This week at Winol has shown that the key to making a good news story is that ensure that it involves people doing something or being affected by something. This week started with the usual debrief of the previous week's edition and then came the lovely task of calling my contact in order to have a new story ready for the new meeting at half two.
I was able to use the story I had left about Barton Farm, but use a different angle that would see me show how Winchester City Council are struggling to create a housing strategy to build 4000 homes in Winchester in the next 20 years and to point out the need that local residents are asking for more affordable housing in the city. I was able to secure an interview with local Conservative councillor and member of Winchester Town Forum, Ian Tait who has supported the need for more affordable housing in the city.
I need to ensure that I had balance for my story, so I got in contact with the CPRE (Campaign to protect rural England) to try and secure an interviews about their views of protecting the countryside in and around Winchester. I finished Monday with interviewing Councillor Tait where I was able to gain a good few quotes that could be used in my story.
Tuesday was a busy one as I had to get into the Volkswagen Lupo, which has seen to have been renamed the WINOL mobile or the WINOL taxi service to pick Flick and Becky up and drop them to Marwell to film Flick's piece on Rhinos. I then returned to the news room and tried to get in contact with the CPRE who then passed me onto a member of the Save Barton Farm group who I hoped I could arrange an interview with.
In between trying to secure the interview, I had to drop Ali and Lee into Southampton for them to film Princess Anne who was opening the new police station at Southampton Central. After returning into Winchester I decided now was the perfect time to start filming, but before I could set off I had a phone call from Tom who asked if I could drop him into the outskirts of Winchester to help him film for his news story on rising energy prices.
Thankfully after last week it had proved that working with Tom helped as we were both able to help us film our shots for our stories and ensure that they were relevant to our pieces. After an afternoon of filming, I tried to secure my interview, but unfortunately the contact from the Save Barton Farm group was unwilling to be interviewed on camera and would only provide a statement.
I spent the majority of Tuesday evening watching Southampton beat West Ham to go five points clear at the top of The Championship (It is now only three points clear as of writing this blog, but we are top of the league COYR!!!). I got into Tab9 at around 11 and after a small argument with security who did not think I had applied to be allowed it overnight, I was able to use the combination of footage from this week's story and the failed Barton Farm piece to but together a good combination of shots into my package and then put the voice over underneath. I have been able to become more comfortable with editing with Final Cut Pro and decided to save the package and leave it till the morning and hopefully I could secure a last minute interview.
Wednesday morning was a nightmare as I called the CPRE one last time and they were unwilling to talk to me as they felt it was too early to make a statement on the matter and they felt the city council figures for housing may be changed. This left me with only being able to do a piece to camera explaining this in order to try and get some balance out of the story. After finishing my PTC, I went back into the news room and edited the final piece together and was happy that it was finished.
However, as we had no guest editor this week, Brian decided to take a more hands-on approach with our pieces and felt that my story was good, but it had was only telling a story from one view and that there was really no news relevance, due to the ongoing final decision to be made by the city council. It was decide to change my piece to a OOV-Act, which is where the presenter will explain the story over the images and then will follow with a interview.
After this was cut down, it was then a team effort and the news order was changed around five different times before 3pm and we had to ensure that all of the packages were in on time and to constantly check the news to see if their was any local, news worthy events that we could send someone out to film and edit in time to put into the bulletin. The pressure paid off as the bulletin was put out on time at three, but was very OOV heavy.
Debrief
Brian and Angus both felt that the main problem this week was the stories overall were not good enough to be used as a VT and were mostly changed to OOV's as they were not broadcast quality. It is key to ensure that a news story is about people doing something or something they are affected by, but this was not evident in many of the pieces.
The other problem is that we were holding the News Editor Becky to ransom as we did not supply enough back up stories to fill the news board as back-ups in case any of our stories fell through. Therefore, it was decided to we had to ensure that we come to the news meeting this Monday with at least 2 to 3 different stories.
It was also clear that we were not writing our script to the pictures and this is key to ensure there is a link interaction between the pictures and the viewer, who need to understand the story. Brian explained how it is key to write the script to the pictures. We also had the problem in the OOV's as the majority had no natural sound and it is better to have natural sound in the background as it make the story more real and will make it more interesting for the viewer, instead of only having the newsreader to explain the story without any sound.
This week was tough, but it was rewarding as it was the closest example to a real BBC or ITN newsroom than they had ever had in WINOL. Even though my piece was stripped from a VT to an OOV-Act, I fully understand that the story was relevant, but did not have the broadcast quality to be broadcasted as a full story.
I will ensure this week that I come to the news meeting with as many stories as possible and that I plan my story thoroughly to match the script to the pictures and tell a story that can be understood completely.
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