Monday, 3 October 2016

Digital News: Scriptwriting In Action


SCRIPTWRITING IN ACTION: BBC NEWS AT SIX

As part of the research for this unit, I watched the BBC News At Six, and focused on the scripting that is used during the leads for each news story.

The news story I'm focusing on, was about the 2016 Conservative Conference. Here is what Fiona Bruce said:

"The UK economy is in for a rollercoaster ride as the UK negotiates it's exit from the European Union, so said the Chancellor Philip Hammond, as he outlined to the tory conference his financial priorities over the coming year. He pledged spending on new homes and transport but emphasied that the deficit is still too large, and will need to be tackled. Our political editor Laura Kuenssberg was watching"

When I first watched the lead, I have to admit, I didn't know there was a Conservative Party Conference going on. I feel that the concise explanation Fiona gave before the report started, did give me the information I needed to understand the report. She first quotes Philip Hammond, and mentions that he is the chancellor, which is good because I didn't know who he was. This quote is important as it summarises his entire speech, which is what the report is about. Fiona also summarises his main points from the speech about spending. She also mentioned an issue that he spoke of, which will be expanded on during the main report. Finally she sets up the report by telling us whose report it is, which means the audience will know whose voice it is narrating the report.

I feel the lead was precise, and accurate, using quotes from the upcoming report. I think it set the story up well, however I do feel some of the language may be confusing for some audience members. People may not know what a Chancellor is, or they may not know what a deficit is. The lead was relevant, it didn't talk about anything other than what the report was about. The topline (rollercoaster ride) was attention grabbing, and easy to understand. It gave the audience an idea of what the Chancellor meant. It will be a bumpy or uncomfortable ride with many ups and downs. The lead is also balanced, it doesn't comment on any specific political stance. I also feel the lead flowed well and had made sense.

Overall I think it was a very well written lead. It made sense, it flowed, and it set up the report well, giving the audience the information they needed to understand the contents of the news report. The BBC have a lot of experience telling the news, and this was clear in every lead throughout this half an hour news bulletin.

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Digital News- Final News Story: Viral Videos

This is our final news story idea both news packages.

FINAL NEWS STORY IDEA- "LET'S GO VIRAL"

 We want to investigate the world of viral videos, and their production. To do this we want to talk to a YouTuber who has experience producing online videos. We will also create our own videos, in an attempt to go viral and watch it as it happens. We want to look at whether the production value of a video, affects its chances of going viral, or if people only care about the content of the video. To do this we will create two videos, one with a high production value, one with a low production value.

High Production Value Video

 The high production value video will be a cat video that requires the use of DSLR cameras, sound recording equipment, and visual effects.

Low Production Value Video

 The low production value video will be a video filmed on mobile phones, that documents a week of three people annoying one of their friends (me). Our research shows that these types of videos are usually very popular.

Both of these videos will be uploaded at the same time, and initially shared in the same manner on social media. We will also share them with The Lad Bible, who take video submissions in an attempt to share the latest viral videos. The only differences are that each video has a different production value, and a different content.

NEWS STORY CONT.

These are the questions this news story will attempt to answer:

- What is life as an online video producer (YouTuber) like?
- Does the production value of your video effect your chances of going viral? (Professional vs amateur)
- Which of our viral videos do students prefer? Specifically, video production students who understand the effort that goes into videos.

Here is an idea of the structure of each news package:

News Package-
- Studio Intro
- Interview with Katie Joslin
- Studio cont.
- Viral Video Production
- Conclusion, which video was most successful?

Live Package
- George at The Maidstone Studios talking to TV Production students, asking them questions about the two videos. E.g. Which video do you think was the most successful? Which video do you prefer/find the most entertaining? Would you share the videos? Which video do you think had the best production value?

Now that we have finalised our news story, we can focus on preparing to film what we need to film, to create each news package, and to successfully answer each question.

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Digital News: Target Audience, Branding, Stories & Style

It's almost time to begin production on Student Yak, and so most of the pre-production is pretty much complete. Here are the final plans for our brand.

THE IDEA
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. It is a digital news production, that focuses on the things it believes students should know about. It allows students to access news in a fun and satirical way.

TARGET AUDIENCE

 The target audience for our digital news production is students aged 14-25. We beleive this demographic already has digital news outlets aimed at them, but none of them are like ours. Student Yak is unique. As students, we know what to look for when creating a brand for this demographic.

 BRANDING

 The overall theme of the branding for Student Yak, is halfway between fun and serious. We've tried to create something that is easily recognisable. The logo is designed to stand alone, without an additional title to let people know what it represents. Our colour theme is orange and purple, two colours we beleive complement each other, and stand out.

 We have created a website, and numerous social media pages, that all follow the same theme. The header on each page is the same as the one on the website, meaning they are all easily identifiable.

Overall the brand fits the idea perfectly, and we beleive it is very professional and recognisable.
Temp Logo

STORIES

 Our final news story for the video production is about viral videos, and how they go viral. As part of this we will look at YouTubers, who go viral often. We will also look at whether the production value of a video affects its chances of going viral, or if people only care about the content of the videos. We will interview a YouTuber, and we will also interview a group of video production students who know a fair bit about production value. We will do as much as possible to ensure this news story is presented in an interesting and engaging manner, that students will watch.

Our other news stories will be written in an article form on the website. They will be categorised using the Student Yak News Categories:

- (Un)Social Yak
- Viral Yak
- Tech Yak
- Celebrity Yak
- Film/TV Yak
- Super Serious Yak

We will attempt to come up with a story for each category. Our main news story fits into the Viral Yak category, however it can also be applied to (Un)Social Yak, and Tech Yak.

 STYLE

 The overall style of Student Yak, is a mixture between fun and seriousness. It's suppose to take a satirical look at the news, whilst still accurately passing the information of a news story on to its student based audience. Every piece of media we produce will stick to this style.

The presenting style of the show will be fun and friendly. We want it to feel like our presenters are having a chat with our audience, and this also applies to the style of the written news articles. We will throw in a lot of appropriate (and sometimes inappropriate) jokes, to keep the mood high, and maintain a good level of humour that will hopefully help our audience engage with the news stories.

Every story, even the serious ones, will be looked at in a light manner, that fits the brand and style of the show. We want our audience to have fun, and discover something new everyday, and we hope this idea, its brand, style, and themes will help us achieve this.

Digital News: Meeting With Contributors

As part of the pre-production for this unit, we met with our contributors to discuss the next stages of our production.

MEETING WITH CONTRIBUTORS

 Unfortunately, Katie couldn't make it to the meeting, so we only met with our co-presenter George Wing.

To start the meeting off we thanked George for agreeing to help us out, and we told him a bit about our idea. We told him about the brand, the news story, and the show that influenced our idea, Topical Waffle. We also showed him our website and social media platforms and we felt that best represent our brand, and our style.

Next we told George about his role. We explained what the live report would be about, and where/when we were currently thinking about doing it. We also checked that he would be comfortable in front of the camera, telling some of the jokes we were planning on writing for him.

After we answered some of his questions, it was clear that George was very happy to take part, and that he was looking forward to it. We will keep him updated if anything changes. We also got him to sign an artist form to say he was happy for us to use his image.

As a group, we are very excited to work with him, and to give him a chance to learn something from the experience.

After we had finished with George, Ida set up a video call with Katie, so we could ask her a few quick questions. We told Katie about our current plans for the interview and she seemed pretty happy with them.

Now that both our contributors are on board and aware of what's going on, we can move onto the next stage of pre-production.

Digital News: Co-presenter- George Wing

For our video production, we needed a co-presenter to present the live news package.

CO-PRESENTER: GEORGE WING

 We knew we wanted to use a student as our co-presenter because the show is suppose to be made by students only, so we decided to focus on the new first years that have just started our course. We spent some time looking at their summer projects, looking for somebody who is confident and fun on camera, and eventually we picked George Wing.

George has just started the course, so this will be a great opportunity for him. We really like his presenting style, and it was clear that he is very confident on camera. We beleive that he will do a good job, and so we want him to be our co-presenter.

We contacted him about the opportunity, and he said he would do it. So it's official, George is our co-presenter.

GEORGE'S SUMMER PROJECT

 This is the video that convinced us George was right for the job.


Next, we will arrange a meeting with George so we can discuss his role in detail.

Digital News: Website Design


As editor, I have to design the graphics for the video production, and so it only makes sense that I design the website too.

http://studentyak.wixsite.com/studentyak

WEBSITE DESIGN

Before I began to do any work on the website, our group sat down and spoke about the themes of the brand. This included discussing logo design, colour scheme, and style. I took all of this information on board, and began to work on the website.

As a group, we chose to use Wix as out web host. They're online website design makes it easy to create a great website. I started by looking through all of their templates, and I ended up choosing one called Comedian. The template had a fun style to it, which I felt matched our brand.

I then went through each page on the website, customising it, and adding our colour scheme, and style. I created pages for each category, as well as an About Us page, Contact Us page, and a Video Gallery page. The header of the website was very important, so I created some graphics in Photoshop. I then added these graphics to the header.

I ensured that social media links were easy to find on the website, as our brand focuses heavily on the use of social media to connect with our audience. To do this I added Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube links to the header, and footer, of the webpage.

Below are some images from the website:

The header

About Us page

Contact Us page

Social media links in the footer

News categories
Once the initial design was complete, I showed it to the rest of the group for feedback. After a few layout and colour changes, they were very happy with it. We look forward to filling it with some content.

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http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2016-06-25-1466835058-3172856-DKCWebDesignBanner.jpg

Digital News: Development Meeting & Structure

DEVELOPMENT MEETING

As with all ideas, they need to be developed, so our group sat down again, for our first development meeting.

We kicked the meeting off by discussing the work each of us had completed since the previous meeting. Ida spoke about how she had contacted one of our contributors, Katie Joslin. She told us that Katie had agreed to be interviewed for our news story, which was fantastic news.

Becca then ran us through some of the dialogue she had drafted for the studio sections. As a group we agreed that she was on the right track, however this discussion did highlight the fact that we hadn't yet sorted out a structure for the video. We agreed to discuss this at the end of the meeting.

Next I mentioned that we should look at setting up a test shoot of some sort, so we can get to grips with the style of the show. We agreed to look at doing this in the near future. We then spoke about setting up a meeting with Katie and George so we could discuss the show. By this point, George had agreed to take part as our co-presenter. During this meeting we will also look at setting up the interview with Katie.

The two viral videos we must produce will play an important part in the production of this show. Nisserin shared her research into viral videos with us. From this we could see that cat videos tend to go viral a lot, so we agreed to produce a cat video as one of our two videos. The girls then spoke about how the second video could be the three of them terrorising me for a few days, and making my life hell. I agreed to this, as I knew it would probably turn out quite good, and Nisserin's research showed that these types of videos were usually quite popular.

Finally, to finish off this part of the meeting, we scheduled a few key dates for certain elements of filming, just so we had an idea of the time we had left to prepare.

STRUCTURE

 The structure of this digital news production is very important, and so we all gathered in front of a whiteboard, and began to sort it out.

After much discussion, and using the knowledge we had of news structures, this is the structure we all agreed on:


Before the meeting finished, I quickly showed the group a few graphic design previews I had worked on. They like them, and no changes need to be made, meaning that all the graphic designs have now been sorted.

These are the jobs we must complete to move onto the next stage of production:
- I will work on the production of the cat video.
- The girls will work on the production of the second viral video.
- Becca will continue to work on the script.
- Nisserin will set up a Facebook page for the brand.

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