WINOL LIFE has finally arrived. (I know you all have been waiting for it!) Just a little background of the show for those who aren't sure what it is:
Winol Life is a studio based discussion where guests come in, watch a few video features that students have created, and then talk to our in-studio presenter about the feature in question. Often offering constructive criticism or just comments. A notable guest editor that has been on the show in the past is Laura Barton- features writer for the Guardian. This time we had an honour to have Sally Churchward as our in studio guest. Sally is a senior features writer for the Southern Daily Echo.
The first episode of the show went really well, considering it was our first time. However, editorially I would say it was just a trial and a learning curve for the whole team and me. We managed to make quite a few mistakes which I will try to improve and avoid next time.
The planning stage:
As I have mentioned before I am the producer of Winol Life, which means I am responsible for the whole show. It involves planning, organizing the style, inviting guests in, booking them a parking space if they are driving, creating the graphics and the script.
One of the mistakes I made this time was taking all the jobs by myself, instead of dividing them within the production team. Trying to be independent and almost selfish when it comes to work is definitely one of my faults. This is what will improve next time. So prepare for more work next time, guys!
In an email to Sally Churchward I explained the show and what the day was going to look like when she arrives. She seemed confident in her emails. After the show, when all the nerves and stress disappeared, I had a chance to have a longer chat with her. She said she was also quite nervous but enjoyed the experience and the show. We may see Sally back in Winchester when she comes with her photographer to write an article about us.
One problem that we had which was quite big and frustrating was the lack of sofas on the campus. I tried ringing around, tried the campus porters and I was unsuccessful, which meant that the show couldn't really happen as it was all about 'sofa discussions'. On Monday, a day before we were filming, Chris, Brian and I spent the lunch time running around the campus, looking for anything that looked like a sofa, or that could look like one. But that was also unsuccessful. I thought there was only one thing I could do. I went to talk to Tommy Geddes, the Deputy Vice- Chancellor, who has recently purchased nice, red sofas for the staff room at the university. They were perfect for our show. Thankfully, after having a nice talk with him and after asking nicely, he let us have two of his lovely sofas for Tuesday.
Another problem that we had was a technical issue in the gallery on the day. The gallery was a total mess when we walked in on Tuesday morning and took at least 3 hours to sort it out and even after sorting it out some things still didn't work. Dave, our technical person, was with us for at least 30 minutes trying to sort out the vision mixer which refused to work. This prevented us from having a proper rehearsal before Sally came in. This built up the tension, stress and nerves. People weren't too sure what they were doing as it was our first go at WINOL LIFE. Sally arrived at 11.00 am, I went to meet her at the university's reception and gave her a short tour of the news room. I talked her through the show again so she knew what to expect.
The post production was simple. I had to cut out one package as we ran over 15 minutes. I reduced the show to 14 minutes which was ok, but not great. The show as a whole was too big to be uploaded on YouTube, it took me and Chris 3 hours to work how to prevent the upload from keep failing. Finally, we compressed it in Final Cut Pro and made it smaller. That, however, ruined the quality of the show. While uploading onto YouTube the quality became even worse and the show is out of sync. It is not a huge issues, other than that Winol Life looks professional.
The show went quite smoothly. We only had one run through and then we went live. I was really pleased with how easy it was to film and how well we seemed to work as a team. Even if it wasn't perfect, we still put the whole, really complicated show together. It is complicated because we use all the studio cameras, we have a guest in the studio, we run all the packages and we have only one take.
The presenters: Hannah Keegan and George Berridge did and excellent job. They knew the script well and they were confident. The reporters: Zoe and Becky, as well as Ewan and David were also brilliant with their answers. Great job guys!
Therefore, despite all the mistakes, and technical difficulties, the show could have gone MUCH worse than it did. I think the organisation was brilliant, the team work was great, and if there was no stress or nerves, everything would seem to be more at ease.
We will be making mistakes in the next episodes, but that's the way to learn! I am more than sure that the number of mistakes we reduce more and more and the last show will be simply perfect.
Thank you to everyone for your help and hard work. Thanks to Sally for joining us and giving great feedback.
Now, it's time for you to see the show and decide whether you can spot many mistakes (Other than the out of sync. issue). Feel free to give feedback, as it is really important for me to know what I can improve for the next episode.
Hi Justi Well,- I get it now and think that the first show was really very good with a varied selection of features/topics and overall very interesting and enjoyable. It is a huge responsibility to have to select topics and get the reports in and to find a guest each week or is it monthly?
ReplyDeleteWell done, and I can see how you have analysed your own technical problems which hopefully will stop their reoccurring and also do delegate, as it will enable you to pull it all together without such a copious burden.
I guess the only way to get the studio ready and tidy is to be there ages early,- just in case others have left it in a mess, which is a shame, as it should be part of the general responsibilities of others' usage, to tidy up.
I do see how the stress and tension shows and this is particulary so with the way hands are used in front of the camera and Zoe and Becky? were showing this quite strongly at the start. I don't know whether there are any guide lines to overcome this problem of nerves, some presenters use hands a lot, others hardly at all.
(I find increasingly that, although you are reluctant to be before the camera yourself because of your (delightful) accent others have done it fine, the girl on Winol news bulletin yesterday, Julie? with the police report was so composed and paced and had slowness of speech which showed good control. Her hands did not distract or show nerves either. I say this in case at some point you can do something before the camera, before it is all over!!)
I like the red sofas, well done for initiative in borrowing them. I think the one on the left as we view, could perhaps be at a wider or different angle, because Hannah was so sideways on and George so stretched out and laid back!! I cannot recall seeing a programme which has 2 presenters, possibly because of paying top names, but yours did work well together and it was also good that Sally's opinions were constructive and helpful.
I think the idea for this show is very good and I hope that you can continue to find new topics and new guests. I am sure the team will pull it all together perfectly!! if all can relax and just pretend they are speaking to their favourite people, it might be a bit more natural at times.
Best love, well done, Cait XXX
I think that you did a real good job gettiing all that organised it just shows what improvemnets you have made in a relevently short time.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to your next edition.
Real well done Sybil x