Winol Week Two

It was the second week in our new roles. I imagined that the bulletin would have gone much better than in our first week, yet I was wrong. Rachel Hepworth was our guest editor this week. She patiently watched us all get ready for the bulletin and then she gave us many useful comments and tips in the debrief. I think we all learned a lot from her notes.  

There were several issues that affected the bulletin as a whole. The biggest mistake we made this week was missing the deadline. Instead of going Live at 3.00 we went live 15 minutes later. This would be a huge issue on a real TV channel and it would probably never take place. Angus Scott, one of our lectures and ITV sports presenter has told us before never to go live at all if we don’t make it for 15.00 pm on the spot. However, this hasn’t been anyone’s fault in particular. I think there was a misunderstanding in the gallery, as well as technical difficulties, such as the lack of talk back, incomplete packages and just general chaos. Jack, our new production editor took on too many jobs. As well as overseeing the bulletin as editor he decided to direct as well, which made it impossible for him to notice little problems, such as pressing the record button at 3.15, as he was concentrating on counting down the VT and cueing in the presenter. Therefore, I think everyone tried to get involved too much into controlling the Gallery, as it just seemed like a little bit of a mess. We need a little bit more discipline in there, but also organisation. The production team didn’t do anything till after 12.00 by that time they were late for headlines, therefore the rehearsal didn’t take place till late which caused the bulletin miss the deadline.
This week my role was to play VTs from the machine. I managed to set an OB kit in the news room for our breaking news story which we couldn’t use in the end because the lack of sound from the news room. We had Felicity in the studio with the presenter instead.

The presenters- Hannah and Sam did a very good job despite the stress and technical problems. They were both confident and sounded great. The only thing I would say is the handover. I think the presenters should have a relaxing chit chat about upcoming sport packages to ease the stress and tension.

The content of the bulletin was good, but yet not quite excellent. We keep having problems with the headlines. Rachel said that they are good; however they didn’t attract her enough to want to watch the rest of the bulletin. This is something the team really need to work on- the right clips and words. Another thing that needs improving which Rachel and Angus agreed on was our script. They are nowhere near as good as TV scripts. The style of them is also wrong, but this is due our script machine being broken. Usually in the scrip you need to have: a slug, package duration, out words and a link. There should be 5 copies of it as well, 2 for the presenters and 3 in the Gallery.

Overall, well done for putting a lot of good effort everyone, let’s try to improve those little mistakes and the bulletin will be perfect once again. 

Winol is back! Week 1.

After a very long and productive summer, I am back to join the rest of the WINOL team for the last time.  It feels strange thinking that it has already been a whole year since WINOL became a huge part of our lives and after Christmas we will no longer be a part of it.

Surprisingly, the term started completely differently to what I imagined. I was expecting panic, running around, screams and arguments because of frustration of not working cameras or computers. However, the first week back was very calm. The new members of the team seemed relaxed and prepared for the hard work. They also seemed curious of what it was all going to look like, especially that they never had the essential training on how to make a news package. Last week’s bulletin was only a dummy edition in order to let the second years get used to the equipment, getting the interviews, having balance in their packages and getting to know the editing system.  I thought the bulletin went really well production wise, there were no technical difficulties, everyone seemed to know what they were doing, Domonique was a good director. Domonique and I tried to pass on all the knowledge we have about the Gallery and the studio to the new production team, who picked up everything easily.
The reporters met their deadline and the script was in on time, which didn’t happen very often last year. This term looks very promising so far. Of course, there were little mistakes made by reporters, such lack of white balance and some of the shots were out of focus, some content was lacking balance. These mistakes were essential last week, as that’s the only way you can learn how to produce a decent package. The content wasn’t brilliant, but we definitely had worse in previous bulletins. The aim of the dummy edition was for the new ones to get an idea of what a package should include. Well done everyone for trying hard.

My role on WINOL this year is Features Producer, alongside with Domonique. We share the role but have different jobs. Domonique is responsible for in studio, regular shows which we produce on Tuesdays, such as Sportsweek, whereas I plan, organise, produce, edit and upload a number of editions of WINOL LIFE and other special projects. I need to attend every features conference and discuss ideas for WINOL LIFE show with the Features Editor, Katie. As Features Producer my aim is to get trains on the Outside Broadcast kit, which we can use on the 25^th of November in the Performance Gym. I am also planning to select a number of features students who can get trained on advanced technical equipment such as gib and dolly with me, which could be useful in perfecting WINOL LIFE, making it look more professional.

This week, starting from Monday I had a feeling of confusion from other members of Winol team, about their roles especially. I think it may be because we are all used to our old roles and being reporters and producers, which is more productive in terms of creating content, rather than having editorials roles, where we are responsible mostly for legal issues and overseeing the content that our new reporters produce. I think this feeling of confusion is going to pass soon when get used to our new roles and when we discover what exactly our particular role involves.

This week is going to be a real bulletin, which is going to be watched by out first guest editor this year – Rachel Hepworth from ITV Meridian. Good luck everyone :-)