on & off screen management of props, setting & equiptment

I have found that During the process of filming an important shot or scene, many different areas have to be covered to organise and manage three different sectors to succesfull filming:

such as, management of props. basically this category could come under mise en seun. when filming our news programme we had to think of different priops to steriotype us as a typical news channel. this was just as simple as using a microphone for live interviews and wearing appropriate clothing, such as smart attire. In the news studio the props we had to use was a set of modern chairs and a table that would stand out from the background. also to give a more casual intelectual feel, we used a laptop and made sure the News 6 logo was visible at all times in the shot.

When covering our newws stories we found that different genres of news has to be filmed within similar settings relevant to the story you are hoping to broadcast. We covered three stories. the recession was filmed with shots of the public and outisde a bank, this is relevant to the genre it is covering and people can relate to it whilst watching. our sports interview was covered in sports room at the local barnsley college again setting a theme, and lastly our music interview was filmed at the main place in the area where live bands gig, thusw been instantly recogniseable to local viewers. Organising the different locations took lost of time and care ful planning, photos of locations were taken, as seen in posts on the blog. When we were happy wirth a setting we had to gain permission of the owner of the property or buiklding to film there. Other areas you must cover at the setting is, health and safety on the site and the safe installation of equiptment such as cameras, cables and microphones as the public could walk past in most locations and injure themselfs or damage equiptment.

equiptment management is very important. for this i had to plan when and where we would need the equiptment, and how we would get it there. to do this we set out a time plan and schedule to stick to and borrowed the equiptment out of the college media store in advance, giving us enought time to keep to our schedule and transport them in a car to the site we would be filming on. On sight management of equiptment would involve, protecting it from changes in weather and the public by using protectors and health and safety barriers and plenty on consistant communication with the crew. The settings of the equiptment was checked regular such as lighting, and white balance to record a natural looking shot.

reporter research

Over the various news channels there are lots of different reporters male and female. Each bringing there own style of interviewing to the table.

Some interviewers are experts in there chosen Fields and tend not to have a wide variation of reporting skills in different Fields such as football is in contrast with politics.
The way in which reporters sound is also different as they will be well mannered, polite and understandable speaking in good English so everybody can understand not just a certain accent.

Gender: live reporters tend to have a variation of women and men. Although there are some areas dominated by men such as sport. Gender tends not to be important in today's society and there are as many female reporters as male, covering a wide variation of stories.

Style: many different reporters have different styles of interviewing people, some like to put pressure on the chosen interviewee hoping to get some unclear answers and make them look bad. where as some are calm and collective making the interviewee feel at ease. Often many reporters have a sense of humour and bring this into there interview giving the audience something to relate too whilst putting the interviewee at ease.

Speciality: many different reporters have a chosen Field of reporting such as, politics, middle east, or sports etc.. as this is there speciality, they have often studied in the chosen Field and are experts on the topic discussed.

camera shot tests.

sports interviews: research

post match interviews are used in a wide variation of different sports, often to get feed back from the manager or players from their recent performance. there are different styles of interviews, some can be formal. in a formal interview you would expect to find the questions refined and direct and this would be with the manager behaving in a controlled manor, wearing a suit . informal interviews would consist of players celebrating after there performance, often still in there kit or a tracksuit with the questions less refined and the player saying what they like.

interviews are very important as they can affect an individuals or the club or sponsors reputation. most players and coaches often have agents or managers behind the scenes feeding them information and giving them advice on the right and wrong things to say.

the position of the interviewer/reporter in sports interviews is often different as they are usually not on screen, as you can just see a microphone and a hand. the reporters voice is heard as he is asking the questions. the setting for the interview is often simple with background of sponsors of the club and game on the wall.

interviews are common in all sports, football, tennis, rugby etc... and even happen in athletics tournaments etc...
here are examples of two different types of interviews:

informal football interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGXY-V-YKMs

formal football interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFTs5NzRRjM

in some interviews as the manager is talking, clips from the sport often come up on the screen about the subject or topic they are commenting on.

News programme-use of music

This is the stereotyped kind of music you would expect in a title sequence of a news programme. It grabs the audience because the music is intense and exciting, it puts you in a serious mood and prepares you to listen.
Channels like the BBC and ITV have infamous music for when their news come on, it is instantly recognised by the viewr and judt by the music you know what channel it is. other than the music in the opening sequence their isn't usually much music in the news, we often have however the chiming of big ben or a noise to grab you attention.

In our news production we have chosen a similar kind of music. We wanted the music to be recognised as music that would be on the news, we wanted people to hear it and instntly know what is coming on. I feel we have achieved this

Problems faced - Shooting/editing

Whilst filming our news programme and editing it we have faced and overcome many problems with equipment, shots, locations, software and time. As a group we have pulled together well and overcome many of these obstacles such as;

• Issues with white balancing in rooms with both natural and artificial light. Here the combination of natural and artificial light distorted the white balance of the camera and whilst some locations were easily adaptable, some had to be abandoned.
• Sound issues leading to loud muffled audio with speech. This issue has arose many times during filming and when microphones weren't available, some shots needed changing so the person talking come be closer to the camera. Also some shots had to be re-filmed due to reporters holding the microphone too close or too far away.
• Permission for locations. This issue has troubled us with most locations as we've not only filmed private properties but also council and government owned buildings. Written permission was required for most of the locations especially the government buildings as the 2001 terrorism act banished any government buildings being filmed without permission.
• Change in editing software. This problem occurred when moving to more complex editing software than previously used. Our entire group had become comfortable with the programme iMovie but has had to change to Final cut HD the year to use the more expansive editing techniques.
• Finally the issue of time management. Early in the project our group created a time table that we hoped to stick to throughout filming but due to illness and adverse weather conditions, this timetable could not be kept which has led to our group running behind although extra hours have been put in to remedy this issue.
  

Opening sequence of a news programme

This is a link that shows you a clip of BBC news' opening sequence, it's a simple design for an opening sequence, the music is instantly recognisable and would make the viewers aware that it is news that's coming on straight away. The clip lasts around 30 seconds and has a different range of things happening, e.g. skateboarding, rugby, business people in a city. This simple opening allows the audience to know that it is the news coming on.
ITV news is fairly similar but it does have its differences.The first 40 seconds of this clip are the opening sequence. ITV open with an image and a voice over , it gives you a glimpse of what is to come on the show, after this the well recognised music of ITV news kicks in and different images are shown to us, pictures of present news and past, then the camera goes into the news room where we see the presenter preparing to deliver news