11 Dec Mahira Begum – Critical explication
I have chosen the YouTube show broadcast on 10th October 2019 as the subject for my critical explication. I had the role of social media presenter for this programme.
I chose this programme as I believe there were issues both in production and presenting. I am going to focus on camera, lighting and the social media segment.
Our show is broadcast online every week and so not covered by Ofcom Regulations. As practising Journalists, we make sure we produce accurate up to date news and make sure our work is balanced. We aspire to improve our live shows each week as we are learning about the problems that arise during the show to ensure they are resolved for the future shows.
The camera angles in the show were not very good as the shots were very wide especially when the sofa presenters had a guest speaker. The shot had shown the background of the newsroom and people in the newsroom watching the show. The shots needed to be tighter for the social media and bulletins presenters, similarly when the sofa presenters were speaking there was space on the left, right and top. The background was also messy, in future the shots need to be zoomed in and the background needs to be tidied up, this would allow the camera to focus only on the presenters.
During the show the cameras were changed to the wrong camera e.g. when it was supposed to go to the social media presenter it went to the bulletin presenter. These problems can be rectified if time management was stricter so we would have time for a dry run for the production team to practise changing the cameras.
However, the camera shots were straight which was very good.
I am now going to consider the lighting in the whole programme. The sofa presenters had good lighting and it looked good on camera as the presenters faces were clearly visible and there were not too many shadows.
However, the lighting was dim for the social media presenter and especially the bulletins presenter as viewers could barely see the presenters of the show. The iris on the camera needed to be adjusted to let more light in, also the brightness needed to be turned down on the screen behind so that the presenters would be clearly visible in the show for viewers to see.
If the lighting person did this in the morning when setting up the cameras the lighting problem could easily be resolved. They also need to check all the camera shots on a monitor and have all presenters on the different cameras so they could check the lighting.
On the day of the live show I presented the social media segment. We look back at the most popular items on social channels over the past week, relating to our audience as young people use social media to keep updated with the news.
The stories were suitable for my slot as social media is generally used by young people so we knew the top trending news stories would engage our audience. The stories chosen were on celebrities, a festival announcement and a Netflix series. The stories were a good selection as it was trending and top news for students and young people living in London.
I originally had another role on the day, however a team member was not very comfortable in presenting, so the managing editor asked if I would be happy to switch roles to which I agreed to.
This was however not an easy role as I switched to social media presenter a few hours before going live and didn’t have a chance to practise my script due to short timing hence the reason why I consistently kept looking at my script in the live show as the social media presenter doesn’t have an autocue. For future, I would learn my script in front of the camera before going live.
The good thing was I had a helpful social media editor who helped me find stories. My editor also changed the screens for me whilst I was presenting live. Me and my editor looked at the most popular tweets trending on social media and picked stories we thought would engage our audience.
Before the show my lecturer Vanessa, asked me about the stories being presented for the social media segment. One story showed a snippet of a recent Riverdale episode. Vanessa spoke about copyright and whether this clip would be allowed to broadcast, due to breaching copyright. However, my logic to this was good as I was only showing a few seconds and I wouldn’t need to contact the correct persons for permission as it was already on social media where people viewed it online and it was more like I was promoting Riverdale.
I also presented still pictures, this was a problem due to not clearing copyright, as most material online is not free to use. I thought about public profiles which is open to everyone. Even though I presented this I need to get permission due to copyright.
The stories in the show were presented very well, there was good shots and sound. The VT’s were shot in different locations which presented a range of up to date stories. The Extinction rebellion VT had good coverage and you could see tents where people were sleeping in at night. However, the stories were not balanced as there was only one viewpoint. In the future, it’s important to identify controversial stories to have balanced stories.
Overall, the main lesson learnt is planning and time management. This applies to the lighting and camera as if work was done early, problems would be resolved as there would be time. I need to practise other roles in presenting to improve and involve myself in both production and editorial roles to experience different roles each week.
