Wednesday 25 January 2012

Title sequence


This is our production logo





This is our title sequence
















The title sequence will be a black screen with the title of the broadcast "Alcohol Awareness Campaign" and will then fade to the live interview in the studio.


Signal Pathway

Production Diary Week 13

Today, we filmed our live news show today in our studio, our producer wasn't in, but we was still able to perform without her. I think that our live news show would have worked better if we had rehearsed the routine a lot more than we actually did. Although we had room to improve i was impressed with our work and believe we did a professional and good piece of work.

Sunday 22 January 2012

Production Diary Week 12

On the 19th of January, we were supposed to be filming the final live news show for Ricardo which we are getting assessed on. It took us a long time to sort everything out, as camera 1 had a faulty composite, so we tried changing it to component but had the same problem, so the first group to film had to film with only two cameras. After break, we fixed the problem but the second group to film had more problems, the tricaster froze and then they had 3/4 practice shoots, which delayed us by a big time. The third group then needed to film third when my group was suppose to, as their guest had to leave not too long after that, so we let them go next. The fourth group set up to film but by this time it was already 17:00pm which means we had to call it a day and leave as the campus was closing. So we will be filming our live news show next Wednesday on the 25th of January. I have now nearly finished my 1500 word essay and will have to hand in all of our assignment work on the 25th as well as filming our final live news shoot.

Friday 20 January 2012

Match Of The Day

I have decided to do my live television programme that has recently been broadcasted on TV is Match Of The Day, which is broadcasted on BBC twice a week during the Premiership League. It's broadcasted on Saturday nights and Sunday nights, It's also sometimes broadcasted week days as well due to the change of dates for some football games. Match Of The Day is a live programme that is presented by the well-known Gary Lineker. Match Of The Day is one of BBC's longest running shows, which was first aired in 1964. Gary Lineker is accompanied with Alan Shearer and Alan Hansen. I got some of these facts and information from the Match Of The Day Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_of_the_Day
On Sundays, Match Of The Day 2 is presented by Jake Humphrey and is with various different guests on each week.

I have been researching on Match Of The Day and have found Match Of The Day 2 on BBC iPlayer and have counted up to 5 cameras that offer various different shots, give or take one or two cameras. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01b4d3p/Match_of_the_Day_2_2011_12_15_01_2012/
These cameras are hard to notice how many there actually are because of the various different shots they offer, such as close ups on each guest, mid shots of both guests at once, close ups on the presenter, tracking shots that either come across the set, or from up high and come down whilst going across the set.





















This is a floor plan I gathered from the help of the BBC iPlayer for Match Of The Day 2. Camera 1 is located where it is, for the main purpose of having a close up on the presenter when needed. This gives a direct on look at the presenter which is more essential for a presenter than having a side shot of him. Camera 2 seems to be on a crane due to the opening shot of the show when it glides closer to the presenter and guests with a smooth simple movement. It again later on does another similar shot where it starts up high and gradually comes closer to the presenter whilst moving lower at the same time. This camera can offer multiple various shots due to it being on a crane and doesn't have to be put in one fixed place, this is a successful and effective camera for Match Of The Day. Camera 3 is placed where it is because it offers the wide shot of the presenter and the two guests in the same shot but can also vary it up by offering close ups, mid shots, panning, and also tilting due to it being situated where it is. The camera can easily offer the director various different shots if needed where as camera 1 can only offer a certain amount of different shots. Camera 4 and 5 are situated in similar places which i believe to be a good idea, for example, if camera 4 had a close up on guest 1, and the director quickly needed a close up on guest 2, camera 5 can offer that. Another example of these cameras being situated where they are is for example, if camera 4 had a close up on guest 1 again, camera 5 could offer the director either a close up on guest 2 or could even have a mid shot of the two guests together, or could even have a wide shot of the presenter and two guests all in one shot.

"It can move up, down, left, right, swooping in on action or moving diagonally out of it. The camera operator and camera are counter-balanced by a heavy weight, and trust their safety to a skilled crane/jib operator."(http://www.mediaknowall.com/camangles.html) This quote is talking about the crane shot and how it can offer various different shots.
"Medium Shot: Captures a figure from the knees or waist and up. This shot is usually used for dialogue scenes, or to show some detail of the action. It can contain two or three figures, but usually with more than that a long shot is going to be necessary." (http://www.brooks.edu/articles/camera-angles.asp) This quote talks about how effective and what a medium shot is, Medium shots can be used to show body movement and hand gestures as well as facial expressions.

Report

The live multi cam shoot we did on the 10th and 17th of january in Lever St had many different roles we could have took part in, but due to us having a big group, not every one could take part in every role. The role I took part in on the 10th and the 17th were:

  • Camera Operator
  • Camera assistant
  • Vision Mixer
  • Floor Manager
  • Online Technician
I took part as a camera operator on camera 1, which was located on the left hand side and camera 4 which was downstairs in the interview room. As these were two different types of camera operating as one was various different shots, such as tilting, panning, close ups and many more and camera 4 was a steady one shot scene as it was used for interviewing only, I felt the need to do both cameras at some point because it varies the type of camera roles i've done. I was also a camera assistant, this was simply to make sure the cables from the camera didn't go under the wheels of the track cam. I also had a role on Vision mixing which is a very effective role and again varied up the types of roles i took part in. I was also the floor manager and the online technician which are completely different roles, which is a benefit as it shows how things work from different aspects of the live broadcast show.

The camera operators link into other roles as well such as, the camera operators listen to the director for what shots he wants, otherwise there wouldn't be varied camera shots. Where as, the vision mixing role also ties in with the directing role again as the director tells the vision mixer what camera to cut to at what time. Without the Vision mixer, the project would only stay on one shot throughout the whole broadcast. Yet again the floor manager also links to the rest of the production as the director, sound technician and the vision mixer are in the gallery which is in a different room, it wouldn't be practical for the director to come in to tell everyone to be quiet or to ask the musicians when they will be ready etc, so therefore thats how the floor manager links in with the other roles in the production. The online technician, although its not all that important, it still plays a important role within the production, otherwise the broadcast simply wouldn't be broadcasted to Ustream. On the other hand, the production wouldn't fail or fall apart if there wasn't an online technician.

Although I took part in a few of different roles, there were some that i didn't take part in, such as:

  • Director
  • Sound Operator
  • interviewer
The main reason i didn't take part in these roles was because we are a big group and not everyone could have done every role, there just wasn't enough acts to change around so that everyone could do each role.

The director role is one of the most important roles in the production as they decide how the production will pan out, and what order things will go in. This role links in to every other role as the director will tell the camera operators what shots to do, the floor manager to keep the studio quiet and the vision mixer to cut to different shots when needed. The sound operator links into the rest of the production as he/she has to make sure the sound of the music or the interview isn't too loud or too quiet, and most importantly to make sure the music isn't distorted. The interviewer also links into the production and the other roles as without the interviewer, there simply wouldn't be an interview.

On the 10th and the 17th of January in Lever Street, I believe that my performance aided the production in a beneficial and positive way. At first, me and the other members of the Broadcast Television course helped bring in the necessary equipment from the van, and helped set it up. I also helped sort out one of the cameras that had a problem with the composite cable but was shortly fixed. When one of my group members had any problems with cameras i offered to help and aided them in areas that I knew and if I didn't know what was wrong, i'd try find someone else who had better knowledge than I did on that area. Again when a member of my group had problems with the online operating, I tried to help and again if there was bits I didn't know, I asked someone else who had more knowledge for example Josh. When I was on the camera, I learnt from practice sessions from fielden shoots, that I had to offer the director different camera shots, even if he/she doesn't ask for different shots, I believe this aided the director at times when they may have not known what to shoot next, or forgot to tell me what shots they wanted. There was a few difficulties I faced, which were mainly out of my hands, such as when i was the vision mixer, the online technician forgot to save our work, it got streamed on Ustream, but wasn't saved. The music students needed the video too as well as us, but we overcame this problem by filming the same act again at the end with everyone in the same role and this time we saved the shoot.

If I got to do the whole day again, and I could do things differently, I would firstly get the job roles everyone was doing sorted before we turned up to Lever Street, we left it too late and created a new table for the job roles on the day at Lever Street which slowed us down, and in the long run could have sabotaged a few acts by not having enough time to film all the act. I would secondly change the lower third we used, although it was effective, we didn't technically create our lower third, we used a preset that was already saved on the Tricaster, this would have give us more credit and would have made the production a lot more unique. Lastly, I would have insisted that everyone got there on time and left when everyone else did, by people turning up late and people leaving early, luckily it didn't affect our production, but it could have simply effected the production by a drastic measure.

Friday 13 January 2012

Production Diary Week 11

On the 11th of January, everyone had a practice or two for their live news show. We set up during the day and then started filming later on in the afternoon. Every group got to have at least one practice filming which went successfully. When it came to our turn, I was the director, but I didn't have time to print off 3 camera scripts for the camera men, so they didn't know what shots to offer, which made the job more difficult for me as a director. There were a few things that everybody forgot about, such as the autocue, shadows behind guests and mainly the cameras being too high which gave a looking down look. The ways we can improve for next Wednesday are simply to lower the camera heights so they are eye level with the guests and presenter, to use the auto cue so the presenter doesn't have to read the script off a piece of paper, which will give it a more professional aspect and finally to move the seats further away from the walls, so it will decrease the shadows.

Thursday 12 January 2012

My Performance

I am pleased with the work me and my colleagues have created and the effort we have put in, we have had a few moments of crisis, but overall I think we did a good news package that was straight to the point, informative, interesting and professional. As this was our first time creating a news package with our own ideas and styles there was no doubt mistakes we made and areas we could have all improved on, such as the lower third, but the work we all put in and the teamwork we all gave was overall a huge aspect to the final product and without this we could have simply not achieved the same result we have done.
The grade i would give myself and my colleagues would be a high C/ low B. This is simply because we put a lot of effort in and worked well as a team. I believe our news package is unique compared to others but has hints of varied news packages that we researched along the way of creating our own. Although our news package can be improved I believe a B/C is a reasonable grade.

Camera Risk Assessment

RISK ASSESSMENT

Company Name- The Manchester College

Production Title- Alcohol Awareness Campaign

Production Date- 5th December 2011

Producer- Imogen Howkins
Director- Kassem Berraies
Date of Risk Assessment- 5th December 2011
Risk Assessment conducted by Kassem Berraies, Mikael Hasanzad, Luke Talbot, Imogen Howkins




Hazard
Persons who may be harmed
Property which may be damaged
Risk controls already in place
Risk Assessment (Low, Moderate, High, Extreme)
Further action required to control risk
Bad weather (rain, snow)


n/a
Camera
Weather was checked online on the bbc weather website

Low
Camera protection will be taken
Car accident
Crew + public
Camera
Drive safely at all times and wear seatbelts

Moderate
Open windows if driver feels tired
Liquids near camera
n/a
Camera
No bottled drinks or can drinks near the camera

Low
n/a
Building works
Crew
Camera
Stay away from any building works that may have falling objects

Low
n/a

Evaluation

When we got given our assignment to create a news package with our group that consisted of me, Imogen, Luke and Mikael, most of us hadn't had much experience in doing things like this and prior to the course, we hadn't had any experience before. We put a lot of effort in to make the news package the best we could, for this we had to communicate through our group and offer suggestions when we thought different etc. I am pleased with the communication me and my colleagues made, we all had a very good understanding on what we wanted and what had to be done to create a better news package. I don't feel like I had any problems speaking to my colleagues about how i felt or what i wanted to put in the package. I believe we could have improved on everyone having each others number, so we could communicate outside of the course, where as only some of us had each others number or another source on communication. This would have helped a lot as there where times where some of the group wasn't in, and we could have informed one another before hand to let us know.

When it came to the camera work, we all knew Mikael had the best experience in this section as he had filmed many other things in the past. Although we all took part in filming and shared majority of the jobs. Again, we all shared our ideas when it came to filming and what we thought were good shots, how to improve them shots and how long they were lasting. I think we could have improved on the stability of some shots as we didn't use the tripods for every shot. For example, the " I <3 Vodka" that was on a wall in student based area, we shot that without a tripod and seemed a bit unstable as we was pull focusing in.

When it came to the editing, I took a big role in this, as it was mainly me and Mikael who helped, although we took a lot of opinions from the rest of the group when we was editing. I think we did fairly well on the editing part. We lost our first draft of editing, which meant we had to start over again which made us a couple of weeks behind on editing. I think we could have improved on the lower third especially as it didn't look very professional on the final draft, where as the first draft we lost, we created a lower third, that looked very professional but we didn't have enough time to create another lower third from scratch.

The graphics worked well, we didn't have much trouble when it came to creating the graphics for the project. The main trouble we had, was that the logo we created was on a white background and wouldn't have fit in well with the title sequence as it was a black background. We changed the logo so that it would have a black background, then decided to scrap that logo and create a whole new one that would look more professional. This was the only problem we had with the graphics. I think we could have improved on the title sequence as it lasts around 5-10 seconds, but doesn't have any backing music to it. This makes these 5-10 seconds boring and not as interesting to the viewer.

Overall I believe me and my group did well in the news package project. There are some areas we could have improved for various reasons, for example, to make the package more interesting and stand out or simply to make it look more professional. Such as, a better lower third and backing music to the title sequence to make it more professional. Where as we could have improved on script work, we could have informed the viewers with more facts about alcohol to make it more interesting and informative at the same time.

Content &Style of the News Package

The content of our production is based on Alcohol and its effects, such as binge drinking, health issues, money issues and the lives of these students that is being based on alcohol. We will be interviewing students whether they know the risks, how much they spend, how they started etc. So we can get a view on how they see alcohol and whether they see it as a problem or not. Throughout the package we will use various GV's of students, signs promoting drinking, student accommodation and students walking in and out of the halls.

The main logo we will be using is the college logo as it has to tie in with the college somehow and the other logo will be the one we create for our production. We have come up with a name for it, which will be MILK productions. The logo will have a black background and will be in white writing to represent the look of milk, and a hint of red shadowing. The reason for the red shadowing is because we will be using a live font on Motion for the title sequence, so it matches up with that.

These are the two logo's we came up with. The one on the left was the first one that didn't fit in with the title sequence so we decided to create another, that would fit in with the title sequence and that looked more professional.


We are going to use red as a main colour throughout the project, from the logo, title sequence and through out the news project with the lower third being in a red colour too. Red is a strong colour which is why we chose to use it. We will be using a lot of white writing too, mainly because its the general colour for scrolling credits, but also to tie in with the whole milk part which is our production name.

News Package Research

I have been looking at different news packages to get an insight on how they are structured and set up and i came across a Charlie Brooker mock of how to create a news package.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI
Even though its a mock and not really too serious, he is right about how they layout each part of the package and how the facts and statistics are laid out. It has been very useful in how we are going to set out our new package, for example, walking towards the camera when nearing the end of a certain speech and ending with a question. We have thought about setting our news package out with this sort of layout but it wouldn't be as effective with the content of our news package.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY6we7pTykk&feature=related
This is a BBC News package on the World War one anniversary. The first scene you get is a still frame of a man talking about his views on the anniversary which then cuts to a GV that relates to the news package. This is how we will set ours out, which will start off with the interviewee telling answering a few questions and then it to cut to a GV that relates to alcohol. After the GV on this BBC news package, it cuts back to the other guest who then tells his views on the WWI anniversary. Again, this is how we will look to set our news package out with still frame shots of the interviewee. There are parts in this BBC new package where the voice of the guest plays over the GV which is a good and effective idea, which i think we could benefit from if we looked to use this technique too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u42_Bpv_JSA
This is a sky news package based on a football topic. I noticed straight away that they mainly use voice overs whilst showing GV's. This is a way we want to go, as we intend to have a couple of GV's over a voice over informing the viewer on facts of alcohol. When it comes to interviewing fans in this package, they focus just on the one guest. You don't hear the interviewee ask any questions but this isn't the type of interview we are looking to do, we want the viewers to hear the questions so they can follow what is going on during the interview.

All of these news packages have a varied target audience, where as our primary target audience for our news package is based on the student age, so from 18-24. Although our news package will target a younger target audience too. This is our secondary target audience which is around 16+. We believe our news package can also target a whole wider target audience, such as parents, who may be worried about their children getting in to the "social norm" of binge drinking when a student.

Monday 9 January 2012

Production Roles in News package

During my production project on alcohol and how it effects students lives, the main roles i was in charge of was:

  • Graphics
  • Editing
  • Reporting
  • Script writing, and
  • Camera operator
From the beginning of the project, I offered to be the presenter, as we couldn't find one. The main role of this was just to speak clearly and get straight to the point when introducing the news package. I had to introduce the news package whilst stating facts that I had to research, such as around 33,000 deaths a year from alcohol consumption. I also had to ask the interviewee's questions on their views and about their lives with alcohol, I had to be very clear again, so that the camera and the guest can hear me. I think the voice over we used for the introduction was very effective, as it informed the viewer straight away what our package was on whilst stating a few facts about alcohol that the viewers may not have already known.

The news package needed a script for the introduction and the questions, Me, Mikael and Imogen all took part in this role to come up with the best script we possibly could. We also came up with questions for the guest, such as, do you drink? How much do you spend weekly? and many others. I think that the script me and my colleagues came up with was effective as it stated what we were working on clearly, and the questions were straight forward and wasn't hard to follow.

I only worked as a camera operator for the news package a little bit, I filmed a couple of GV's but mainly instructed Mikael and others what shots I thought was good, and also got feedback and views off them to shoot the best possible shots we could. I think the shots we did was very effective, as they weren't plain regular shots, we took some over he shoulder shots, close ups, pull focus shots etc. We did a lot of panning and tilting when filming students walking or tilting when we were filming student accommodations.

Once we had filmed our news package and got all the necessary shots we needed, we realized we will need a title sequence at the beginning, so I offered to create the title sequence on Motion. The title sequence had to last around 5-10 seconds, so it didn't seem too difficult. Whilst i was creating the title sequence, Imogen was creating the production logo for the production name we made up "MILK Productions". The title sequence was a black background with a red live font writing that was already pre made on the program but i entered my own writing. I then entered the logo for our production to the title sequence. I believe the work me and Imogen was rather effective as it's the first thing the viewer sees so it had to stay short, informative and had to get straight to the point.

The editing was mainly Mikael and Luke and my job, but majorly Mikael's job. We edited the voice over, interview, GV's and a bit of the title sequence. We all chipped in ideas on how we think we can improve the package, but most of the hands on work was done by Mikael. I think that the work we did and the help I gave to Mikael was effective and helped with the final project.