The features team have made significant progress during the last couple of weeks. The features page on the site www.winol.co.uk – is still in the process of being updated as new content is being produced.
Unlike the dummy week, the new features are to be published on the website. One decision I have made and I would like the feature writers to stick to is avoiding the term ‘students’ at all costs. I want to avoid this term due to the negative stereotype it holds, as well as not being relevant to our target audience 18-24 year olds. A group of our audience will have already been to university and therefore any features made with students in mind will be irrelevant to them meaning they will not take the time to read/watch the feature.
Ewan’s idea was to create a feature based on girl/females playing video games and whether this was popular or true to the stereotype. To begin with this was not planned properly, as his aim was to get vox pops from people within the university. With features, the writers have a week to produce content, therefore there is plenty of time to arrange interviews with experts within the field of the feature in order to enhance the quality of the feature. The deadline was extended for another two days based on this. The produced feature was ok, I feel a few resolved technical issues and more time spent planning could have really enhanced this video. As said by our guest Sally Churchward – Senior feature writer for the Southern Daily Echo – the interviews needed to be chosen better as the girls interviewed weren’t keen gamers so contradicts the questions/issued raised. The use of footage of video games was a very good example of Fair Dealing. This is where publications can use footage from others without their permission, as long as only a couple of seconds are used. This is only permitted when the footage is used to describe something in more detail, not to enhance any piece. Ewan used Fair Dealing correctly, as the footage wasn’t to necessarily enhance the piece it was to display to the audience the games mentioned. The interviewees were talking over the footage also so it was only the image that was used as an addition.
Poppy is doing very well. Poppy is due to write a weekly comment piece called ‘The Diary of a Winchester Lady’. The first piece she has written was based on a trip to the local swimming pool. Poppy is a strong writer and her comment pieces are of good quality. To enhance these further we are looking to create a caricature of Poppy to regularly appear on the site which, will connect to the audience she will begin to attract.
I am in contact with someone currently who will hopefully like to help create a caricature of Poppy for free on the grounds that they will be accredited.
Poppy has now written a piece based on Mediums. This was originally thought of through the exposure of Psychic Sally being a possible fake. Her first idea was to write about this, however there would have been no balance in the view of Psychic Sally, so the angle had to be re-thought. It was then decided that she would interview a medium and write her comment piece based on her findings. This has turned out really well. She was able to talk about her experiences with the Medium and what was found and discussed – very good comment piece.
Zoe and Becky have created a feature about making ‘posh’ meals, affordable for young people. They found three recipes online - starter, main and dessert – to which they planned to gather the ingredients and cook the meals themselves, showing that people don’t necessarily have to go out for a meal to eat nice food.
They had trouble with the filming to begin with. Two cameras were set up for filming the cooking, however the camera used for PTCs did not pick up any sound. I advised them to start again as this is a good feature and could be a strong piece.
When editing their new footage, the length was around 15 minutes. This needed to be shortened, as a standard feature is around 3 minutes maximum – anything longer than this needs to be packed with content. Their editing was good, however their shots needed to be cut a considerable amount shorter in order to make it that much better. Having short shots means the viewers do not get bored as there is always something happening.
Sally Churchward also said that the standard ‘drop-off’ time for viewers is after 30 seconds, so the first 30 seconds need to be packed with content, which is interesting and captivating. This is something they both need to work on in the future.
Dave has created a short video of the Ventner Fringe Festival – Isle of Wright – for the music aspect of features. This is a ‘fly on the wall’ piece of about 10 minutes. I had asked if he can re-version this to a shorter version of around 1-2 minutes for WINOL Life. This piece was an appealing piece, everything was interesting to watch as it was all about people – this is key to video – people like to watch other people.
This week our guest editor for the news bulletin was Rachel Canter – News Reporter for BBC South. Our bulletin was strong this week, very organised and packages were much improved.
Rachel’s feedback was very positive. She said she was impressed with our teamwork – there was a clear and calm atmosphere in the gallery by the director and the presenters were both very calm. She explained how important it is that we are re-versioning all of our packages for website and radio, due to cutbacks in the industry currently, because they are looking for people who can do everything.
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