13 Dec Charlie Scrase- Critical explication essay
I have chosen the YouTube show broadcast on 29th November 2019 as the subject of my critical explication. I helped to video edit a VT package for this show and also presented the news bulletin for that days’ show.
I have picked this programme for this explication piece, as I believe it shows not only improvement in conduct but also, I felt it raised some intriguing points for discussion.
In this I am going to consider some key areas which include the following- Balance, VT video editing and camera work from both a personal and team point of view and the news bulletin segment of the show as well.
In my group VT for the show in question, I was assigned the role of video editor of the VT for that weeks’ show. Our group produced a VT package surrounding the release of a new film called Blue Story and the controversy that surrounded its release.
The majority of the group went down to Leicester Square to gauge the mood of the public surrounding the controversy and to carry out vox pops and a short interview.
The journalism London YouTube show that we produce is not presided over by Ofcom regulations as it is online, however it is as a community of journalists that news coverage should always try to be as impartial as per possible to give a fair chance for equal news coverage and have balance.
This is possible to do in a manner of different options. In this case it would be interesting to more balance, and therefore make it feel like there is less bias towards one side to give the piece more balance.
There were reasons behind this fault, and they are glaring errors. The primary reason was not contacting any cinema chains to ask their opinions on the controversy surrounding the film, leading to a lack of footage from the other side of the issue.
There was also a lack of planning to put the script in place on the day of filming rather than pre- planning in advance. This just highlights that TV packages need in-depth planning before they film, rather than filming on an ad-hoc basis.
I am understanding of the fact that the package produced may not have been able to broadcast on a Television platform as a result of being skewed in favour of one side of the story.
For future reference it would be helpful to note that pre planning is always helpful and to identify key points of a story to seek controversial points of conversation from the beginning of looking at said story.
More of a conceited effort on planning would have served us well and working more closely and cohesively as a team during the final edit phase in order to produce a more honest piece would have cleared up some issues.
At the end of the day, we are all human and therefore are not perfect and are liable to make mistakes and a degree of flexibility must always be instilled to counteract and correct such issues.
I will now move on to look the quality of video editing/ production skills shown in our VT package.
Overall, I believe that the story had great technical strengths.
The majority of the content was produced in full focus and was straight and not skewed off to one side, the sound levels within the report were consistent throughout with a slight degree of distortion. The vox pops produced also has strengths as they were well framed well and where possible attempted to alternate framing.
However, the major issue was the lack of planning. As a group we did not properly discuss or create any sort of planning script or a summary of what we wanted to achieve in this package before the filming team went out Leicester Square.
This resulted in their being a lack of variety in the shots produced with limited cutaways to use in the final edit of the VT package.
This meant that the video editor had limited footage to use for cutaways and hindered the VT package by not having a wider range of shots to edit from, making it difficult to create a piece which required more impressive visual content.
I was responsible for video editing for this VT package, and in doing so made sure that with the footage the filming team had given me that I could put together the footage in order which not only told a narrative but would be easy for an audience to follow.
In editing, I could’ve been slightly more artistic and have a deeper as to where I could insert further cutaways with the view to making more sequences.
On the day of the broadcast, I presented the news bulletin segment of the show, as the member of the team was off ill that day.
Luckily, I has a great news bulletin producer who was on the mark and quick to get my stories to me so that I has time to read about them, but also to make sure that I could pronounce difficult words within my script. I was given a minute and a half on this segment and feel that covered the time admirably and with good diction whilst presenting.
Within the news bulletin segment, copyright is an issue and the majority of pictures on the internet are not copyright free and available for reuse.
Unfortunately, without my knowledge is transpired that one image which copyright was free was a generic image and could have a damaging effect on the owner of the lorry in question. Whilst no complaints were lodged against us it is useful to remember defamation is a serious offence.
Overall, the main thing that was clear was that planning is important and as such more emphasis should be placed on it accordingly.
Precise planning was successful on the news bulletin segment but arguably made the Blue Story piece weaker. I also need to make sure to improve in video editing by getting to grips with how to produce an edit which constitutes a good VT package.
Link to live show in essay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Sx8rK00bT8&t=674s
Broadcast date: 29/11/19
