainly negative
• Even within your own story you will need to show the good and the bad mixed together to give a fairer view of the situation.

Key areas which determine a decision

1. LOCATION
2. TIMLINESS
3. IMPACT
4. PROMINANCE
5. CONFLICT
6. SIMPLICITY
7. BROADCASTERS VIEWS

Developing your story

• Copious research needs to be matched with copious note taking
• Be organised and ensure you keep your contacts relevant information somewhere you can easily access it (Contact list - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1usrVf9BzznOvZNhibEMNen5gZUDwWRSuG64TQXE1XNw/edit)
• Ensure the source is reliable "allegedly or apparently" is not good enough

Setting up your story

1. What your story is
2. Who is in your story
3. Where is it
4. When is it to be shot
5. How you will tell it
6. Why you are making the story 
7. Interesting way into the story

Following up your leads

• Early stages of research should lead you to the final elements which you will include in your story
• Inevitably there will be decisions made on the basis of availability, location cost etc (Costs Google docs- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KuLh0ODP-nihfzz_q1Dx5l2Lrk3agAzkOrb0W0hAQmo/edit )
• Respect the leads and be kind but not friends. Treat people as you want to be treated

TV News story forms

Basic Types

• READERS tell the stories with no pictures - Usually for shorter stories on one that doesn't have the pictures ready yet.
• OOV are presenters who are reading out of vision (voiceover but live) whilst pictures are playing and are normally short pieces. They can add a variety of pace to the newscast. possibly used for a late breaking story. GRAPHICS ARE USEFUL FOR STATISTICS.
• OOV/SOT Combo of of the previous two. Good for varying pace of the programme. Useful for covering an event and someone needs to comment.
• NEWS PACKAGEs are fully formed self contained news piece. News presenter is not involved in the story telling. Reporter takes the lead of the story. Do recce 

25 Word Pitch - Electric Cars and The Future of Motoring

We are not settled on the Electric car idea just yet but I have come up with a 25 word script for this potential idea.

"We rely on transport, it runs our economy. But it is damaging the environment, is the future greener, and better for our world?"

It gives a basic premise of what we want to investigate, we want to know if the future of motoring could be electric and how much better that could be for the environment.

TV News - Initial Ideas and First Contacts

Our group, Andrew, George.N, Cailan and I came up with a few ideas each and then broadcast them as a group so we could talk about them. I came up with three initial ideas

• Transport Delays and how they are becoming an ever more important issue
• Electric cars - What's the advantage right now? (Volvo have said they will not make a car that does not include some sort of electric engine by 2019)
• Race season showdown, the battle for the championship title between a few competitors and we would take you behind the scenes to show you the raw emotion of it.

After we had discussed all our ideas all my ideas were taken to be expanded on as well as one from Andrew about The Beatles playing at West Malling. Our plan for the later half of Tuesday and Wednesday was to try and get some sort of contact with someone who can help with our ideas.

So far this is the progress that has been made for my selected topic which was the Championship showdown in motorsport:

• I have emailed about 30 different teams and motorsport drivers who are involved in a racing series that is coming to an end in our allotted timeframe. So far that includes British superbike riders who will race at Brands Hatch 14/15th Oct and also DTM (German touring cars) which races that same weekend in Hockenheim Germany. I have had some responses already which is really positive, even though one is a no (1st picture) and the second is a Faint yes (2nd picture) it means that we already have some important information about how we could get this to work.
• I also have a friend who has contacts with another race series ending mid-october however the bigger problem with this is that it is in Germany again but a week earlier meaning George cannot get the time off work.

• George has got in contact with Tesla, BMW,Nissan and Volvo about Electric cars, we hope to secure an interview possibly with a salesman or speaker for the brand who can let us know why they are pursuing electric cars for the future

•  Cailan has contacted Southern Rail and AA UK Traffic department about transport delays. We hope to secure an interview with someone who can tell us why traffic delays are a bigger problem year after year and what they are trying to do to resolve it

•  So far Andrew has not contacted anyone or contributed to our group chat meaning we are sceptical if he is committed to our project.

So far I think the three of us who have bounced ideas off of each other have done a great job at critiquing each other's ideas and the possible access problems, For example:

• George suggested my idea would be a struggle as it could include flying abroad, costing money and also possibly having much harder filming laws.
• I suggested to George and Andrew about having a story that was a little more action filled would make it more interesting, hence the reason we dropped a few ideas they had
• Andrew also mentioned that he didn't have a passport so he may not be able to be a part of the filming process if we do go abroad.

Overall it is a great start, the three of us have put in significant effort to email people in our chosen idea to try and get something started. Whilst so far I am the only one with a contact I feel we are ina  good position because we have been proactive in emailing people right away.

Unit Briefing -TV NEWS

- Sourcing Stories & story telling
- Sourcing Contributors
- Sourcing locations
- Script writing (writing to pictures , tie writing)
- Interviewing skills
- Sequencing and Actuality
- SWEFF
- Good coverage (GV)
- Good sound (correct kit)
- Factual accuracy, fair dealing, impartiality & balance
- Teamwork and communication
- Time management / organisational skills
- Interpreting info & finding news angles
- Action and the reaction to that

New skills:
- Reporting - on screen/ directing talent
- Fast turn around (get a story and access quickly)
- Online platform development, branding, concept
- Studio presentation, news anchoring
- Sourcing talent , news reporters
- Good writing

Unit aims:
- Promote critical understanding of news and current affairs
- Facilitate and development of creative methodology for the production of news and current affairs
- Further develop technical and collaborative skills for production
- Develop presentation skills

BRIEF
Produce your own original online news channel and produce content for that channel
Find a brand which will fit a particular audience & provide content for that audience
Working in groups of three

Design your own branded digital online news channel via websites such as YouTube, Vimeo etc

Original title sequence, GFX, Strapline
Promotional package a presenter led teaser trailer for your news items
1 News package per group 2min- 2min30
1 "Live" OB report with a reporter from location
Written material on the web page to further support your channel and explain it's remit and purpose

Quick, punchy and strong headlines
Facts and Information to back up what we are saying
SHOW NOT TELL

Documentary Unit - BIG FAT LIES Final Cut

The Final Product

Documentary Unit - Evaluation of BIG FAT LIES

Big Fat Lies has come a long way in a short space of time. originally in a group of just George and myself we really pushed ourselves to prove that it didn't matter what group size we had. We then had Cailan join us at a vital time to help the last parts of post-production and make sure he liked the idea as much we did.

Why this topic? & our planned filming style
We wanted to prove in this documentary that you can't cheat your way to a slimmer or healthier body, we found numerous facts and figures online before starting that showed a lot of these "hacks" do not actually help at all. To suit our documentary style, we wanted to have a presenter to guide us along our journey. Of course one of us could have done it but we wanted to push ourselves and try and find an actor on castingcallpro to present our show. I was the driving force in finding a presenter and as I narrowed it down to three we came together to chose the best via a skype interview. Andrew was great so we decided to go with him because we think his personality could really drive our documentary.

Locations and interviewees
I was really happy with the locations we sorted for the documentary as they really fit well with the show. We got some great access with Pole fitness and our nutritionist Jayne and Ryan and Carley also came up with vital information. The interviews were not the most engaging but with the B-Roll we shot to go along side it, it did actually work pretty well.

What went well?
I think we got great coverage in some interesting places which we may have originally not gone to. For example Pole Fitness is a segment that divides opinions on people that watch it but it was slightly out of our comfort zone to start talking about, but once chatting with the guys there you really feel that the taboo is not correct.

I think all the shoot days were a success, I don't like complimenting myself but I was really happy with what I personally shot throughout the whole show. I think the footage I got looked great, on my Panasonic DSLR which started out as a back-up cam but we quickly found it made the best looking shots so towards the end it was basically our main camera. The drone shots also added an extra dimension to our show which I personally think does make it stand out. They are not also just random drone shots for the sake of it, they are all relevant to what's being said on screen.

I think the planning layout and footage sharing systems we employed were great. I set up a google doc to share ideas and then scrips etc which meant we could all edit at the same time, whilst Cailan set up a dropbox for footage and graphic sharing after the shoot days. These were incredibly helpful tools that meant we could edit quicker.

Cailan's professional Microphone setup added an extra layer of quality to our project. The voice over work we did initially was superb and we were really impressed with the outcome.

I think that overall when we were all there for the shoot days we worked superbly well as a team, we bounced ideas off each other and were not afraid to say if we didn't like them. Unfortunately though there where a few days where it was just myself and George meaning it was tough to tell if we were going in the right direction as we did not have the extra set of eyes to help.

What could be improved?
Audio in Pole fitness and some parts of John Lewis were bad, we forgot to ask for them to turn the music off in pole fitness and it was just incredibly loud in John Lewis meaning editing was hard, but we did a good job to mask it as much as possible.

It seems you can never have enough B Roll as we did seem to struggle right at the end to fill the final gaps but it wasn't a major issue, but with more time I would have liked to have got more.

George did great job with the pop up facts but they took a long time so we could not really perfect them and we never properly settled on a colour scheme.

One shot that annoyed me was in John Lewis you could see me in the reflection of the crazy mirror layout they had got. It's probably not something you'd see if you only watched it once but I noticed it after seeing it a lot.

With the time constraints we had I think we did a very good job, especially in a team of three I think we really did push ourselves in this project.

What I Learned

The biggest thing for me in this project was getting so many people together for a 10 min documentary, I learned a lot in the way you approach people and the way to keep them onboard. We sometimes had a big gap between emailing and then shooting meaning we had to keep in constant contact which I think I did well.

I think I took the next step in camerawork and editing and I feel that I have made good progress this year and this project looks in a different league to what I made in late 2016.

Whilst we did technically work in groups before we never really had to have the same commitment as to when it was a group project. I feel I have learned how to interact in a group to get the most efficient outcome. Sometimes that meant piling on pressure to get it done, other times it was a case of "leave me alone for a bit". I think as a group we did well at helping each other through it as it was tough being in a smaller group with more responsibility on each of our shoulders.

Final Conclusion

I would say out of all the projects I have done so far in uni, this is the one I am most proud of. I think that George and I would have never have thought it would get to this stage after Ethan left and we were in a group of 2 that looked like it was going to have to fold. I think we did a good job at fitting the project brief, I think our show really does fit a BBC 3 audience of a younger age because a lot of young people are concerned about how they look and how the media pressurises us into it.

It was great to work with George and Cailan and I think we worked very well as a team. There was a slight lack of communication early on in the project which probably meant we had to make up for lost time later but on the most part I was very happy about the individual contributions in this project.

I was really happy with what I filmed, it's the part I enjoy the most so to see my footage on screen and looking like it did, I was very happy. George did an great job in editing and Cailan went to the next step to create an awesome opening sequence that really sets our documentary up how we wanted.

Documentary Unit - The Editing Process

We had split the editing into six parts and we each had two each to focus on. Mine were the Nutritionist interview as well as the photoshoot montage. after some parts had merged I wanted to do more so created the intro, outro and credits.

I like editing so I was looking forward to it, of course we came across problems along the way but as a team we came together and worked really hard to get the final project together. It was good that most of the time all 3 of us were bouncing off opinions on each others work so that we could constantly improve it. Whilst it means that the tension can get high as you put time into something for it to be changed but it means we ended up with a good project, which we are all happy with.

I found adding B Roll really added to all of the project, it meant that the interviews that were pretty boring were brought to life with something more interesting to look at. It was tough to keep the B Roll relevant so it has been vastly edited as at times it didn't make much sense, but after a lot of effort the B Roll looked great.

George made pop up name cards, facts and tip cards which were added to the project to make it better visually for the viewer to know what is being shown on screen.

Some shots needed closer up pictures to show what was going on, it was simple editing but it means that the viewer can follow our story a lot more closely.

Thanks to great feedback from each other and in our meetings with Zoe, Helen and Sam we really nailed the editing and we feel we do have a good piece of work.

I feel we did a great job as a group in editing, we all fairly contributed to it and even though it was tough when placing all into the main project, it meant we all got to have a proper go at editing.

Documentary Unit - Fine Cut

Today was Fine Cut Deadline - This is the cut after Zoe's feedback so we have update some of the things she mentioned.

Some of the big things that Zoe suggested were:

- Less diet pill stuff in the intro
- Interweave the photoshoot with the montage, as Carley's interview by itself is not that interesting.
- The in/outs of each segment need to more seamless.
- Make pole fitness about being body confident and not losing weight.
- Cut down Jayne's interview and try to rearrange it to make sense/ more sense.
- Make the intro better, doesn't work in the car.

Here is the fine cut with a few late additions.

Documentary Unit - Shoot Day 7

We did not plan to shoot any more footage but after feedback from Zoe and Helen we decided that we needed to film more footage. The plan was to collect Andrew, go to Bluewater to get the B Roll of Andrew trying on the clothes as well as General shop B Roll, then head to strood to get some better opening shots for the Pole Fitness segment and then head to George's town to film more audio on my microphone as well as the ending scene of the documentary.

Task 1: Bluewater (John lewis B Roll)
On advice from our rough cut review we decided to go back to john lewis and get the b-roll that we can use to cover what ryan says about the in/out fashion right now. As Ryan is not the most enthusiastic interviewee we had to make it exciting somehow so we decided to get Andrew to do some funny moves and faces when he tried on the clothes. It should make the John lewis segment drastically more interesting to see Andrew in the clothes being talked about.

Task 2: Pole Fitness B Roll

We had good footage from the first shoot but we just needed more of it. We made the trip to strood to get that vital footage to make the intro to the segment a lot sleeker. As Cailan was editing it we asked him what he wanted and more general shots of the area was what he wanted. On my camera I was recording the intro PTC which was eventually ditched for a voiceover whilst Cailan and George got the B Roll that we intended to get.

Cailan got a nice shot of the train pulling away.

Whilst George and I tried to get a PTC Intro.

Task 3: Outro and Audio patch-work
We had yet to record a non-commentary ending so we decided to film that in a quiet location in Meopham, it was simple but worked and left the documentary on a nice note.

We probably could have worked around the audio that we already had but it made most sense to just record the exact parts that we needed. Andrew, helpful as ever stayed around for a few extra hours to make sure that we got what we needed.

That wrapped up our final days shoot, it was not planned to be so late but it was a super-productive day and we all enjoyed working with Andrew once again, honestly we could not have got a nicer guy to present our documentary.

Documentary Unit - What I Contributed

I feel we have done a good job in this unit as we only had a 3 man group whilst others worked in 4's. This blog post is dedicated to what I have contributed to this unit. We have done a great job at all dedicating an equal amount of work to do.

Here is what I have contributed to this project.

- Before Cailan joined we did a lot of research on facts and ideas about what people do to lose weight. George and I split this work equally.

- Once Cailan joined we split the script work equally but as Cailan missed a few days we had to fill in as we had changed our parts we had to change parts of Cailan's so it would make sense.

- I was responsible for messaging presenters and I whittled it down to a few who we then interviewed. All three of us took part in a skype interview and chose Andrew as our presenter. George and I did do a pre-interview analysis and we did think Andrew was initially the best.

- Location prep was mostly split between myself and George as we planned possible activities. I organised Pole fitness but was working at the time they wanted me to call them so George phoned to confirm shooting days. I planned the running sequence which was eventually scrapped but we still used the footage as B-roll.  Between the three of us we decided on a good place for the photoshoot.

- George was struggling to get replies for a Nutritionist interview so I wanted to help a hand. I messaged a few people out and thankfully we got in contact with Jayne who was happy for us to do an interview.

- On the shoot days George and I were present for all 7 shoot days whilst Cailan missed three, however when we filmed we all shared duties between us and normally shot with multiple cameras to make sure we had good options in editing.

- In editing we split the show into 6 main parts and had 2 each. I had the nutritionist interview as well as the Photoshoot montage. I also did smaller parts - Selfie comparison and intro/outro as well as credits. Cailan and George did a great job in editing and camerawork

- Cailan did day 1 of the voiceover work and I did a bit of patch up audio work a week later.

I think when we have all been in we have contributed equally to this project, it was just a couple of days that there was only 2 of us which sometimes meant that we did struggle.

Documentary Unit - Rough Cut

This is the fine cut of "Big Fat Lies" There are blank spaces currently were possible sequences and audio may go. We know we need to cut the sequences down and we will be having an edit session after recording our extra parts on Tuesday. We're really striving to push our skills with this piece as we think we've got a really good piece but we need that extra footage to prove it.