Winol 16 October 2013

WINOL 16TH OCTOBER 2013

Here is my detailed run down of WINOL from this week. Eventhough some of the comments will not directly relate to your work, please read it all, as you can all benefit from the constructive criticism that is handed out.

OVERALL

Firstly well done, it was quite a well balanced bulletin. It featured some excellent local stories, mixed in with some really interesting University tales. I think that might be exactly the market we should be looking for. It has always been a difficult question about what are target market is, but if we consider that we have a captive audience of 5,000 campus students (or however many we are here) then we should be aiming to satisfy them. That is why the graduate jobs market story was so good - in fact so good I would have been tempted to lead with it. Boast about how good we are to the people we are directly broadcasting to, and allay their fears that they won't get jobs when they graduate.


HEADLINES

Three good headlines, but as above, I think the University one should be first as it's our target audience. But take note of how this was written. It was spot on. Using clever words to complement the pictures, and tell the story in a nutshell. Well done.
The pictures on the first headline are dull. One static shot. look how much more interesting the second and third heads are because you use a number of shots and they have movement in. No one is going to sit and look at a plane wide shot of a bit of green space and say, 'wow I must watch that item!'

EASTLEIGH HOUSING

LINK: I think starting your link with "People in Eastleigh...." is a bit weak and doesn't have much journalistic bite to it. Develop it in to a row, or harden it up a bit to add clout. And in the third sentence you may be better off finishing off what the Tories think, along the lines of...."The Tories claim there are more than 1000 empty homes in the town - and they want these filled before any further development starts....."

However if we are going to have two reports we need to say that. "In a moment we'll hear this, but first Alex Delaney with this..."

However while I can see what you have attempted, it is a bit like the dog wagging the tail. The information in the story and where the housing is comes in the second package, and the comment in the first - they seem the wrong way round. And in fact there is not enough for two packages - Calum's is editorially light because it lacks some of the facts.


PACKAGE

My issue with this package is the pictures do not represent the story. When making television, the first and most important thing is that the pictures must reflect the story. Here they don't. While there are gvs of the Eastleigh, the conflict is the building of new homes on green belt land. Your opening shot seems to be a park, and no one is going to build an estate here. You need shots of rural Hampshire, new houses being built as well as shots that reflect the promotion of new jobs through industry.
The cut away you have used in the middle of your grab, doesn't make sense I'm afraid. It doesn't reflect what he is talking about and is too short. However the interview itself is nicely framed.

Tip for all reporters
What we have to avoid when leading in to grabs or statements is stating things that are not necessary. When writing scripts for television words are at a premium, so we need to choose them carefully. So when we are leading into a piece of SOT from your interviewee, make sure that you tee up what that person is going to say. For example rather than saying, "This is what Mr Dobbs had to say". You should be saying something more like, "The Tory leader is strongly against the plans". Then you would hear from the grab from Mr Dobbs, the Tory leader. Never date it by saying this is what he said on Tuesday - unless it is important that it was a ceertain day for editorial reasons. Otherwise you are making your package seem out of date.

Many of the shots in this package seemed soft, but perhaps they seem that way because their quality has been butchered by uploading them and me watching them 3,000 miles away on an ordinary internet connection in Doha! We'll work on some voice training too.

PART 2

As I have already said I don't think there is a need for a second package, as it actually shows how little information there is in the first package. The graphic is good and is the first bit of real detail on the story. However there seems to be a repeated shot of Eastleigh Council which we saw in Calum's piece. Two reporters must work together if they are to run packages on the same story, back to back. Alex you look good on camera, but it would have worked better if you were in Eastleigh.

Tips for reporters
Note the good use of NATSOT at the start of this package. It really adds to the impact at the start of the report. try and do it as often as you can.


One final things - you don't need to use an SOQ when you're in our news room. It also doesn't make sense that your sign off is in Winchester when the story is clearly about somewhere else.

BUSINESS WINCHESTER

This is a well constructed package with some really good grabs. You have interviewd the key players and used some well assembled SOT to tell the story. You scrub up pretty well too Harvey and look good on camera! I still think there could have been more detail in what this scheme is doing to help businesses - it sounds like they'll just have a little chat with them, but I'm sure there must be more to it than that. But amongst the good stuff, there are things to work on too, specifically the technical side.

Harvey your shots look blue. And immediately I am turned off the story because it all looks a bit strange.

Tips for reporters
Make sure you white balance before shooting otherwise your shots will be blue. Use a piece of paper or a white wall and do the white balancing before your start any shoot.

You don't need to namecheck your interviewee either - that's what captions are for. I like the fact you have used a local businessman to illustrate the story, but again you have set him up saying his name and bookstore, when your caption does that for you. Use the time you had then for that, to add something else to the script. Your shots for the set up of the bookseller are very good though. You do the namecheck set up on your third grab as well. But I know you won't be doing that again.

Tip for reporters
Harvey uses some good set up shots for the book seller in this package, before going to a grab of the bookseller himself. What would make this edit even better is to bring the bookseller's SOT, just under the end of the set-up shots, so we just here from him, perhaps a second before we see him. It's just a simple developed technique of softening edits. You don't always have to do a hard edit where sound and pictures change at the same time. Don't be afraid to put the grab in first and then a moment later, we can see who is talking - it'll be obvious if you are doing a set-up shot anyway.

There is a mention of a review at the end and I'm not sure that has been mentioned anywhere else, or am I wrong? But this is a really good effort and shows that when you talk to the right people it makes a real difference to the package.

Finally Harvey we need to work on your framing, as it is wrong for all three interviews - however the final PTC is framed well.

Tips for reporters/camera operators
Remember your rule of thirds for framing interviews and shots. This is very easy to understand version of the golden rule of stills and video photography Rule of Thirds

TEACHER STRIKES

LINK: There's a mix of tenses in the opening line. "Thousands of children have had their education disrupted tomorrow..." - how can that happen. Was it just a misread, or did no one pick that up. Let's get our English right. And anyway let's say they've got the day off school or something, otherwise it sounds a bit formal.

Emma - well done - this is a pretty good stab at the story, although I would have liked to have known if parents agreed or sympathised with the strike. Let's talk to them. It was great to get access to a school and see some children. Are those new shots or are they archive?
I'm not sure if the first interview was framed correctly but it may have been distorted during compression or may have been the wrong aspect ratio. But see above for rule of thirds.

Your voice over is very deliberate but also very striking and you can use that to good effect if we tweak it in future to get more rhythm to it.

LEGAL NIBS

Good to get these two together. Makes perfect sense.
It would have been good to see this legal eagle actually open it rather than just talk about it, otherwise it's a bit dry.
As for Mansfield it's a good-ish grab but a bit abrupt at the end so I feel like I wanted to hear some more from him.

Ellen - just a note for you here - you've done a really good job on reading this bulletin. Very precise and if this is your first go it's excellent. But....

Tip for presenters
Just a tip when you are reading one story followed by another, and you are in vision for both, just drop your eyes in between stories and look down, then look back up again. It just signals to the viewer that there is a break, and that they should realise the next story is something different.

WINCHESTER GRADUATES

This is a box office story for our target audience and we should sing it from the rooftops. You are 20% more likely to get a job if you graduate from Winchester than the average graduate in the country. Check. That. Out.

LINK: That's why we need to beef up the link and sell the story. That's also why I think it has to lead our bulletin. We can debate why, but I genuinely think it's that good.

PACKAGE

Matt you show off some very real skills in this package but there are also some glaring errors. Your first PTC is terrific. Good use of language, matched with some great movement, and all sitting within perfect pictures. It is spot on. But your story loses its.

The graphic is good and is a great visual explainer in simplistic terms. The grab with Neil is good although I think there's a slightly dodgy sound edit in there.

Where it falls down though is that you haven't talked to any students about how pleased they are about it, and what about some perspective employers who are keen to use graduates in their local firms etc.

It may have been an on the day package, but you could have done the interviews before with employers and the students on the day.

The second PTC doesn't quite work. And don't just do an SOQ in vision with no other words to go with it.

SPORT

I'll have a word with sport individually about this and Sportsweek but read what former WINOL sports editor Gareth Messenger has to say at Gareth's Blog

Gareth was so good as an editor that I made sure that we at Al Jazeera employed him because he showed drive, initiative and skill. He is now well ahead of where most graduates would be in experience and pay scale, because of the eagerness and talent.
There will be more opportunities for those who show similar attributes - Aarran Summers who graduated from the MA in the summer of 2012, is the latest to join a growing band from the sports team to join me at Al Jazeera. Kieran Brannigan who finished in 2011, has now left AJ and is working at BT Sport. Talent in news, in sport, in features, will be rewarded.

Finally for sport - two things not to do next week.

If you are shooting links outside, then choose a sporting venue, and centre up so your presenter is in the middle of the frame.

Secondly use your second camera for replays only and not first time shots on edits. It's great to get the second angle but don't cut it into the real time action - only use camera one, then if you're using a replay, then use the second camera. Alternatively use the second camera next to the first one, and then the second camera shoots the tight shot - then you can cut real time in between cameras one and two.

AND FINALLY

Liam I always like the fact that you will try something to make your package different. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but at least you are experimentiung with the genre.

This piece was a bit more straightforward, yet it still opened with a clever shot. The pull focus and then the great framing of the wolf was perfect. It had NAT SOT and you didn't rush it.

A few things I would say about the piece though - it's a great 'and finally' - furry animals always win an audience, but I am not sure you can describe them as 'majestic beasts'. I'm not sure that is the right adjective.

Also you never really told me WHY they are misunderstood. One of their keepers should have told us why the notion of them as flesh eating 40s horror movie characters is wrong because.....they love human company, or they are lonely and want attention, or they love their tummy being tickled....something to suggest they are different from our pre-conceived notion about them.

AND FINALLY FINALLY

Well done team. Another good effort. Very promising. But just think about pictures and what a story is really all about. Then tell it to us. See you on Wednesday.

Btw I'm very happy to hear your comments and questions on this.