12th January 2016
As part of the construction process of my media product, I had to come up with some ideas for my main headline story. In order to make the filming as easy as possible, our group has decided to cover a topic which can be filmed around a school environment. This decision was based upon the fact there would be opportunities for us to use real students to participate in vox pops and interviews. For the main storyline, we have chosen to revolve our headline around the increasing problem of cyber bullying in schools. This topic is only briefly discussed in the news therefore we feel that it would be in the interest of the public if we raised awareness of the issue and gave people more information about the growing problem. This would also be beneficial for a local news programme as it would keep parents, students and teachers around the West Midlands updated about what is really going on.
18th January 2016
Today, I used my template from my possible story ideas to create this script for my main news story. The three numbered bullet points highlight what the anchor and the on scene reporter are going to say when presenting the news story. The information in red boxes/font shows what will need to be edited/manipulated post production.
20th January 2016
20th January 2016
After viewing several examples of existing news programmes, we also identified the importance of props and a running order. Therefore, we created a list of the way we would produce our final news bulletin.
Running Order
1. Title Sequence
2. Anchor in studio
3. Reporter on site
4. Vox Pops
5. Fact File with graphics on screen
6. Back to reporter
7. Sign off
Props
1.
Neat/Tidy
studio desk
2.
Papers for
anchor to hold/ sort through
3.
Open Laptop
4.
Appropriate
dress code – smart/sophisticated
5.
Close up of
someone using a mobile phone
Script
ANCHOR:
Good evening. Since the overwhelming advance in digital technology and
the rapidly increasing social media industry, cyber bullying has grown at a
drastically high speed. Since the release of the first generation smartphones
in 2007, reports of cyber bullying have increased by 50% according to West
Midlands Police. This has led to one local school to undertake a controversial
approach of banning the use of mobile phones completely, in order to reduce the
amount of cyber bullying situations that occur in schools. However parents have
now started to complain as they are unable to contact their sons or daughters
before, during or after schools to check on their safety or contact them in
case of emergency. Our reporter Claire Jones is at the school in Birmingham.
REPORTER:
Yes Bob, the measures were
introduced after a reported incident of a 14 year old female student had her
photograph taken in school by another pupil, without knowing. The photograph
was then uploaded to various social media websites and put on several pages
which were created to “expose” certain students from the Archbishop Ilsley
School. Several abusive images and comments of pupils had been left on the
page, which was active for at least 2 weeks before an older student notified a
teacher at the school. Our report may prove to be distressing for certain
audiences.
(Older student who finds the page):
I first came across the page
when it came up on my news feed. I didn't even have the young girl as a friend on Facebook, yet through these pages I, any other stranger who has access to
the Internet was able to see this young girls images and information about her.
The page told everyone what year band she was in, what school she went to, as
well as posting pictures of her in her school uniform…which was how I realised
this hate page was set up about a younger student in my own school.
(Reporter):
After discovering the incident,
teachers at the school undertook many precautions to prevent something like
this again, including more cyber bullying conventions, better education on the
dangers of the internet and the much debated idea of banning mobile phones in
schools. Mr Crehan, head of health and safe guarding at the school introduced
the procedure where students would be permitted to bring their mobiles to
school, however they will be expected to hand them in at the beginning of the
school day through an electronic detector procedure, the students will then be
able to collect them again when the school day is over.
(Teacher at the school):
As a teacher, you are well
aware of how often incidents like these actually occur, which is quite
distressing to think about. So many students don’t know the major consequences
of putting personal pictures or information on the internet for the whole world
to see. In order to improve the safe guarding of our school we believe we have
took the right measures by excluding the two students who created these hate
pages and also we believe that introducing a ban on mobile phones throughout
the school day will also help prevent future problems.
(Parent opinion on the ban):
To be quite honest I think that
the school should focus more on actually improving the education that the
students get about cyber bullying and the dangers of the internet, I don’t think
it’s the mobile phones that are the real problem as the kids will all have
access to them when they go home of an evening anyway. I bought my son a mobile
phone for Christmas, spent all that money on it and for the main reason of
being able to keep in touch throughout the day. You know, as a parent it’s reassuring
to receive a text off your child when they’re leaving school, getting the bus
home, or even feeling ill or something and needing to speak to their parent,
not a teacher.
Fact File read out by reporter over graphics
on screen:
Reporter (Rounding off):
The banning of mobile phones
has proven to be a controversial topic amongst teachers, students and parents
within the school; however the campaign to ban them has had a lot of success so
far, and has even made an impact on other schools in Birmingham who have
proposed to do the same.
Reporters voice over:
For more information on the phone banning campaign and information on
cyber bullying prevention methods, visit
www.stopcyberbullying.com
or call Midlands24 helpline at 0121 123 44000
Back to you in the studio
Anchor:
Thanks Claire. Now for
the weather with Charlotte.
Charlotte (Weather girl):
Good evening. Well, the weather is rather confusing as we head through the next few days, it is very changeable, we've got some very mild, wet and windy weather to come. Temperatures this morning reaching 10 Celsius compared to the average high of this time of year is just 7, which is quite pleasant for mid January as you can see here by the pictures sent in by our weather watchers show some beautiful sunrises and sunsets. Tonight we do have clear skies, temperatures should hold up quite nicely as the winds are going to start to strengthen through the later half of tonight, so we are looking at lows of between 5 and 7. On to tomorrow morning and we have dry and bright conditions in the East for longer but it wont be long before the cloud and rain works its way in from the west. Some heavy downfalls are possible, we have some gusts from about 40 to 50 miles an hour throughout the afternoon. Through the overnight period we keep those strong winds which will cut across from the West and therefore result in a rather soggy day tomorrow, more rain continuing with some heavy down pours, make sure you have you're umbrellas at the ready.
26th January 2016
1st February 2016
2. We then focused on pinning up white backdrop sheets around the anchor seated at the desk to hide features on the classroom wall. The whole set needed to be one colour and be consistent throughout the whole news programme, therefore hanging up the white backdrop sheets made the set appear more professional and helped us to develop a realistic set. The large touch screen television was also carried out to make the set appear as though we were in a professional studio environment by including a screen of graphics in the background. Additionally, we chose to do this filming in the drama hut because it was situated in an isolated part of the school, this was useful as it allowed our filming to be shot in complete silence, as the boom microphone would have easily picked up any interfering sounds if we filmed in a usual school classroom. This room was also dark, with painted black walls; the natural lighting from windows would therefore not interfere with the lighting we were trying to create in the studio.
3. In the following picture, I have highlighted other materials and conventions which we considered would make a professional studio set. Firstly, from our research, we noted that the props on the anchor's news desk are important, therefore we positioned a glass of water, some sheets of paper and an open laptop on the desk. After researching the rhetoric of presentation for TV news, we found that news programmes often gave the anchor something to do before speaking at the start of the initial filming in the studio. The overhead lighting is also important as it worked alongside the close up lighting soft boxes to reduce glare and shadowing. It also helped the camera focus on the anchor without disadvantaging the anchors eyesight. A boom microphone was also positioned directly in front of the anchor and connected to both of the cameras. This was done so that the cameras could be positioned further away from the news desk, but the anchors voice will remain at an appropriate volume that the audience will be able to hear. As this microphone is very sensitive to any sounds, it is important that we made the room completely silent so that no interfering sounds would be picked up on.
9th February 2016
Radio Script
Charlotte (Weather girl):
Good evening. Well, the weather is rather confusing as we head through the next few days, it is very changeable, we've got some very mild, wet and windy weather to come. Temperatures this morning reaching 10 Celsius compared to the average high of this time of year is just 7, which is quite pleasant for mid January as you can see here by the pictures sent in by our weather watchers show some beautiful sunrises and sunsets. Tonight we do have clear skies, temperatures should hold up quite nicely as the winds are going to start to strengthen through the later half of tonight, so we are looking at lows of between 5 and 7. On to tomorrow morning and we have dry and bright conditions in the East for longer but it wont be long before the cloud and rain works its way in from the west. Some heavy downfalls are possible, we have some gusts from about 40 to 50 miles an hour throughout the afternoon. Through the overnight period we keep those strong winds which will cut across from the West and therefore result in a rather soggy day tomorrow, more rain continuing with some heavy down pours, make sure you have you're umbrellas at the ready.
26th January 2016
My group and I discussed the script and made improvements. Below is the finalised script and running order for use on our filming day.
1st February 2016
Today our group carried out the filming for the anchor's news introduction by using the script and props which we had previously planned to use. In order to make our news studio look professional as possible, we had to consider many factors regarding the layout and presentation of the room.
1. The first picture shows the way I positioned the lighting soft boxes slightly to the left, off-centre of the news desk. The reason for this was to reduce glare and over exposure, as positioning the lighting box directly in front of the anchor caused a disadvantage to the anchor's eye sight and also made the background appear too bright and unrealistic when looking through the camera lens. The black material surrounding the lighting box made sure that the light was more focused towards the anchor and also reduced shadowing.
2. We then focused on pinning up white backdrop sheets around the anchor seated at the desk to hide features on the classroom wall. The whole set needed to be one colour and be consistent throughout the whole news programme, therefore hanging up the white backdrop sheets made the set appear more professional and helped us to develop a realistic set. The large touch screen television was also carried out to make the set appear as though we were in a professional studio environment by including a screen of graphics in the background. Additionally, we chose to do this filming in the drama hut because it was situated in an isolated part of the school, this was useful as it allowed our filming to be shot in complete silence, as the boom microphone would have easily picked up any interfering sounds if we filmed in a usual school classroom. This room was also dark, with painted black walls; the natural lighting from windows would therefore not interfere with the lighting we were trying to create in the studio.
3. In the following picture, I have highlighted other materials and conventions which we considered would make a professional studio set. Firstly, from our research, we noted that the props on the anchor's news desk are important, therefore we positioned a glass of water, some sheets of paper and an open laptop on the desk. After researching the rhetoric of presentation for TV news, we found that news programmes often gave the anchor something to do before speaking at the start of the initial filming in the studio. The overhead lighting is also important as it worked alongside the close up lighting soft boxes to reduce glare and shadowing. It also helped the camera focus on the anchor without disadvantaging the anchors eyesight. A boom microphone was also positioned directly in front of the anchor and connected to both of the cameras. This was done so that the cameras could be positioned further away from the news desk, but the anchors voice will remain at an appropriate volume that the audience will be able to hear. As this microphone is very sensitive to any sounds, it is important that we made the room completely silent so that no interfering sounds would be picked up on.
4. This following image shows our use of the two Canon cameras. One camera, was positioned directly in front of the anchor, so that they are able to make eye contact with the audience, bringing in the concept of personalisation; the audience will feel as though the anchor is speaking directly to them. The anchor will look at this camera when reading out the main story. The second camera was positioned slightly to the right. We decided to keep switching between the two cameras after researching the camera movements of a professional TV news programme, and found that it keeps the audience more interested to see the anchor looking back from the weather reporter or the on scene reporter.
5. Finally, this image shows how we used a flip chart to write a prompt for our script. It was positioned behind the central camera so that the anchor will be able to read a part of the prompt without averting her eyes completely away from the camera or looking down to read from a sheet of paper on the desk.
5. Finally, this image shows how we used a flip chart to write a prompt for our script. It was positioned behind the central camera so that the anchor will be able to read a part of the prompt without averting her eyes completely away from the camera or looking down to read from a sheet of paper on the desk.
Radio Script
Intro:
- Play the same theme tune which has been used for the title sequence to maintain synergy across both platforms.
- Roughly 7 seconds
(Cut to DJ immediately):
- Tonight on Midlands24...
With the rise in popularity with social media and digital technology, we analyse the increase in cyber bullying within the youth across our region and ask how it can be stopped. - PLUS...
(Cut to snippet/quote from Tom Daley):
- We take a dive into the deep end with Olympic bronze medalist Tom Daley on how his new "Swim4Safety" project is affecting our region.
- So join us for that and a round up of the latest news sport and weather on Midlands24, 6:30 on Channel 8.
10th February 2016
Due to the fact that we worked as a group, it is important that we divided the workload between us so that we each played an equal part in the construction of our news programmes. The beginning of the news clip presents our title sequences which we created individually and then goes on to show the contents of the news which we planned, filmed and edited as a group.
The following Prezi documents the process that I went through to edit the beginning of the news clip:
The following slideshare therefore documents the processes that Lynsey went through to produce the second part of our news clip;
Final TV News Programme
Radio Extract
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