Thursday, 29 September 2016

Digital News: Writing For News Workshop


WRITING FOR NEWS WORKSHOP

As part of a Digital News workshop, we have been tasked with writing a news bulletin, based on a given press release. Ida and I were given a press release from RSPCA, that talks about a circus that have rebranded themselves as an 'educational evening'. RSPCA are campaigning for a ban to be put in place that prevents circuses from using wild animals.

KEY FACTS-

- DEFRA statistics from 2010 show that 94% of 10,500 favoured a ban on the use of wild animals in circuses.
- RSPCA are focusing and working on getting a complete ban on the use of any wild animals in circuses.
- Scottish Government have submitted plans to ban the use of wild animals in circuses.
- DEFRA: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs say they have a manifesto commitment to enforce the ban.
- In the meantime, strict licensing systems and inspection regulations are in place to ensure the welfare of any wild circus animals.
- One circus is misleading it's audiences by rebranding themselves as an 'Educational evening'. Animal lovers arrive expecting to see the animals being helped, not forced to perform circus acts.

SCRIPT:

 PRE-TITLES INTRO

"Six years after the conservative party promised to ban the use of wild animals in circuses, the government have yet to act. Tonight we have an exclusive report, that exposes the traveling circuses that continue to abuse wild animals for entertainment; and we look at the loopholes they use to get away with it."

Opening Titles

 INTRO

 "This week, the Scottish Government submitted their plans to ban the use of wild animals in circus performances, which raises questions as to why the Conservative government are yet to act on their manifesto promises to put a ban in place by 2015. With the public interest in the welfare of the animals increasing, we went undercover to investigate travelling circuses. This report does contain some distressing images"

REPORT CONTENTS
- Secretly filmed videos of animals being abused in circuses.
- Interviews with representatives for the RSPCA, and the National Centre For Circus Arts
- Information about current Government policies, and the loopholes the circuses use to avoid responsibility.

OUTRO

We asked the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs for an interview, they declined, but issued this statement:

We have a manifesto commitment to ban the use of wild animals in circuses. We will deliver this ban as soon as parliamentary time allows. 

 In the meantime, we have a strict licensing system in place to ensure the welfare of any wild animals in circuses. This includes both announced and unannounced inspections, care plans for every animal, regular veterinary inspections and a retirement plan for each animal.

 We will keep you updated as this story develops. This has been The Wire News, brought to you by Apple. Goodnight, and remember 'Think Different'.

GROUP FEEDBACK

 Ida and I read our script back to the group, and this was the feedback we received:

- The intro was a bit long winded and this meant the audience began to tune out quite quick.
- The quote should have been part of the report, not the outro. Don't add in new information during the outro.
- The structure was good.
- Everything that needed to be said, was said. We just need to think more about shortening it down.

Monday, 26 September 2016

Digital News: Presenter- Joshua Jones (Me)

For our digital news production, we needed a main presenter, and as a group, we decided that I would be good for the job. Even though I'm the presenter, I need to write about it so show the development of our idea.


PRESENTER- JOSHUA JONES (ME)

 There are a few reasons for this decision, which I have listed below-

  • I have experience presenting digital productions.
  • I'm confident in front of the camera.
  • I'm a student.
  • My laid back presenting style fits the style our show requires.
We wanted our entire cast to be made up of students, as one of our main USPs is that Student Yak is made by students, for students. As I am a student, it is okay for me to present the show. Even though we will not be working with a professional presenter, we will still work together as though we are. We will still ensure that as the presenter, I am given the same information we would give a professional presenter if we hired one. The only difference between me and a professional presenter is the fact that I'll do it for free!

I look forward to working as the presenter, editor, and co-producer on this project.

Digital News: Contributor- Katie Joslin

https://www.youtube.com/user/katiejoslin1
CONTRIBUTOR- KATIE JOSLIN

For one of our news stories, we needed to find a youtuber that we could interview. Lucky for us, one of the new first year students is a youtuber, and a pretty good one too. She currently has 6,459 subscribers, and over 186,000 views, which is quite impressive.

Statistics from Katie's YouTube channel
To find out a bit more about Katie, I watched her summer project.


She seems very confident talking about herself in front of the camera, which is good news for us.

Ida spoke to Katie, and explained to her what we planned to do, and she said she would be up for it, so we now have a contributor for our viral video story. Our next step is to set up a meeting with her to help us prepare for the on camera interview. We will also use what we learn from her to help us with our viral video experiment. During the meeting we will also get her to sign an artist form.

We look forward to working with her, and we hope she looks forward to working with us.

Digital News: Initial Graphic Designs

For our digital news production, we needed graphics that would be part of our video content, and some of our web content. As editor, I took it upon myself to come up with some graphic designs to show to the group. I created all of them on Adobe After Effects, and they all follow the same theme which runs across our entire brand. Below is a video that contains a preview of the following:
  • Opening titles- based on the header of our website
  • Bumpers
  • Lower thirds
  • Transitions
  • Closing credits/outro
My next step is to show all of these graphic design previews to the group and see what they think.


PREVIEWS


LIVE GRAPHIC

 This will appear in the top left hand corner of the screen when we broadcast live.
LOGO TEST DESIGN

 This will appear on everything we create and act as a recognisable icon for our content.
SECONDARY LEGO

This is a text version of the logo which may accompany the main logo, or appear on it's own.


*UPDATE*

 I have showed these designs to the group, and they are all very happy with them. No changes need to be made.

Digital News: Facebook/Twitter/YouTube


To add to the branding of our digital news production, we decided to create a Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube account.

YOUTUBE

 Having a YouTube account was very important for our brand, as although we had a website, we needed somewhere to host our videos. We believed that YouTube was the best platform for our brand.

When setting up the YouTube account, I kept our brand in mind. I set the logo as our current test design, and I created a header using the header design from our website. In the about section I used our 25 word pitch as I felt this best was the best summary of our aims.

Here is the final channel-


I sent a link to the channel to the rest of the group and they all seemed happy with it, however we will discuss it in our next meeting.

TWITTER

 Twitter is a very popular social media platform. When everyone is talking about something, they are usually talking about it on Twitter. We thought it would be great if our brand had a Twitter account, so I set one up.

When setting up the Twitter account, I kept our brand in mind. I set the logo to our current test logo, and I used the header from the youtube channel as the header for our Twitter account. I used our 25 word pitch as the description as it fit perfectly. Finally, I set our colour scheme to that of our brand, orange and purple.

Here is the final Twitter page-


I sent a link to the page to the rest of the group and they all seemed happy with it, however we will discuss it in our next meeting. I also followed the group on Twitter so they could all follow back.

FACEBOOK

 Facebook is a great way to share media with your audience, and so Nisserin thought it'd be great if we had a page, and the rest of the group agreed. She set one up and used the graphics from the Twitter, and YouTube to keep the brand consistent over all platforms.

Here is the final Facebook page, with an updated logo:



Overall we are happy with the YouTube, Twitter & Facebook pages and we think they fit the brand that we have created.

Links-

Images-

Digital News: Feedback From Ideas Lab


As part of our ideas lab, we shared our idea with Helen and the rest of the year group.

FEEDBACK

 We started by telling Helen about our overall brand idea, and how we started with the brand, before thinking about the stories. Next we spoke about the categories we had come up with to help us separate the stories. Finally, we told Helen about the story ideas we had come up with so far. This is a summary of the feedback we got:

- Good, strong brand idea.
- Good idea to start with the brand.
- Likes the categories.
- Likes the idea of a story about apps.
- Contributed towards our viral videos idea. Suggested that we attempt to go viral as part of an experiment.
- Mentioned how we could look at film festivals as part of our film/tv yak category.
- Overall, very happy with the idea.

We were very happy with this feedback, and we now have a few things to think about before our next meeting. After sharing the idea with the group, everyone seemed pretty positive about it.

Images:
https://www.agileconnection.com/sites/default/files/article/2015/feedback.jpg

Digital News: Ideas Lab Meeting

To continue the development of our idea, our group sat down for a second time to discuss the next steps.

IDEAS LAB MEETING

 To being the meeting I showed the group the website I had set up. This would help give everyone an idea of the current branding. I will talk more about the design of the website in another post, however I will talk about the header design in this one.

HEADER DESIGN

Header design
Above is the current design for the header on the website. After the group saw it, they agreed I should adapt it, and use the same graphics for the opening titles, instead of using the designs from the summer project. I agreed as I felt this new design fit the brand, and our target audience more. The header features four graphics:

  • Two arrow based graphics- To represent how we aim to direct you to the news we think you ought to know.
  • A microphone- To represent how we want to give students a voice.
  • A light- To represent how we want to shine a light on the stories we think students care about.
Overall the theme of the header shows how we want to be a stage for all things student. After looking through the website, the group agreed it was right for our brand, and that our initial colour choices (orange and purple) we also right for our brand.

RESEARCH

Next we spoke about the research everyone had carried out since the last meeting. Becca and Nisserin spoke about a student in our first year who they discovered was a youtuber. Her name is Katie Joslin, and she has about 6,000 subscribers, which isn't a lot compared to bigger youtubers, but it was enough for us. As a group we decided that we should try and get her as a contributor for our main story about viral videos.

Ida told us about some research shad had carried out. She looked at the reaction to the release of the news iPhone 7. She also looked into app testing as another thing we could carry out on our show, to help students decide which apps they should be using, especially if they will aid their studies. As well as this, Ida developed 'Meme of the Day', and two social media related topics 'Insta-scoop' and 'Snap-Yak'.

Finally we spoke about another first year we thought we could get involved, called George. We watched his summer project and spotted that he was quite good in front of the camera. He had a really good personality, and so we thought he'd be great for our show. Next we will look into getting him involved.

LOGO DESIGNS

One of the most important parts of our brand is the logo. We need something that is instantly recognisable, like the big golden M of McDonalds. After some discussion, we thought it would be great if we could have a Yak with a graduation cap on as our logo. I put together a quick preview of the sort of thing we would like on Photoshop.

Test logo
Ida told us about a friend she had who was a graphic designer. After looking at some of her work online, we decided that it would be great if we could hire her and get her to design our logo. Ida will look into this. To see here work, click here.

25 WORD PITCH

Ida mentioned that it would be a good idea if we worked on a 25 word pitch to help us explain our idea to others. If we came up with one, we could also put it on our website in the 'about us' section.

To read the pitch we came up with, click here.

Finally we discussed what work needed to be carried out next:
  • Ida- Talk to Katie about being involved
  • Josh- Work on graphic design
  • Becca- Start working on the script
  • Nisserin- Look into the viral video story. What makes something viral?
Overall this was a very good meeting, and after much discussion, we are now very happy and confident with our final idea.

 Credit: Ida Frank

Digital News: Our Idea | Student Yak

To begin this unit, our group sat down and discussed our ideas. We had already decided by this point that we wanted to do something funny that was aimed at students. I pitched an idea to the group based on something I had done over the summer as a personal project: Student Yak. As a group, we decided that this would be our brand.
Our Logo
STUDENT YAK

 The best way to sum this idea up is in the form of a 25 word pitch:

"Student Yak aims to find entertaining news and views from all corners of the Internet, and bring it to you. Made by students, for students"


Our digital news channel will focus on the funny side of the news, and take a satirical look at the serious side. It's called Student Yak because we are students and yak is another word for talk, which is what we like to do a lot, it's as simple as that.

In terms of branding, we decided that the website and all the content should have a bright and fun feel to it. We decided to use orange and purple as our colours, because we felt that fit best with the style we were aiming for. We wanted all the branding to match across all platforms, so we didn't want to come up with something to complicated.

When looking at news stories, because of the broadness of our central idea, we can look at anything, as long as there is some link to students, or we beleive its a story students would be interested in. To help split the news stories up, we came up with some categories for the website:

  • Viral Yak- Focuses on stories about viral internet phenomena, like viral videos and memes. One idea Ida had was to end each video with a 'meme of the day'.
  • (Un)Social Yak- Focuses on stories about social media, like twitter reactions to certain events.
  • TV/Film Yak- Focuses on stories about the latest films and TV shows, like the best Netflix series, or a 60 second review of a new movie.
  • Celebrity Yak- Focuses on the latest celebrity stories like relationships and Twitter beefs.
  • Tech Yak- Focuses on stories about the latest technology, like the release on the new iPhone.
  • Super Serious Yak- Focuses on the more serious stories that relate to students, for example we may encourage students to get the Meningitis jab.

OUR AIMS

We want this show and it's website to be a platform for all things student. We want students to get all their news from us first. We want students to see all the most popular, viral internet phenomena on our social media/show/website first. We want students to talk about the things they see on our show. We beleive our show and branding we help us do this.

NEWS STORIES

 When thinking about news, we chose to think of it as something new, something people don't know about, something we think people should know about. By thinking about it like this, it made it easier to think about what stories we could feature.

We spoke about a few initial ideas we had. The first one was about viral videos. We wanted to investigate how things go viral, and what it is like to go viral. We spoke about possibly finding a youtuber to interview, seen as they would probably know a fair bit about the lifestyle and about viral videos.

Our second story idea was about the amount of sequels and prequels that are being made by the film industry. We thought we could go out to the public and find out if people really want to keep seeing the same thing over and over again. We spoke about how the film industry only continue to make sequels and prequels if the originals are very popular, so is it our own fault that they keep making them?

By the end of the meeting we decided that our next step should be to develop these ideas and attempt to find stories for each category. I said I would continue to develop the viral video idea, Ida said she would look at an idea for (Un)Social Yak, Becca said she would look for a story for Celebrity Yak, and Nisserin said she would find a story for TV/Film Yak.

INITIAL GRAPHIC DESIGNS

 Whilst talking about graphic design and branding, I showed everyone the graphics I had used for the project I had worked on over the summer. The group liked them, so I said I would go away and work on them so they fit with our new brand. I needed to create opening titles, bumpers, lower thirds, transitions, and closing titles.

Original branding

NEXT STEPS

 To prepare for our next meeting I will:

  • Begin to develop the viral video story
  • Work on the graphic designs
  • Set up a website
I am looking forward to this project, I have a very fun group who are willing to try new things, and create something different, which is what we hope to achieve as our outcome.

Sunday, 25 September 2016

Digital News: 25 Word Pitch

25 WORD PITCH

During our second idea meeting, our group decided it would be a good idea to come up with a 25 word pitch to help us explain to others what the point of our idea is.

We spent a little while brainstorming and coming up with some key phrases. This is the final pitch we came up with:

"Student Yak aims to find entertaining news and views from all corners of the Internet, and bring it to you. Made by students, for students"


We beleive this 25 word pitch perfectly sums up our idea, and the aims of our digital news production.

Wednesday, 21 September 2016

Digital News: The Brief & Initial Idea


New year, new term, new unit...

THE BRIEF

 For this unit we have been tasked with creating our own original online news channel. As part of this we must produce our own content that fits with the channel brand and identity. We must produce three videos for this unit, 1 news package, 1 live report, and one promotional trailer. We must also create an online channel/website for this digital news production.

After initially reading this brief I was quite pleased to see what it was we had to do. Over the years I have produced a few of my own original online productions. None of them really focused on news, but it still means I have some experience in producing work for the internet that follows a specific brand or idea.

For this unit we will be working as groups. I decided that it would be a good idea if I worked with some people I hadn't really worked with before, and so I ended up in a group with Ida, Nisserin and Rebecca. I'm very excited to see how this group develops and to see how we work together to get the job done.

INITIAL IDEA

 As a group, we decided to sit down and discuss our ideas for this unit. To start the session off, Ida suggested that we create something based around social media, and getting our audience involved. It was quite clear that our target audience should be students, as we are students, and we know students love social media.

So I could give the group an idea of what was going through my mind, I showed them a video on YouTube called the Topical Waffle. I will go into it more in another post, but Topical Waffle is basically a comedy news show about the weeks news. It has a very specific style, and it is very funny. After watching this, we all knew we wanted to do something funny. We decided that our news production would focus on the funny side of the news, aimed at students.

After this we spent at least two hours brainstorming and coming up with ideas based on what we had already decided. I will go into the specifics of the idea on another post after we have had our ideas lab.

At the end of our session, we all gave ourselves some homework, to prepare for our ideas lab. We also decided on our roles, which are:

Director/Writer- Rebecca
Editor/Presenter- Joshua (me)
DOP/Camera Op- Nisserin
Sound/Assistant Camera- Ida

We will all work as co-producers on this project.

By the end of the meeting, we were all feeling pretty happy about the ideas we had come up with, and we are all looking forward to working on this unit.

Images: 
https://www.7elements.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/News-1200x310.jpg