The Five Hour News Filming Evaluation.
For this task we have been given a time limit of five hours to create our very own news reading as preparation for our documentary that we will be filming in March. We had been given topics to choose from and research, those topics were:
· Ukraine crisis
· Homophobia laws in Uganda
· Storms and floods in the UK
· The Oscars
· Youth Stabbings in Leytonstone (gang related?)
· Paralympics in Sochi
We had to put ourselves in a group of six or seven and decide, which topic we would be best suited to make our videos about and do a short presentation why we have chosen this topic.
For this part, everybody selected their own groups quite hastily but as I took the more relaxed approach to selecting a group, I was placed in a group with people I have never worked with before. As I had been used to working with the same people occasionally I found it interesting to work with people who I have never worked with before.
As we were the last group to but put together, we were given the topic to make our news sequence about Storms and Floods in the UK. Ironically, it was raining that day. As we came together as a group, the planning and research honestly, didn’t come together as smoothly as I would have hoped due to the work rate being quite slow. I still had confidence that the end product after filming would be up to a decent standard.
As time went on, the work rate picked up a little with my team members and I was more confident that the work was going to be good but research still needed to be done. As I researched news readings of the weather and gained factual information we could include in our news reading. I requested for my group members to write questions, which were fair questions to ask the public for vox pops. I requested two other team members to gather any information, which may be useful for us to use whilst filming the news feed.
As we had half the time left to record and edit our news recording, I found it was best to put all the work we have done on pause and proceed to start our actual recording. As I had plans to film in central London (Oxford Street/Soho) I found it was best to film somewhere more close and not as far from college, Kings Cross Station was our perfect location.
Initially, our group member Grace was meant to be the news reporter, I took it upon myself to film/direct and do the sound. As it was raining, grace felt uncomfortable being in the rain so I gave a helping hand and acted in replacement while she filmed. Also another group member helped with sound.
As an actor, I tried my best to give direction to my team members as to record our news reading as close to the ones I had seen on the Internet, I also tried to direct her to use the rule of thirds when filming the vox pops over my shoulder.
As filming continued, there were a few passers by who stood around and looked as though they were interested in what we were doing. I proceeded to ask them once filming stopped. I asked these passers by if they’d like to be in our news reading about the weather, a few agreed and others were quick to refuse.
After gaining all the footage we needed it was time to go back to college and edit the footage. As the editing was individual work and I was running out of time and needed to edit as soon as possible.
Editing was really fun, I found watching myself re-enacting my interpretation of a newsreader to be quite funny. Editing the footage was effective because I finished just before the time limit and I felt as though this was a success.
Overall, I believe the task was a success. I would of wanted to have some more group interaction but its something that could easily be overlooked. The people we interviewed were amazing and I enjoyed the task as a whole. There were a range of technology considerations that I would of loved to try out but in the next project I work on, I can try them then.
ondreroach 