DIGITAL NEWS: Project Evaluation

The Production Process:

I always find the start of a project very difficult yet exciting. You're starting with a blank page which allows you to come up with any idea you want, however, finding this idea isn't always easy.

The first step was to come up with the idea. To do this, we all sat down as a group and started brainstorming ideas. We looked at what was in the news currently, what events would be coming up and what significant locations were nearby which may trigger an idea. We all worked together on Google Docs to write our ideas down, some that we came up with were: something to do with Dreamland in Margate, Stoptober / Stay Sober and maybe something to do with the rise of Netflix / streaming services. We all decided we liked the idea of looking into something to do with alcohol and hangover cures - putting these to the test and debunking them. This gave us the concept for our brand; debunking myths. After talking with Jo, we had settled on the idea of looking into alcohol / hangover cures and whether e-cigarettes were actually better for you than normal cigarettes. These both fitted within the topic of myths (i.e. do hangover cures work? are e-cigs actually better?)

Following our discussion with Jo, we then went away and researched the different areas of our project. Splitting the research meant we obtained a lot of in depth information surrounding all the areas of our topic. Even though we had a clear idea of the general area we wanted to explore, we were lacking direction and a specific story line. We believed our hangover cures story was quite set in stone - putting different hangover cures we had found through research to the test to see if any of them work. It was just our e cigarette story we struggled to find an angle for. During our next discussion with Jo, she suggested we just get on the phone to potential contributors and see if they could provide any additional information - this would potentially give us more direction and maybe help us find an angle whilst securing someone to interview for our live. We managed to secure a vape lounge as a location with one of the owners being willing to talk to us - we then just had to prepare what exactly we wanted to ask them and what information we were hoping to obtain. It still felt like we didn't really have an angle for this story - so we kept on phoning different companies (e.g. Medway Stop Smoking Service and Kent County Council Public Health sector) in the hope they would provide more information that would give us a clearer angle for our story. After many unsuccessful phone calls, we decided to have a re think about our e cigarette story. This is where we thought of the idea about exploring DIY e-ciagrettes and whether this is safe. This seemed much more relevant as a news story as it is new and interesting. In order to gain more information about this we did some research and again attempted to contact professionals for their opinion on the topic. I managed to get a doctor to look at a list of questions and provide some detailed answers.

However, this story soon got dropped as Helen didn't think it fitted with the fun / comical tone of our production - something we agreed with. Our hangover cures story still fitted with our tone and brand (it just needed refining) but we now needed to come up with a completely new idea for our live section. Helen pointed us in the area of Halloween since it is a relevant subject for this time of year. On my way home I passed a local farm which had banners outside advertising its annual Hauntfest. After pitching this idea to the group, I got in contact with them and they agreed to be interviewed for our live section. We decided the interview would be questions about their horror attraction and how long it had been running. Then, to keep with our brand, we decided to add in a 'myth or fact' quiz. This seemed much more appropriate for the tone of our production as we could quite easily make this fun yet informative.

Once we had nailed both of our ideas, we then had to decided whether to bring in actors to present our production or whether to do this ourselves. We decided to be our own presenters as we would be able to deliver the lines exactly how we wanted them. Alex would be the anchor, I would be the reporter for the live and Jason would present the pre recorded package.

The mock news production we did on #StopTheTrucks really helped us to prepare for our real production. This gave Alex an opportunity to try presenting / opening the show and gave me a chance to interview someone on camera. This, combined with the research into newsroom settings and other news production, enhanced our ideas for our own production. Instead of using a green screen, we decided we wanted to make our own set instead. For this, we made some posters with mad ramblings and conspiracy theories on. We wanted to give the illusion of being in a 'Bunker' to fit with our brand and channel.

The shoot days both went quite well allowing us to achieve everything we wanted to. The first shoot day was very smooth - we rehearsed the interview with John a couple of times before filming it - this allowed us to get the interview in one continuous take. After the interview, we had a lot of access around the location so we went back through the horror attractions and obtained GVs of each - this gave us a lot of footage to use in the edit. The second shoot day took longer than expected but we still managed to get all the footage we needed - this was helped by our shot list - we knew exactly what shots we wanted to get. We also filmed the trailer - we mainly improvised this but we still had a rough idea of what we wanted to capture. We wanted to get Alex listing off many different conspiracy theories from different camera angles and then claim that we have the answers as 'The Bunker'. This went really well and came off great in the edit.

After all shooting was finished, we then got stuck into editing. We decided to split this job between us - I edited the live section, Melissa edited the hangover explanation, Jason edited the hangover cures and Alex edited the trailer, the opening, closing & linking studio shots and did all the finishing touches. We had 2 rough cut viewings and a fine cut viewing - this gave us feedback to implement which helped us to improve the project. We didn't have a lot of time to edit but we are happy with the outcome. We feel that it does appeal to our target audience and it definitely has a fun / comical tone - something we really wanted to achieve in this project.


What worked?

- Our research was very thorough meaning scripting the project was simple. We all split the research so that we could get as much in depth information as possible (e.g. the scientific explanation of the cause of a hangover)

- We got a lot of footage (both at the farm and during the hangover cures package) - this gave us a lot of options when it came to the edit. If we realised one piece of footage didn't fit - there would be another bit which would be appropriate that we could replace it with.

- Our interview with John was pretty much 2'00 on the dot - this was down to our preparation before the shoot and also having a crew member signalling when to move on in the interview. We got a lot of valuable information in this 2'00 and it was kept interesting as John was an interesting character.

- I really like the shots showing Aidan drinking and how these increase in pace as the package goes on. This repetition and quicker pace helps to suggest Aidan getting more and more drunk. This was achievable because of the amount of footage we shot on the shoot days. We filmed more for this than was on the shot list as we knew we wanted a lot of footage of Aidan drinking so we wanted to ensure we had enough when it came to edit.

- Our scheduling and communication was good - we got all the footage we needed to on the shoot days we set. We kept up our communication with our contributors so that we didn't have any last minute drop outs.

- The edit worked really well - we had some quite slow paced / heavy sections (e.g. the hangover explanation) which were really livened up in the edit. The music and sound effects really help to lift the tone of the production and help it to achieve that fun / comical feel we all desired.

- I really like the titles we ended up using in the edit - they resemble the old fashioned labels from a label maker - although it is only subtle, it helps in building our brand

- I also think our trailer works really well to advertise our brand - it's fun and light hearted - suggesting our news production is also of the same tone - I also like how the same sort of clips used in the trailer are used for the introduction sequence of our production - it helps to tie it all together.

- I think our website is effective - although it is quite plain, it does the job of supporting our production. It links to our production through the colours used (reds, whites and blacks) as well as using the same background we use for the production itself (the conspiracy posters). It also has a suggestions section which is interactive and allows the audience to engage - something which is important for an online platform.


What didn't work?

- We had to drop our initial idea of exploring e-ciagrettes as this didn't have a lot of direction and didn't fit with the tone of our production. We carried this idea quite far through the production so when it got dropped we didn't have a lot of time to find a new idea. It would have been better if we realised earlier on that this story wouldn't have worked so that we could have come up with our new idea sooner and maybe found more information around Halloween and myths. That being said, I still feel like our live section was strong and that we achieved a lot in the limited time.

- We had some technical difficulties - on the first shoot day the focus on the camera was playing up - and on the second shoot day, the microphone became unplugged during Alex's PTCs. This meant some time on the shoot days was used up trying to rectify these problems - in future we should always test the kit before getting to the location and making sure it's all set up properly so that we don't waste any valuable time.

- Initially the edit for our pre recorded package was too long - it came to 3'00 (30 seconds over the maximum time limit). This is because we tried to squeeze too much information in at quite a relaxed pace. This was fixed by making the pace of 'the cause of a hangover' quicker and cutting parts out so that it was a very tight package.

- The set for our studio shots is slightly cheap and tacky looking - we wanted it to look like a home made bunker and it does have that look but we feel like the posters should have at least covered the whole wall and that the lighting could have been better. The sound is also a little echoey which we should have noticed during filming. In our feedback, Sam said it looked like we had just stuck a bunch of posters on the wall (which we had) - so maybe a green screen with a more crisp conspiracy poster looking background would have been better.

- The colour correction could have also been better - we would have done this if we hadn't have lost a lot of our edit on the last day - unfortunately this cost us a lot of time which we could have used on the colour correction and sound.


What did I learn?

- I learnt how to contact contributors. Jason and I split the job of calling contributors between us. I've never been very confident during phone calls but I bit the bullet and ended up managing to secure the contributor for our live section. I also managed to get a doctor to answer a list of questions for our e cigarette story before we dropped this. I did face some unsuccessful calls but this hasn't put me off of calling future potential contributors.

- I have become much more confident using the studio equipment - something I set out to achieve in this project. I have always preferred using my own equipment that I am familiar with but I have learnt that using studio equipment will improve the quality of my work even if it means stepping outside my comfort zone.

- I have also learnt how to be a reporter and what sort of questions to ask to get the information the audience want to hear. Although Alex wrote the script, I wrote my own questions for the live interview (and when we realised we had too many questions during the interview - I was selective about which ones I asked) - I chose questions about the attractions as the audience would want to know whether its worth making the trip.


What could I develop?

- Putting more of the workshop skills to use. In the After Effects workshops we learnt how to do moving text in After Effects and I am confident in using this skill. However, when it came to the edit I shied away from using these skills and allowed Alex to do the work on the titles. I was worried about ruining the piece we had all been working hard on - in future I will have confidence in the skills I have learnt and put them into practice in the productions.


Conclusion:

I think our project was very successful considering the time constrictions. We did a lot of research prior to our shoot which allowed us to create simple, easy to follows shot lists and scripts. Even though we changed our idea very close to filming, we all pulled together, did the additional research and scripted this out. Our pre production was very strong which allowed our shoot days to be very smooth and allowed us to get all the necessary footage. The edit also went well as we all pulled together and edited different sections. In future, I would like to contribute more in the editing and not shy away from the technical side of things. I believe we achieved our goal of created a fun channel aimed at debunking myths with the target audience of young adults.