Winol Notes-Term 2

Winol Review Term 2
Just thought I’d blog up my notes from this week’s work on WINOl to help me with my critical analysis.

Week 1:
In the first week of the second term, myself and other senior members of the sports desk decided to go ahead with a normal ‘sportsweek’ bulletin, while the news team went ahead with a ‘dummy run’.
My job was to go and film Winchester City in two games in 3 days, and do a football highlights ‘double package’.
The camera work for the first goal in the first game was poor, but I put this down to being out of practise with the zoom.
The scripting was good and I was praised by my editor as well as the sports team for it. However my voice-over sounded very echoey, which ruined the package audibly. I was advised on where is best to do voice-overs, and I never had the same problem again this term.
I think the footage of the second game was particularly good, and the as-live commentary by Will Cooper added a bit of feel to the piece, as it was a dramatic game to be covering. I also captured the club owner running onto the pitch, which made the footage seem more exciting, and we used the clip in the opening sequence.
I also did an as-live commentary for Aimee’s Eastleigh package, which is was quite pleased with as I thought it helped capture the moment and give the package a more professional feel.


Week 2:

In week 2 I had a more behind the scenes role, helping the less experienced members of the team with their packages.
I also did an ‘as-live’ commentary for Gareth’s Basingstoke vs Eastleigh package, which I was pretty pleased with, and I was careful not to pre-empt what was going to happen.
However the snippets of as-live apparently appeared to be too pre-rehearsed, and we were told to try and make them sound more natural in future, perhaps by being unsure of exactly what was happening.
In week 2 I also chose the bedding music for Gareth’s ‘potted history’ piece. I found the rights-free on garage band and I think it complimented the piece rather well.

Week 3:

I took this advice on board in the third week, where once again I did some as-live commentary. I helped Will filming the Eastleigh double package, before helping him with the scripting, which made me easier for me to employ the as-live commentary.
During this week I also worked alongside Aimee Pickering making a new opening sequence for Sportsweek. This entailed finding pieces of footage which we felt gave the right atmosphere for the show, as well as clips of some of the most impressive footage we’ve filmed. We used slow motion to emphasise some of the shots. I chose the music off Garage Band, as it is free of copyright and I felt that it was suitable for a sports show, and worked well with the pictures.

Week 4:

Week 4 was arguably my most productive week, and it included some of my best work of the year so far. The show started with our new opening sequence, which was complimented by lecturers and peers alike.
The opening story of Sportsweek was one that I found myself, using contacts I have within sport at the University. I set up an informal interview with the captain of the University football team, and filmed him the players warming up in the background. This worked well for the piece, but Angus that it wasn’t as tightly cropped as it should have been. I also used GV’s in the piece which I filmed before the game started, which I used over the interview to make it more interesting and easier to watch.
The reason for this being news worthy was because of the size of the game, and the fact history was potentially going to be made.
I also did a tight zoom shot of one of the players to be used in the opening sequence.
I made the conscious decision to not use an as-live commentary in the package, as it is unrealistic that a University sports event would have commentary over it.
I was pleased with my scripting once again, and I was careful not to use too many cliché’s.
The camerawork wasn’t particularly good, but I think I made the best out of a bad filming venue. However I was told by Angus to try and be less clumsy with the zoom option as it looks unprofessional.
I did a rare post-match interview with a player, which was of a very informal tone, which I thought captured the moment brilliantly which is why I used it in the package.

Later on in the show I stood in the studio, and explained the league tables to the camera. I wore smart clothes as this is what would be worn in a professional studio, but I tried to not sound too formal.
I felt this was a success as it looked pretty professional, and also gave another dimension to the show. However if I was to do it again I would try and be more relaxed about it and look less serious. There should have been more banter between myself and the anchor as well, but I thought for the first time of doing the feature it was a reasonable success.

Week 5:

In week 5 I did two football highlights packages.
This involved as usual going to games, filming them, and cutting down the footage into short highlights packages. As usual I was comfortable in writing my scripts and was particularly pleased with them.
However I failed to notice a significant error which I made in the AFC Totton package. Despite knowing the name of the team in question I repeatedly got the name wrong in my voiceover calling ‘Yate Town, ‘Tate Town’.
This is potentially a fatal error as it is factually inaccurate, and if aired this would have been a major problem. However my sports editor found the error, and I came in as soon as I could to help eradicate the problem. We managed to cover up the error, thus saving the package and consequently Sportsweek for week 5.
This was a momentary lapse of concentration, and was an eye-opener, because although I am very confident in writing my scripts, it is pivotal to get other people to look over your work (particularly the editor) before considering a piece of work done.

My second package was another highlights package featuring the university football team. I made a conscious effort to be steady with the zoom, as once again the place I was filming from wasn’t ideal. I was accurate with the script, but was told to make sure I don’t over word them. At times the sentences I was using were too long, and needed to be more ‘phrase-like’.

Week six

This week saw the return of ‘Winol Woodwork’ which I did twice last term with a lot of success. This time we took the camera’s to Basingstoke Town, to film them in the entertaining sports feature. We knew that this would get us a lot of hits for the show as they have a good fan-base, which may have otherwise been lost due to the fact we weren’t covering their game that week.
I altered the Piece to Camera to try and make it more visually interesting, and included footage from previous editions of the feature. Another change was freezing the screen when the players names come up, as feedback had told us that often the straps were coming up and disappearing too quickly. For one reason or another the timings were a little out and the straps came up a little bit too early in the final product.