This was a big week for the production team as our guest editor was Geoff Hill – Executive Producer for CNN UK. Every guest editor is important to every aspect to WINOL however, this guest was an executive producer so would have been looking closely on how our production team works. As well as this guest we found out today that the BJTC examiners were coming in to observe the bulletin also, so a lot of pressure was put on the production team.
A major problem today was one package which was not completed on time and therefore held up rehearsals before the live bulletin. I did not agree with the amount of extra time the reporter had because the rest of the news team all had deadlines which were met, however this one was not. Due to the amount of observers in the gallery this week during the live broadcast, we needed everything to be prepared in advanced so any technical glitches could have been dealt with also in advanced. Once the package had been handed in, a legal error was noticed, as the interviewee did not want to be identified, however they were early on in the package through a side-on view. This then had to be re-edited, but was exported in the wrong format. During the bulletin this VT did not work to which meant we moved straight onto the next story. I cannot help but feel that if this package was done on time then we all could have checked this properly and the bulletin would have been clean. However, due to the lack of time before the bulletin was due to go live, the director wanted to practise the OOVs and the sports hand over so therefore it was not checked. A way in which to prevent this from happening in the future is to set a time where all packages have to be completed and if they are not then they do not get included within the bulletin.
Within the debrief, Geoff Hill stated he was very impressed with the standard of our bulletin. He said there was a good mix of news and that we should be pleased with what we produced. He explained that our headlines were very poor and were not merely enticing enough. As we had an interview with Alan Titchmarsh, the headline should have been a pun about Ground Force. The captions on the headlines were too ‘wordy’ and should be kept to two or three words only, and that we should write to the pictures. He said we handled the breaking news story very well, and it was very good that we managed to find an image to use in that short space of time also. Geoff suggested ways in which to improve the news stories, such as to get our own interview with Alan Titchmarsh, or to interview one of the 16,000 users on Facebook who paid tribute to a girl who was murdered. He also stated that now we have the facilities, there is no excuse not to have a live aspect within every bulletin.
The feedback from Geoff Hill has been very useful and can only work towards improving the standards of WINOL, both in news and production.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
WINOL Debrief - 11-05-2011
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I think it is very true that delays 'upstream' in any production process can be the cause of problems "downstream". It is a hard lesson to learn, but applies to working in teams. The news editors we have do a fantastic job, but you probably have to be in the industry to see/get the concept of deadline surfing. This means phasing the deadlines so thjey all come in at different (planned) times so the production team can deal with each one. It is hard for student reporters to understand this. They think the bulletin is not until 3pm Wednesday, so why are you asking for it at 9am - Answer, because it will take half an hour to check it, process it, log, write it down and just have enough time to do that in a clam way. If you have ten items, half an hour each... It has been the same with the magazine production this term (based on the MA)- where the deadlines have to be phased even more. The student way is just to have a "hand in time" followed by complete chaos and a mess. WINOL is never like that, but your observation is absolutely correct - missing a deadline at 10am or 11am can cause a train crash three or four hours later. This can't be emphasised enough.
ReplyDeleteThat said you have to remember that Geoff's head is in the CNN newsroom where they are paid a fair bit of cash (so they are not constantly worrying about having to go off and work in a shop or whatever) and they have expenses paid and time to do things properly, and lots of technical support and lots of experience and contacts so they find it easier to get decent packages.
The BJTC examiner - Nick Myers from ITV - was much, much more complementary and he asked me to tell the production team in particular that he thought you were "absolutely brilliant" - the point is that Nick is BJTC and goes round all the journalism colleges, and so knows the standards. He is retired from ITV - but he was the executive editor of ITV news so he is a tough-minded hack not inclined to give praise unless absolutely necessary, and a very very experienced news production person and before that a reporter for a decade or more.
What NEITHER of them can exactly get their head round is the sheer span of what you do - from somewhat erm fluffy fashion stuff, to pictures, to web production, to TV studio production and gallery control, filming, editing, producing... It really is remarkable. Our third years just getting ready to leave now are the best group of students as a group I've ever worked with, but your year will stand on their shoulders and benefit from all the development work they did. I think the students we have in the place now (and the ones we know are coming) are absolutely going to take the news business by strom - a bit like say how the students from Central St Martins in the 1990s took over the fashion and grahic art world. So well done and keep it up - in fact double it up!