Digital News Unit: Post-Production: The Intro Finished

Mike used After Effects to create and animate our introduction using the Jackson Pollock style we did earlier.




I think it looks good; the text is clear to read and the paint style is visible inside the text. I feel it fits the brand pretty well.

Digital News Unit: Post-Production: Editing the Food Festival

I turned my attention back to the Broadstairs Food Festival edit.

It was tricky trying to focus on the edit as we plan to re-record the voice-over bits for Cecily: leaving not much else to do.

The main problem was putting cutaways in to get some space between the voiceover so it's not a constant stream of voice in the report. The cutaways we did have didn't have audio so I had to find some royalty-free sound effects online to use.

The 2 audio tracks in the middle are royalty-free sounds.

The issue with adding cutaways though is that the more I add: the less of a live broadcast the piece becomes; instead looking more like a news package or documentary film.

But with not much else to add in there's few options, plus the running time is a little under 1 minute 40 seconds meaning we're coming up short on the required time.

With the draft deadline tomorrow I'm going to have to make do with what we have ready and hope the re-recordings improve the overall project as well as adding time onto it.

Digital News Unit: Production - Presenter Pieces

Yesterday we had Jasmin come in to do the presenter's dialogue for our news channel.

Setting up the green screen; the lighting and the camera didn't take long.

View from the presenter's seat.

The crew view.

We decided to move a table from the corner of the classroom over to the presenter's chair as it was much larger than the tables attached to the seats and looked a little more professional. 

Since the camera was about 8-10 feet from the presenter's chair we placed Aimee's Mac with the script opened on one of the chair-desks and zoomed in on the document so only one box of dialogue was visible at any one time.

Jasmin arrived a little after 12pm and we briefed her on what would be happening.

We attached a shotgun mic to the PMW and I stood next to Jasmin and pointed the mic at her, I was able to get very close, right in the frame in fact, as I could be removed in editing due to the green screen. 

We filmed all lines with Jasmin seated before moving the table and chair away and getting her to re-do all of the lines whilst standing up: giving us the freedom of choosing which one would look better.

It took around about 30 - 40 minutes to film it all.

At the start she was a little off: stumbling over the lines and possibly a tad nervous but she managed to get into a stride after a short while and give all of the lines without a problem.

I feel I learnt a little more about lighting: practice makes perfect and working out the best possible angles to point the lights. Some bodging was also done in the form of placing the Mac below the PMW lens as a makeshift auto-cue.

Overall I think it went very well; the green screen shouldn't be an issue, the set up and lighting was fine and the lines well-delivered. 

Digital News Unit: Post-Production: Editing Part 2

After Sophie edited the Bansky news package I was given it to add in some extra things and see if any other edits were needed. In an earlier post I mentioned that we may struggle to hit 2 minutes due to not getting an interview but thankfully that issue never arose and we surpassed 2 minutes instead (2 minutes 8 seconds at time of posting).


One of our segments involves an image of the Folkestone harbour area to so we can show where certain bits of regeneration are happening. I looked at the effects section to see if there was a highlight effect so I could make the areas more visible. There was so I added this in for the first regeneration project: a garden area.

I tried to do it for the second area but I had an issue with the colour of the shot: it would make it twice as dark for every extra spotlight effect I added in.

Noticeably darker. 

I couldn't reduce the darkness without making the spotlight weaker and harder to see so to get round this I cut the original shot into 3 separate ones at the point the reporter mentioned the next regen project and gave each one its own spotlight effect: this got rid of the darkness issue but meant each spotlight only lasted as long as the cut down clip was.

On the timeline you can see the clips have been cut shorter.

The third spotlight.

I watched through and felt the spotlights were disappearing too quickly so I saved a single frame of the first two and then overlaid them on top of the segment. I then trimmed the clips so only a small portion of the single frame was left: this allowed the other spotlights to be seen. So it’s basically 3 images overlaying each other and trimmed so all of the spotlights can be seen.

These are the two screenshots after trimming their size.

Screenshots now added over the original clip.

And done: now the first two spotlights stay for the remainder of the segment.

Digital News Unit: Post-Production: Presenting the Edits

We showed Helen the rough cuts for our Food Festival footage and the Banksy news package footage. Below are the comments made:

Food Festival:

- The reporter speaks too quickly. It's hard to keep up.
- There needs to be some breathing room between reports.
- The final clip "With lots going on over the next 3 days its sure to be a great year so come on down, tuck in and see what Britains got to offer.. I’m Cecily Snowball signing out, back to the studio." could be shortened to just the tag.


Banksy News Package:

- There are a lot of PTCs .
- The shots were good though.

Our plan of action is to contact Cecily and ask her if she can re-record her voice-over lines. With that done I can add them in to the Food festival edit.

Digital News Unit: Production - The News Package Shoot

On Wednesday we went to Folkestone to film our news package about the Banksy piece and the Triennial being held in the town.

Below is the final script.

Banksy Script Proper

The portion highlighted in red was something we were unsure about whether or not to keep but we recorded it anyway just incase we needed it.

We met Sheryll at around 11am in front of where the Banksy piece was set up; myself and Mike set up the camera and sound whilst Aimee and Sophie got Sheryll settled and aware of what we we'd be filming today and was handed the printed script.

We got through most of her pieces to camera in about an hour to an hour-and-a-half and by half 2 - 3 'o' clock we had finished her speaking parts. So she left to head back and we stayed to get shots of Dwelling by Krijn De Koning.

I felt the day went very well: Sheryll was great and professional and remembered her lines perfectly with only a short amount of rehearsal. The shots we did get were good and kept to the rule of thirds: sound wasn't an issue either.

One particular shot I'm proud of is the walkie-talkie with Sheryll walking beside the harbour: aside from slight overexposure and a too-abrupt stop by the camera when Sheryll comes to a stop (my fault as I was camera operator for the day) I think it's one of the best shots of the shoot, if not the whole project thus far. Sophie was on the boom 10 feet away walking with Sheryll and Mike was beside me acting as the pull-focus whilst I panned and zoomed so it was quite an elaborate process for a 15 second shot. But it was fun.

A downside to the day was that again, we filmed some PTC's with the intention of using them as cutaways if we had too many: meaning that there will be background noise if they are used as voice-overs. Also we didn't get the interview the script mentions, meaning we may struggle in hitting the 2 minute mark.

Digital News Unit: Post-Production: Editing the Food Festival Footage

Originally our plan today was to film our in-studio presenter pieces with Jasmin but unfortunately she didn't get back to us in time.

This left us with a free day so I took to finishing the script for our Banksy news package and working on editing the footage we shot at the Broadstairs Food Festival.

I placed what clips we had in the order the script has it as. 

After doing so I had an idea of overlaying the voice-over mentioning the demonstration with Chetna Makan with a shot of the demonstration and then the shot of the interview: which the voice-over would then transition into by dropping the volume and increasing the interview's.

I've seen this method before in news but it's usually reserved for packages; which was an issue as this report was an O.B. I thought it would add a little something interesting visually as opposed to shot-ptc-shot-ptc etc. 

One issue with the voice-over parts was that we filmed them inside the festival; it would make much more sense to record them inside a car or a quiet environment with virtually no background noise. A voice-over shouldn't have any background noise.
Another issue is that some of the voice-over sections are split: take for example the section about the volunteers:

This was meant to be done in one take, instead it was done as two separate clips meaning that when it comes to placing the voice-over into the project, the background noise is going to be different; breaking any continuity that the piece has.

Despite these issues I have put together a basic cut using the footage we have but this is a strong lesson to learn and should hopefully not happen again.

Digital News Unit: Pre-Production: Presenter and Reporter

After we declined Sean's help we contacted the university again to see if any other students would be interested for the roles of presenter and reporter.

The university got back to us saying two more students were willing to help: Sheryll Goddard and Jasmin Sahota.

Aimen know that the role had now been filled. However; we decided that we were going to use a reporter for the Banksy piece as that would look and sound a whole lot better than the presenter doing it on top of hosting the show.

Before notifying them that they had got the roles we looked at showreels that they sent to us after requesting for them.

First is Sheryll's piece:



I feel she spoke well and clear and actually projected a slight personality into the dialogue instead of just sounding monotonous and like she was reading from a script. Plus she seemed very comfortable speaking aloud to the camera.

Next is a link to a project Jasmin presented:

http://www.centreforjournalism.co.uk/blogs/year-2-tv-news-day-5-december-2013

In the video it's clear she's reading from an auto-cue and she seems to fluff the odd line here and there and also sounds a little wooden. Compared to Sheryll she doesn't quite stand up.

We agreed with choosing Sheryll to be our presenter and reporter for our Banksy piece.
However; after a discussion amongst ourselves we decided that we should use a reporter for the Banksy piece as that would look, and sound, a whole lot better than the presenter doing it on top of hosting the show. I pictured it would be weird seeing the presenter do the lead in for the news package then suddenly hearing them again as they reported the story.

This meant we now had a role that needed to be filled: so with Jasmin available we've chosen her to be the presenter and move Sheryll to the role of reporter as she's better suited for it. Aimee asked her whether she'd be able to come to Folkestone with us to report the Banksy story and she said yes.

We also notified Jasmin about the presenter and that we'd need her for Tuesday 21st.
Everything seems set: all that's required is the Banksy script to be finished.

Digital News Unit: Pre-Production - Green Screen

 On Friday we got Fergus to teach us setting up the green screen and how to light it up.

We're choosing to use the Baseroom as it's a small enough space to film in and set up a smaller green screen as opposed to setting up a massive one when we won't be using that much of it. 

Myself and Fergus set up the green screen and we all moved the chars back so there was adequate space.

Next Fergus opened the blinds as he said natural light doesn't leave harsh shadow as it's everywhere and is of course the most natural of light. 

However there were only windows on one side leaving a shadow on the unexposed side, this resulted in Fergus closing the blinds and using the lights in the room. Luckily the lights were quite natural in themselves: giving off a white a very light-blue shade. This meant half the work was already done: the lights had evenly lit the green screen which is a key thing you have to make sure of otherwise you end up with different shades of green and that makes keying it out harder. I chose to sit down and pretend to be the presenter for the sake of getting the framing and lighting right.

All that was left was to get some even lighting across my face. Fergus said that to simply aim the tungsten light at me would leave very harsh shadows on the areas the light didn't hit and also make my face far too bright. This meant we needed to dissipate the light to make it softer. We could reflect it off of a reflector or use a filter. 

Fergus chose both. Since the tungsten light was giving off yellow we needed to cancel it out so he stuck a Dichroic daylight filter on it to make it a nice white and more natural light.

Filter was still on the light when the photo was taken.

Fergus then tilted the tungsten light, also known as a redhead, to face the ceiling: the white tiles reflected the light back down onto me and dissipated it to some extent allowing a softer light to hit me.

Fergus left us to get used to the setup and we filmed a test with me pretending to present.

It was a good test as I learnt how best to light someone up using reflections and filters. I also learned about Dichroic filters are very useful and how to set up a green screen. All of this, to me, was valuable information as someone who wants to be a director: it can help me to set up a scene easier knowing how I can light up a person in different ways.

Fiction Adaptation Unit: Research - Essay

I am thinking of looking into intertextuality for my essay; I searched for a book that could present with me some theories on the subject.

I found a book called Intertextuality: Theories and Practices by Michael Worton and Judith Still.

Inside the book the author defines intertextuality as "The theory of intertextuality insists that a text (for the moment to be understood in the narrower sense) cannot exist as a hermetic or self-sufficient whole, and so does not function as a closed system.”

Also inside it lists several theories of the subject:

"1. The concept of intertextuality requires that we understand the concept of text not as a self-contained structure but as differential and historical. Texts are shaped not by an immanent time but by the play of divergent temporalities.

2. Texts are therefore not structures of presence but traces and tracings of otherness. They are shaped by the repetition and the transformation of other textual structures. “

and 

"8. The identification of an intertext is an act of interpretation. The intertext is not a real and causative source but a theoretical construct formed by and served by the purposes of reading."

Theory 2 suggests that a text is no longer original and is created through already existing stereotypes, conventions and tropes.

The comic and the pilot contain a segment that has Rick waking up in a hospital on a bed. The scene is similar to a scene in 28 Days Later where the protagonist wakes up in a hospital.

Theory 8 suggests that references and influences visible in the text are just interpretations of the audience and not necessarily true.

Again I could link this to the hospital scene since in an interview with Entertainment Weekly the comic's creator, Robert Kirkman says "It was complete coincidence. I saw 28 Days Later shortly before the first issue of Walking Dead was released."

The similarity would be an interpretation; especially as EW's question was:

"I suspect a lot of people who are coming across the story of The Walking Dead for the first time would have thought that the guy-wakes-from-coma-to-discover-that-the-world-has-been-overrun-by-zombies plot was very similar to 28 Days Later. Presumably you had seen that film when you wrote the first issue of the comic?"

Digital News Unit: Pre-Production - The Presenter

We received a response from a student at The University of Kent who was interested in being our presenter/anchorman.

He supplied us with a link to his website which features a showreel.

http://www.seanprevil.com




I felt he spoke well and clearly but the downside was that he is Canadian: and our channel is Kent-based. It may be off-putting for our audience, also there was no real emotion or charisma when he presented. Our channel doesn't contain heavy stories so a serious tone would be odd to hear.

With this in mind Aimee contacted him to let him know that we would not be using him in our piece, he responded positively.

Digital News Unit: Production - The Intro

Today we decided to make one of our ideas for the intro: a Jackson Pollock-style video by flicking different coloured paints onto a sheet of paper.

A Jackson Pollock work.

Mike brought over his tripod and Canon and set it up on two tables that we had pushed together.

We bought some paints, brushes, pens and a pad of A3 paper and tried out the Pollock style with pens. The plan was to set the Canon to take a photo every 2 seconds to make a time-lapse.

Mike removed the card and imported the photos into his Mac and ran it through Final Cut Pro (00:00 - 00:03). We then did the pen method a second time (00:04 - 00:09). Next we used paints (00:10 - 00:18):

We then tried with dabbing our fingers into the paint and pressing them onto the page (00:20 - 00:31). Finally we decided to do the paint one again as the first time we did it we missed a corner of the page and it looked slightly odd. Afterwards Mike went to remove the card and realised he hadn't actually put it back in after importing the last set of photos so we re-done the paint flicking method (00:33 - 00:43).

Overall I feel the final paint-flicking method was the best out of them all, not only did it look pretty but it also captured the most of our brand and fitted in with our Banksy story.

Below is the video combining all of the attempts.