Fiction Adaptation: Poem Heard on Heart 105

Here is the final cut of my fiction adaptation production:

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Fiction Adaptation: Project Evaluation

FICTION ADAPTATION PROJECT EVALUATION

PRE-PRODUCTION

I started this unit, with one idea in my head. I wanted to do animation, and so I kept this in mind when choosing the poem. My first poem choice was 'Wish You Were Here' by Emrys Plant. After some trial and error, I quickly decided that attempting animation would not be a good idea for me. Because of this change, I also decided to choose a new poem, 'Poem Heard on Heart 105' by Ross Sutherland. When I first read that poem, I found it easy to imagine the imagery that could match it. This was my final poem choice.

My first idea for this poem was to attempt a 'one shot' film. I wanted to use the camera to explore the interior of a car, and tell a story using the words from the poem. I did some research into director Alan Clarke to help build on this idea. During this time, I was also able to talk to Ross on the phone, and ask him a few questions about the poem, and the story behind it. I found this really helped with the development of my ideas. After a few brainstorms, and a feedback session, I decided to change my idea one last time. My final idea involved following the story of a boy who had been left alone in a car for a few minutes. It has a sinister twist, because the car comes to life, and a mysterious figure tortures the boy. I will then incorporate elements of the poem into this story.

For my cast I decided to use my mum, and my brother. My mum will play the parent, and my brother will play the child. I wanted their on screen relationship to feel real, and as they are a real mother and son, I thought casting them would work out well. Neither of them are actors, and so I had to keep in mind that they may not always understand my directions.

For my locations, I decided to use a location I had previously scouted for another unit, an empty industrial area near my house. It is empty on weekends, and the owner was fine with me filming there. It has a sinister vibe that I thought would work great for the final film.

During the pre-production process, I also spent some time researching the horror genre, including watching a few short horror films set inside cars, and looking into the use of sound in horror. I found all of this research helped me when writing my script, as well as when I was producing the shot list. As well as this, I also looked into story telling with cinematography, as I felt it would help me understand how to transform my poem, into a visual piece.

I think my strength during the pre-production process was my research skills. I found all of the research I conducted really helped me when I was coming up with the idea, writing the script, and creating the shot list. My weaknesses during this part of the project was my organisation skills. I am normally an organised person, but I feel on this occasion, I let other opportunities take priority, and I didn't spend enough time getting prepared for the filming day.

PRODUCTION

To see more about the filming day: Filming

I knew I only needed to spend one day filming, as my script wasn't very long, and I was only using one location, and, for a majority, one actor. I spent the day before preparing the steadicam as I knew it would take a while to set up. In the end it took about 2-3 hours, so I'm glad I did it the day before, and not on the day of filming.

The filming day went really well, even though I wasn't as prepared as I should have been. My brother was really good, and he followed my directions really well, although it did take some time for him to get used to the camera. We spent the first few hours filming my 5 main shots, which made up a majority of my coverage for the scenes. As the film was set in one small location, it wasn't too difficult to film, but at the same time, it allowed me to be creative with my shots. After this we spent time getting all of the extra shots I needed, as well as all of my close ups, and wide shots of the location. We finished the shoot by filming all of the steadicam shots, and recording all of the sound effects.

Overall, the filming went really well and I was able to get all of the coverage I needed. My cast were really good, and they were able to understand all of my direction. My location worked really well and I think the choice of setting the film inside a car worked out nicely, and gave me the opportunity to be really creative with my shots.

My main strength during this part of the project was my directing. I was able to direct two non-actors, and get what I needed out of them to make each scene work. My brother took all of my advice on board, and delivered a good performance. My weakness during this part of the project, again has to be my organisation. All though all the filming went well, I still feel I should've been more prepared for it, and I shouldn't have left everything until a few days before.

POST-PRODUCTION

To see more about the editing process: Rough Cut and Fine Cut

For this project, the post-production process only involved editing the rough and fine cuts, as I had already acquired a recording of the poem, and I had recorded all of my sound effects during the filming process.

I found the editing process quite easy, I had already planned in advance how I wanted to edit this film together, and I kept that in mind during the filming process to ensure I had the right coverage. My favourite part of this process was the sound design. I learnt a lot about sound design during the directions unit when I had to recreate my entire environment as the sound I recorded was unusable. I had a similar with this unit, because all of my sound was ruined by the sounds of me directing my brother during the scenes. Luckily, I had planned for this, and so I had recorded some atmos sound during the filming process. I was able to recreate the environment in post-production, and in the end it worked really well.

Editing the rough and fine cuts together was a simple process, and I was able to assemble, fine tune, colour and level my final cut in a few days. Editing is always my favourite part of the process, and I really enjoyed it on this occasion.

I'd say my main strength during this part of the project was my ability to edit together a good rough cut, in a short space of time. I have really honed in my editing skills now, and I am able to put a good video together in a short space of time, which allows me time to work on other things. My main weakness, was my colour correcting skills. This is something I need to work on, as I tend to over do it. However, on this occasion I feel eventually it worked out nicely.

OVERALL EVALUATION: CRITICAL REFLECTIONS

Strengths-

• My contextual research skills made the pre-production process on this project flow better. I was able to use research into other productions to back up my own ideas, and help me develop new ones. I was also able to apply the information I had learnt about cinematography, and the steadicam, during the filming process to help my camera operator get the shots I was aiming for.
• My editing skills were also another strength. I was able to quickly put a good rough cut together, which was essential as I filmed two days before my rough cut viewing, and I wanted them to be able to view a cut that was as close to what I wanted as possible.
• My sound design skills helped on this unit, especially as having a complex sound track was part of the brief. I was able to recreate my environment in sound, and use the right foley and sound effects to build up that environment. My use of certain sound effects in the film, helps the poem fit in, and prevents it from getting lost in the visuals.
• My communication skills aided me during the pre-production process as I was able to contact my poet and learn more about the poem, which ultimately helped me come up with ideas.
• I feel my directing abilities helped me during the filming process, as I was able to successfully direct two non-actors, and get them to give me what I was looking for on screen.

Weaknesses-

• My main weaknesses on this unit was my organisation skills. I spent too much time focussing on other projects, and not enough time focusing on this one during the pre-production process. This lead to me only deciding what it was I was filming, a few days before the shoot day, which is not a good position to be in. This is unlike me, and something I work on fixing.
• I also feel I should've tried to work with actors for this unit. Although my cast were good, I feel I should have allowed myself to develop my experience working with actors.
• Although this isn't part of the production, I also feel another one of my weaknesses was my essay writing skills. I feel the final essay I produced could've been better, and lacked depth. I should work on my essay writing skills for future occasions.

Possible developments-

• If I were to do this again, I would:
• Hire professional actors as my cast.
• Be more organised and prepared for my filming days.
• Spend more time working on getting the essay right, instead of focusing most of my time on the production process, or other projects.

CONCLUSION

Overall, I am very happy with the final production, it's a shame I can't say the same for the essay. The film I produced visually looked nice, and I feel it represented the poem really well. I hope the poet agrees with my opinions on the film. This project allowed me to be creative, and develop my editing and sound design skills. To summarise, I am proud of the final film I have produced, and despite the few weaknesses in organisation, this project ended up being not as bad as I thought it might be.

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Digital News: Online Critical Analysis

Online Critical Analysis of the Creative Project (Student Yak) in Relation to Current News Output

INTRODUCTION:

News is “something that is new or current … it’s the things that people want to know about or need to know about” (Edwards, 2012). This critical analysis of the online news channel “Student Yak”, will discuss the production of ‘Let’s Go Viral’, the definition of news, and the genre of news and news production. To do this it will explore elements of news like concept and brand development, audiences, platforms, presentation, storytelling and story development. It will discuss how research from these key areas influenced the creation, development, and production of Student Yak, and lay out the reasons behind all the decisions that were made.

CONCEPT/BRAND DEVELOPMENT:

Student Yak is an online news channel that “aims to find entertaining news and views from all corners of the Internet, and bring it to [students]” (Student Yak, 2016). The channel focuses on the news it believes is important to students, and does so using the ‘News as Infotainment’ method. This method relates to the “type of media which provides a combination of information and entertainment” (Demers, 2009), which means the news is presented in a fun and entertaining manner. It was decided that the programme should focus on student news because as students, we felt we should report on events that we found to be worthwhile. Chapman states “if news is to be worthwhile, it should accord to something we value” (Chapman, 2009: 59), and we believed students would value the stories we chose to focus on. Additionally, with the popularity of other online news brands aimed at young people rising, for example The Lad Bible being “followed by half of all 18-24 men in the UK” (LadBible, 2015), we felt we had something we could offer with our new concept.

Branding in news is very important, as Chapman explains the “style, structure and very look” (Chapman, 2009: 219) of a news program is needed to “underpin their reliability and impartiality” (Chapman, 2009: 219). One brand that influenced some of the decisions made on Student Yak, is The Lad Bible, which uses the simple colours black and white (fig. 1). By using a simple colour scheme, they come across as serious and trustworthy. This influenced the choice of a simple colour scheme of purple and orange for Student Yak (fig. 2), with purple representing power and ambition, and orange representing enthusiasm, creativity and determination. These colours are also bold and eye-catching, and will help maintain the interest of a student, and help the brand stand out on social media.

Fig. 1. LadBible Logo (2015)

Fig. 2. Screenshot of Student Yak Logo (2016)

The overall feel of the Student Yak brand is a relaxed and friendly one. We wanted it to be something not to serious that students would enjoy watching. Student Yak isn’t supposed to be a formal news programme, it is supposed to be a fun, light-hearted news programme that takes a satirical look at the news, and we feel the brand choices made, with bright colours, and an approachable feel, represent these intentions.

AUDIENCE RESEARCH:

An online news brand such as The LadBible currently “reaches over 150 million people a week” (LadBible, 2015). With their target audience being 18-24 year olds, it can be seen that this age range does take an interest in the news, if it is reported in a manner that appeals to them. Other online news brands aimed at students, like CNN Student News, currently have over 1.1 million subscribers (YouTube, 2016), so again it supports the idea that there is an audience out there for student based news. Student Yak is aimed at a student audience that ranges from ages 18-30. This decision was made based on a 2014 report on patterns and trends in UK higher education which found that a “decline in mature students has resulted in a younger student population” (Universities UK. 2014: 2), and that about 850,000 students are aged 20 and under (Universities UK. 2014: 14). A digital news report from 2013 found that 50% of 18-44 year olds get their news online (Reuters, 2013). By using this information, we decided that 18-30 year olds would be our best audience, and an audience that would be most interested in what we had to say. In terms of gender, we tried to aim for a balanced audience as a report from 2014 found that “56% of students were female” (Universities UK. 2014: 13), and so aiming for a 50/50 audience appeared to be the best option.

NEWS AGENDA & BRAND VALUE:

As a news brand, we chose our own news agenda, based on what we believed our audience wanted to know about. Chapman said that a news brand is “responsible for constructing … news agenda” (Chapman, 2009: 75), and so as a news brand, we were responsible for choosing the right news stories to bring to our audience. As well as us choosing our own agenda, we also wanted our audience to choose it to by interacting with us on social media, and by contacting us through our website. In the news industry, channels such as BBC News encourage their audiences to share stories on their website. They also encourage their audiences to get involved on social media, using hashtags and twitter handles. Student Yak attempts to incorporate these methods by having a contact us page on the website (Fig. 3) as well as social media links in the video productions, and the video descriptions (Student Yak: Let’s Go Viral, 2016). This allows the channel to be influenced by its audience’s opinions and helps us decide what our agenda should be. Audiences of modern news productions benefit from “relevant digital content [with] the introduction of alternate voices” (Chapman, 2009: 44).

Fig. 3. Screenshot of Contact Us Page (2016)

PLATFORM RESEARCH:

In today’s world there is more “content available anytime, anywhere on a wide variety of platforms” (Chapman, 2009: 43). The main platforms for news are print, radio, television and in more recent years, online. A report from 2013 found that although “digital may be impacting traditional platforms [it is] not yet replacing them” (Reuters, 2013), as 77% of mobile users still use TV news as their main news source (Reuters, 2013). Using an online platform for a news channel works in its favour as it doesn’t have to reach millions of viewers in order to stay on air, and it doesn’t have to follow the same guidelines as TV news, although that could be a negative. A recent episode of CNN Student News only reached about 12,000 people (CNN Student News- The Dangers of Distracted Driving, 2016) and a month later they’re still producing daily episodes because views are not as important as they are in television news. As well as this, “digital broadcasting has a far cheaper cost of entry and offers interactivity” (Chapman, 2009: 44), and although you can have interactive television, it can be hard to lower the costs involved.

Using YouTube as a platform for news broadcasting comes with many benefits. YouTube has about 22.7 billion visits a day (SimilarWeb, 2016), and “reaches more 18-34 and 18-49 year olds than any cable network in the U.S.” (YouTube, 2016). It is clear that many people visit and use YouTube on a daily basis, thus it has a lot of potential as a platform for digital news broadcasting. Add to this the ability to have interactive features like video cards, and social media links, and the ability to broadcast live, it’s clear that YouTube has many of the features associated with news reporting, whilst maintaining an interactive connection with the audience. Many major news brands like BBC News, and CNN have their own YouTube channels, and YouTube itself has a channel dedicated to bringing together news related videos from across the platform (YouTube, 2016).

CITIZEN JOURNALISM:

In recent years, with the constant development of mobile devices, and data connectivity, Citizen Journalism has been on the rise. Bowman and Willis state that it is based upon citizens “playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analysing, and disseminating news and information” (Bowman and Willis, 2003). It involves people “without professional journalism training … [using] tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media” (Glaser, 2006). In recent years YouTube has played an important part in providing a platform for citizen journalists, and so we decided to use it as the main platform for Student Yak. As well as this, it gave us the chance to mix the traditional elements of news reporting, with the elements that have come about as a result of digital news reporting, like social interaction through Twitter and Facebook.

NEWS PROGRAMME STUDIO/SET DESIGN:

Across all platforms and news genres, the presentation of the news plays an important part in helping an audience understand the story that is being told. It can be argued that if news channels focus too much on presentation and how other channels present the news they could be acting without “any proper consideration of what [they] should be doing” (J’accuse The News, 1994). In terms of locations, TV news tends to use studio sets, and digital news programs tend to use green screens. This may be because for smaller productions, like those seen online, using a green screen is a quicker and cheaper option. One online news production, CNN Student News, uses a green screen studio for all the segments with the main presenter (fig. 4). On television news, a studio set is traditionally used, however ITV News uses a very convincing green screen set (fig. 5), combined with some physical set elements. The CEO of FX Design Group, Mack McLaughlin has said “Someday … more sets will be virtual … they’ll look real enough and the cost of materials and shipping will be such that it doesn’t make sense to … build scenery” (Dodson, 2013). This could explain the use of green screen in digital news broadcasting; it’s cheaper. For Student Yak, we decided to use a green screen, and digitally add in a studio set. We wanted the audience to learn a bit about the behind the scenes aspect of television, and so our digital studio set has television cameras, and lights in view (fig. 6), a method also used by BBC News (fig. 7.).

Fig. 4. Screenshot from CNN Student News (2016)

Fig. 5. ITV News split screen (2013)

Fig. 6. Screenshot from Student Yak: Let’s Go Viral (2016)

Fig. 7. Screenshot from BBC Weekend News (2016)

GRAPHICS AND DESIGN:

Student Yak also used a lot of on screen graphics, however, we didn’t make this decision because of the “need to have constant activity on screen” (J’accuse The News, 1994), we did it because we felt it’d be the best way to represent information and the best way to keep our student audience engaged. We also felt it fit with the news as infotainment method we were trying to follow. As well as this, we were also following the idea that “if there are no pictures, … there is no story” (Chapman, 2009: 98).

SCRIPTING AND STORYTELLING CONTEXTUAL RESEARCH:

For Student Yak, we chose the rise in the popularity of viral videos as our news peg. A news peg is defined as “an aspect or angle of a story that makes it newsworthy” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2016). After some research we found that the viral video ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’ had been “viewed almost 177 million times” (Hoby & Lamont, 2010). We believed this information made a story about viral videos newsworthy, and so we decided to answer the question ‘how do you go viral?’. For our news package we decided to give our audience a step by step guide to going viral, based on the research we had carried out, and for our live package we decided to attempt to go viral by trying to break a world record. We felt this was the best way for us to approach our news peg, and we believed it would maintain the interest of our target audience, and engage with them.

For the final production we looked at the reporting style of major news programmes to decide how we should represent the story on camera. For example, BBC Weekend News uses a studio presenter to introduce each story and give a ‘coming up’ before the programme begins (BBC Weekend News, 2016). They then use additional presenters/reporters in the news packages to expand on the studio introductions. As well as this, they also use live link ups to allow the presenter and the reporter to further expand on the story. And finally, they also use GFXs to represent information that is being spoken about during the reports (BBC Weekend News, 2016). For Student Yak we used studio introductions, pieces to camera, GFXs, and interviews to represent our story in a similar way to that of a news programme such as BBC News or CNN News. For the interview we spoke to a YouTuber as we felt they’d be the best person to gather information from regarding the world of online videos. For the live segment, we chose to use students as our contestants, as they were the types of people we were targeting for the overall programme. We also chose to only use student presenters for the same reason.

CRITICAL REFLECTION & CONCLUSION:

Student Yak resulted in an entertaining, visually engaging, and informative digital news programme, which, based on research, represents the audience it is aimed at. Although it doesn’t follow the same conventions as traditional TV news, it is still structured in the same manner and still uses the same tools, like studio set ups, pieces to camera, and interviews. By introducing social media into our digital news production, we have allowed our audience to contribute to our news, and we have showed them that we care about their opinions on the news stories we report.

In terms of weaknesses, I feel that Student Yak could try not to rely on comedy and gimmicks too much, otherwise this will make it harder to report on serious news stories if we ever had too. Although the decision to include comedy was made because of our target audience, I feel it could be toned down a little, so the audience can still focus on the importance of the stories we are trying to tell. If you look at professional, well respected and trustworthy news brands such as BBC News, they always look at the news with a serious mind-set, however to do like to end with a happy, light-hearted story (BBC Weekend News, 2016).

I think we made a good choice by deciding to focus our attention on branding and social media, as a lot of TV news brands are also now focusing on social media. I also believe by doing this, it allowed us to expand on the entertainment value of Student Yak, and therefore follow the method of news as infotainment. Overall, because of the decisions we made in terms of concept, branding, audience, platform, presentation, news stories, and structure, Student Yak fits with the typical conventions of the news genre and news programmes, whilst applying the modern and interactive elements that broadcasting using a digital platform allows for.

ILLUSTRATIONS:

Figure 1. LadBible Logo (2015) [Logo] At: http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/640/media/images/80801000/jpg/_80801404_80801403.jpg (Accessed on 19.11.16)

Figure 2. Screenshot of Student Yak Logo (2016) [screenshot] At: http://studentyak.wixsite.com/studentyak (Accessed on 19.11.16)

Figure 3. Screenshot of Contact Us Page (2015) [screenshot] At: http://studentyak.wixsite.com/studentyak/contact-us (Accessed on 19.11.16)

Figure 4. Screenshot from CNN Student News (2016) [screenshot] At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVFYwlv_YJ0 (Accessed on 19.11.16)

Figure 5. ITV News split screen (2013) [image] At: http://www.kojoboateng.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ITVNews_Splitscreen-copy.jpg (Accessed on 19.11.16)

Figure 6. Screenshot from Student Yak: Let’s Go Viral (2016) [screenshot] At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSQJaHz2I4A (Accessed on 19.11.16)

Figure 7. Screenshot from BBC Weekend News (2016) [screenshot] At: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0827rs3/bbc-weekend-news-20112016 (Accessed on 19.11.16)

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Books

Chapman, Jane (2009) Broadcast Journalism: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge.

Demers, David (2009) Dictionary of Mass Communication and Media Research: A Guide for Students, Scholars and Professionals. US: Marquette Books.

Articles

BBC Weekend News [news program] Pres. Brown. BBC News (2016) 20 mins. At: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0827rs3/bbc-weekend-news-20112016 (Accessed on 19.11.16)

Bowman, S. and Willis, C. (2003) We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information. At: http://www.hypergene.net/wemedia/weblog.php (Accessed on 19.11.16)

CNN Student News- The Dangers Of Distracted Driving [online news program] Pres. Azuz. CNN (2016) 10 mins. At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVFYwlv_YJ0 (Accessed on 19.11.16)

Dodson, A. (2013) Green Screen Not Just For Weather Anymore. At: http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/69033/green-screen-not-just-for-weather-anymore (Accessed on 10.12.16)

Edwards, H. (2012) What is news?: transcript. At: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/071011huw_what_is_news.pdf (Accessed on 10.12.16)

Glaser, M. (2006) Your Guide to Citizen Journalism. At: http://mediashift.org/2006/09/your-guide-to-citizen-journalism270/ (Accessed on 19.11.16)

Hoby, H and Lamont, T. (2010) ‘How YouTube Made Superstars Out of Everyday People’. In: The Guardian [online] At: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/apr/11/youtube-web-video-stars (Accessed on 18.11.16)

J’accuse The News [television programme online] Pres. Pearson. Channel 4 (1994) 25 mins. At: https://estream.ucreative.ac.uk/view2.aspx?id=9642~4v~6hmQEK79 (Accessed on 20.11.16)

LadBible. (2015) Our Mission & Our Company. At: http://www.theladbiblegroup.com/about/ (Accessed on 19.11.16)

Last Ever 60 Seconds on BBC Three [online video] Pres. Naz. BBC News (2016) 3 mins. At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TJ7dthfC3U (Accessed on 19.11.16)

Oxford Dictionaries. (2016) Definition of News in English. At: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/news (Accessed on 19.11.16)

Oxford Dictionaries. (2016) Definition of News Peg in English. At: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/news_peg (Accessed on 19.11.16)

Reuters. (2013) Digital News Report 2013: Executive Summary and Key Findings of the 2013 Report [online] At: http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2013/executive-summary-and-key-findings-2013/ (Accessed on 19.11.16)

SimilarWeb. (2016) Youtube.com Analytics. At: https://www.similarweb.com/website/youtube.com (Accessed on 19.11.16)

Student Yak. (2016) Student Yak: About Us. At: http://studentyak.wixsite.com/studentyak/about-us (Accessed on 19.11.16)

Student Yak: Let’s Go Viral [online news program] Pres. Jones. Student Yak (2016) 7 mins. At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSQJaHz2I4A (Accessed on 19.11.16)

Student Yak. (2016) Student Yak: Contact Us. At: http://studentyak.wixsite.com/studentyak/contact-us (Accessed on 19.11.16)

Universities UK. (2014) Patterns and Trends in UK Higher Education. At: http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Documents/2014/patterns-and-trends-in-uk-higher-education-2014.pdf (Accessed on 19.11.16)

YouTube. (2016) CNN Student News on YouTube. At: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFaCoQm2VArZof_egvYRVLA/about (Accessed on 19.11.16)

YouTube. (2016) YouTube Channel: News. At: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYfdidRxbB8Qhf0Nx7ioOYw (Accessed on 19.11.16)

YouTube. (2016) YouTube: Statistics. At: https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html (Accessed on 19.11.16)

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