Andrei Allen UCA Broadcast Media Blog

Here's our final submission compiled as a complete news show




Here's the two packages separate from the news show:

Here's the Live OB package

The live is 1 minute 31 seconds





Troll Story Package

Story run time 2 minutes 29 seconds


Here are the social media followings

Here's a break down of how i went about editing the Troll package and also my reasoning behind some of the edits







Here's the video i made reference to when i was talking about the overlay effect used.

Here's a video blog post of me talking about the post production process of editing the news anchor studio PTC

Because we had short amount of time left, and we were not able to get out and film what we needed to capture, i searched around online for some royalte free stock footage that would help drive the narrative of the troll story


The website that i used was www.videoblock.com to which they're offering a 7 day subscription with your money back if you cancel within 7 days of subscribing to their services, which within that time period you can download as much footage as you want.

Inside this folder is a playlist of suggested videos that i picked out for the edit to help drive the narrative of the package that andy was presenting

http://www.videoblocks.com/public/bins/MaM6aHYXZZ2eYXchFLRZA5kYE/


For the Kids bullying the kid on the school bus, i thought that would be fitting to use considering that the package is first talking about bullying.

I was fortunate in finding footage of kids using mobile phone devices as that would help contribute towards what the script says, when it mentions about young children also being a victim of trolling.

Also with the man pushing buttons on his mobile phone, that again is just to use to help drive the story, being that trolling can happen on any communication platform.



Here's the royalty free license agreement

1. The License: This is a license, not a sale. Footage Firm (owner of VideoBlocks.com) continues to
own all Stock Files. Subject to your acceptance of the terms of this Agreement, Footage Firm
hereby grants to you a limited non-exclusive, revocable, non-transferable, worldwide right to use
the Stock Files as follows: You may use the Stock Files for nearly any project, including feature
films, broadcast, commercial, industrial, educational video, print projects, multimedia, games, and
the internet, but solely to the extent the Stock File is incorporated into any work with substantial
value added by you such that transformed or derivative work is not recognizable as the Stock File
nor is the Stock File capable of being downloaded, extracted or accessed by a third party as a
stand-alone file (satisfaction of these conditions will constitute the work as a “Derivative Work”
for the purposes of this Agreement).

http://www.videoblocks.com/documents/VideoBlocks/RoyaltyFreeLicenseAgreementApril2014.pdf

I researched the laws to film in the general public, and it's not against the law to film random people so long as the footage is not used in any way to defame or sabotage their reputation, i.e. is i was doing a news item about obesity and i was to film someone without their consent to include them in on that show then i could be held liable. But for what ARMA news is covering a story on, which is social media, if we were to film people using their phones in the public, such as sitting at a cafe that would not be deemed illegal or defaming of that persons character.

The type of shots I'm looking to go for will be either out of focus shots, or shots primarily focusing the use of people on their handheld devices.

Where it's Dickens festival this weekend, there should be a lot of people out filming the various performances happening and also posting about it on social media.


Here's some information on the legislation regarding filming in public

http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/ManageContent/ViewDetail/ID/3217/Is-it-okay-to-film-people-in-public-places-21-August-2013.aspx

http://www.richmond.gov.uk/what_to_consider_when_filming_people.pdf

Today me and Andy filmed our Trolling story package. Before we went straight into the package to film it, Andy rehearsed the script a few times to become familiar with reading it. We also tweaked the script a bit more on the day of filming to suite his style of speaking.

We filmed in the base room, but cropped the shot and created a shallow depth of field to make it look like an office type environment, being that our story is about trolling, we thought that the mise en scene would fit the story, as trolling happens on a computer.


The equipment we used for the shoot was


Sony PMW
Wireless mic
Tripod
iPad with TelePrompTer software


Here was our set up




Heres how i calibrated the camera

5400K - white balance
25p - 25 frames progressive
1920x1080
Exposure set to E84 - i used the histogram to make sure that the highlights were not over exposed.
I had the focus peaking switched on, to make sure that my shot was in focus.






Here's the rough cut of the package, this is with no graphics of VO's





So far we're 15 seconds over our time allowance, however, this is because there's a lot of pauses in the rough cut and it's not cut down to how it would be finally presented

Today we was reshooting our news anchor package, where due to feedback from our last rough cut, it was suggested that maybe we could change up the language and tone of voice in which our anchor was presenting herself to the camera/audience.




Ren

To get Ren prepared to read the script, i advised her to read our the script in a more relaxed tone of voice while still formal, but less serious and a bit slower than she previous read the script in. Because during our feedback, one of the remarks made about our news anchor was that the language and tone was too formal for our branding.





Ipad TelePrompTer app

In order to get Ren to follow the script whilst looking at the camera, i downloaded a free app on my iPad called TelePrompTer Lite by Matt Cowling on the app store https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/teleprompter-pro-lite/id578104295?mt=8

What this app does is prompts the person speaking with an electronic visual text of a speech or script.


With the app, i loaded her script onto the auto cue software so that she could read it off of the iPad. 



During filming Mark held the iPad above the camera



Green Screen

Using the pegs provided and also the stands, we hung up the green screen as straight as possible, making sure that there was no creases in the screen to prevent any shadows being casted onto it.





Base Room
+lighting kit + Reflector

We had the curtain down, using the lighting kit to create our own light source, because where the weather was random; we could not rely on the daylight, with risk of the room going from light to dark during our shoot.

Where we were using the lighting kit to provide our own source of light, in order to reduce some of the glare on Rens face due to the powerful fill light, we bounced the fill light off of a reflected that was some distance away from the light, and then bounced the light from the reflector onto Rens face. The reason that we done this is because, light looses its strength the longer the distance it travels, also, if it's being bounced off of a material on top of this; it will further diffuse the light making it weaker, but bright enough to cast a nice fill light onto Rens face, and not seem over exposed on camera.



Wireless mic

Ren worse the wireless mic, running the wire from underneath her top and up through her shirt collar.



Camera

We used the Sony PMW100 camera again, with the wireless mic plugged into the camera to receive the audio from Ren, and the camera was mounted on a tripod in order to get a stable solid shot.

Unfortunately i didn't take a picture of the camera settings, however, i remember what our settings was...

Our Kelvin was set at 6500 to emulate a day temperature, to give the footage a slight blueish tone before lighting up the set

Our exposure/aperture was set to f5 to control how much light was coming into the camera that was reflected off of Ren's shirt, and also the green screen plus wall behind the green screen.

Here is the final image... unfortunately a light went out during our shoot so there was a slight shadow casted on the right side of Ren's arm, however, it shouldn't worry too much because there was no green spillage on her from the green screen in the background.






Overall i feel today went really well, Ren performed exceptionally well and was really quick to adapt to the changes we suggested that she made in reading the script. It was unfortunate that a light went our during our shoot, however, this should not affect our post production process as the footage was still evenly lit and there was no green spillage onto Ren herself.

Because of the feedback we received about our news footage, the main thing that was mentioned during the feedback was how formal Rens language was, and also the tone of voice and seriousness she was speaking in and how it seemed to differ from our branding, especially when compared with how Mark presented his live package.

So in order to prepare to re-film her news anchor section, i worked on the script again just to make sure that the listenability of the script was not too formal in comparison to Marks live, but also timed the script in order to make sure that enough space was left so that Ren could slowly pace herself whilst reading the script, knowing exactly when and how long to pause for.

Here's a quick overlook of the anchors package that was editedand also the rough cut.





In order to save time, i rendered out the compositions from After effects instead of doing a dynamic link, that way i could import in what i needed as a video file and render it out again in premier pro, which will render a lot faster

Where i already keyed most of the green backdrop on my laptop, i used the pen tool to clean up the rest of the background, occasionally using the red background to see how much spill from the green screen was left.

Editing all done in After effects








Here's the intro for the teaser package

Screen sharing with the group to receive feedback about colour scheme for package

Once i had finished rendering, i then imported all the files into the premiere pro project and rendered them.

To gather the resources to compile the teaser package together, i had to scout the internet to source the necessary footage and images that i needed.


Snap chat leaked teaser

In order to get footage off the internet being used for the snap chat teaser, i had to screen record myself; using quick time video's screen record feature, inputing the words into the search engine and clicking on the websites, here is an example footage below.




In the actual footage, because our story features inappropriate pictures; i blurred out some of the footage.


U2 leaked album teaser

For this teaser, i used a reaction shot off of the VOX POPS that we recorded while we were out in Canterbury



Heart broken Boyfriend auctions Holiday teaser


This story was hard to source images for at first, but after a while of scouting the internet, i discovered the guys FB account, and also the original image for the Ebay listing

 

 







Internet troll Story

Because this story is kind of like a think piece, i had to find or create footage that related to the story. Luckily enough i found a picture from an article that had inspired me to do something similar.  

Picture i found from article on trolling Source: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/internet-trolls-face-two-years-4463058

The mise en scene plus mise en shot for this picture is the perfect example of what i'm aiming at for our news story about the Troll laws.
So i grabbed my camera and quickly filmed some footage to try and recreate a similar scene to this picture.
I blurred out some of the footage to add the effect of anonymity to it, to kind of insinuate that the person behind the trolling would hide behind their keyboard.




I edited this teaser package in Adobe premier pro CC

Here is the edited timeline




Here is the rough cut of the teaser package with no music over it.

Having received feedback from Helen about the rough cut, she told us that we could use the 2 minutes to focus fully on our live story, and that the anchors part of the story does not count towards our 2 minutes (hooray!!!) This means that the extra footage we have to use, we can use...

Also, having talked with Roxanne, she suggested that we remove one of our Vox pops, mainly the Ladies one and replace it with another of our, as all three of our Vox pops are repeating the same answer.

Before our news anchor came down, we ran some tests to make sure that the green screen room was properly lit, making it easy for us to key out the green during the edit.

we had two lights, lighting up the green screen, and the third light bouncing off of the white ceiling to diffuse the light, as aiming it directly at our 'actor' caused a harsh shadow on the green screen which would make it hard to key out in the edit!

Because there was light bursting through the blinds, We had to stand close to the side of the camera to avoid the glare shining off the glass and reflecting through the lens

Because the room was a small, in order to create distance between the BG lights and not cause any shadows,  we had to separate the 'actor' from the GS backdrop However, in doing this we had to film

This was the glare that was coming from the window behind the the production room. This is the camera outside of the production room, in which we filmed through the window so that we had more space to work with. Doing this however meant that we would have to use a wireless mic to get audio.

For potential ways in which to cover our troll story package, i've been looking at various videos to try and get inspiration and ideas on how we could produce our package.


The research/breakdown i done of the Facebook story (click for example1) covered by fox news was one of the examples that i liked.






What i like about this package is how it is presenter led, and how the presenter doesn't do a PTC. The package consists solely of VOSOT and the occasional VOX pop which will then lead into a small case study, which what i particularly like.

These specific parts that i've spoke about i'd like incorporate into our package, although, the way in which they've told the story we'd not use! As our piece is going be more serious because we're talking about a new sentencing legislation, and this piece is more of a comedic piece as you can tell by the ironic/sarcastic way in which the news anchors and the presenters talks and laughs, which with our piece, it's not really a laughing piece; it's a serious matter!










What i like about this story again, is the VOSOT the presenter uses throughout the package, aided by the graphics popping up on the scree to assist what the presenter is saying. Whilst the presenter is talking about the abusive comments via twitter, he shows a few on screen scrolling at a medium-slow pace via screen capture record so that the viewer can read the comments for themselves.
The tone in which the reporter presents the story too is good as it lets you as the viewer/listener know that it is a serious story, unlike the previous Troll story shown on Fox news.

The pictures used alongside the graphics to aid the story is also good, as they help to drive the story i.e. as the reporter is talking about the abusive messages the McCanns are receiving, he has footage of the McCanss with graphics overlaid over the footage, spontaneously popping up to help visually illustrate that they constantly receive a barrage of abuse.

Another thing that i like is the fact that the reporter then done a piece to camera momentarily, so that the audience could establish visually who it was that was reporting the story, but also to show the so called "dossier" to the audience so that the audience gets an idea of how many pages or rather how think the page's of abuse is that is being set to Scotland yard.


The things that i do not like about this package however is

1. When the reporter is referring to Twitter posts, the package is showing Facebook posts!
2. The reuse of the dossiers being on screen twice, first as an establishing pan shot, and a second time during a PTC by the reporter

After many amendment of the script for the news anchor, here's our final script for the news anchor, adapted from the main production script.






Because we're still in the process of producing our Trolling legislation update story, and sourcing a reporter for the story, we could not include the reporters name in the anchors script for that because we've not found one just yet.

A discrepancy that we had with created this script, adapted from the original is that we accidentally missed out a part of the script in which our Anchor introduces mark and asks him a question. However, the way in which Mark introduces his live can continue without the question being asked, but ideally it would of been a lot nicer to include that into the script so that from a visual perspective it would help sell the fact that we're live even more.

Today we filmed our news anchor part. The person whom we got in to play the role of the News anchor is our former class friend Ren Ball. The reason that we' asked her to be our news anchor is because she looks and sounds very confident, and performs well on camera.

we used a reflector in order to bounce the light off of it to create a diffused fill light for our anchor, as shining the light directly would cause shadows on the green screen. we used a wireless mic

Andy was operating the camera and sound making sure that everything was all good

Ren performed very well today, we had to do a few retakes because she fumbled some sentences but she done very well considering that she only had an hour to read the script. Another thing that could have been improved is the amount of time looking at the script in comparison to looking up at the screen, but again, because we didn't have an auto cue we had to work around this off of reading from the script.

A last thing to improve upon next time too is communication and a set workflow for production day, as due to a discrepancy in communicating, a part of the script was accidentally removed which has kind of hindered the live interaction between Mark and Ren.