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Audiogram: Brexit Podcast

Above you can listen to my audiogram on a walk around podcast which covers Brexit. Focusing on the environment outside the houses of parliament on the day when labour backed a second referendum and when Theresa May was delivering a speech to parliament.

On the 29th of February when we took a trip to the houses of parliament, we created a Brexit VT Package which has been published on my website, here, as well as creating an audio package.

For my audio package I choose to create a walk around podcast, thus what I had to do was walk around the area outside the houses of parliament and describe why I am there and what is going on around me. The piece is very descriptive and aims to enable the listeners to visualise themselves in that environment, as they are able to hear all the noises going on around me.

On the day, I made around 15 different versions of my podcast because I kept stuttering, making a mistake or just simply wasn’t happy with how it sounded. Eventually I came to a version that I wasn’t 100% happy with considering I messed up one part where I describe the signs however I tried my best and decided to use it anyway.

We used a website called headliner to edit these audio packages, the website allowed us to add images, a transcript, a title and a wavelength.

My audio packaged turned out quite nicely after editing it, I think I managed to add appropriate images and a nice title. I definitely enjoyed using the website to spice up the audio package, rather than just leaving it as an audio file. It is more satisfying for the listener to have some visuals while listening.

Georgie

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Profile Interview VT Package

Some students like to spend their free time shopping, others drinking in their local pub but Rosie O’Regan, a student at London Southbank University, has taken a different approach to making the most of a day away from lectures and seminars. Juggling life as a film undergrad whilst being a part time DJ for her Student union. Rosie takes pleasure in tending to her personal garden in McLaren house (LSBU student accommodation) and making music.

Above you can watch our profile interview VT Package, which is about a London South Bank University student called Rosie O’Regan who uses her free time to garden and DJ and finds it important to focus on your hobbies.

Interviewing Rosie was a suggestion of mine as she lives in the same student accommodation as I do and I thought that she would be perfect for the profile interview. The reason I thought this was because she isn’t exactly a typical 22 year old girl, most people nowadays forget to focus on their hobbies as well as university and their social life however I always noticed that Rosie really does, which I find very inspiring.

On the day that the assignment was handed out my group and I decided who we would ask and a back-up just incase she wasn’t available or didn’t want to do it. After she got back to us, saying that she would love to do it, it was time to take action.

Craig and I (the other two members were unavailable) planned out the sequence of the interview, discussing the type of order that we would want to do and what kinds of shots we wanted to take. As well as we made a few interview questions. Before the interview I prepped Rosie with the basic questions we would ask her.

On the day of the interview Craig and I weren’t completely prepared as we had many different ideas, with Rosie having her own ideas too. We kind of went with the flow and filmed all the things that we thought would be relevant to the interview and would be a nice addition to the package. We decided to do the actual interview inside, in my student accommodations common room as it had a cozy feel to it. The gardening shots were obviously filmed outside, where Rosies garden is and the music production shots were taken in Rosie’s room where she has all her equipment set up. One shot of her DJing was taken at the universities student union, where Rosie DJs often.

Regarding the feedback that we were given, we had a range of helpful comments given considering that each of us had to edit the video separately, meaning my group all had completely different versions. The feedback given specifically to my video was that it was slightly long, which I was fully aware of and know for next time that I should make two versions (one to hand in and one for my youtube). I was also told that they wanted to hear more about Rosie, they felt like they didn’t get to know her well enough. When it comes to Profile Interviews you don’t need a piece to camera, so Craigs speaking piece at the end was an unnecessary addition. They liked all the shots taken that were added into the interview.

What I learnt from this assignment is that I have to learn how to get more information into a shorter period of time. I think this can be quite challenging, especially when just starting to learn how to edit. For next time I can do things such as make the questions shorter, or get rid of the questions all together and only have shots of the person talking about the topic. In general our packaged turned out well, I just think that we over-thought it a bit too much and added way more than was actually needed. Although the editing isn’t amazing (I am getting there) I think the video turned out really well and it was great fun working with such a talented person.

Georgie

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Week Eight: Script Writing and Audio Editing

Starting off the morning session, we had to open this week’s Moodle presentation and follow along with Rebecca. We began by going over our homework, starting with the homework of having to watch the news. We discussed what the news went over and compared the channels to one another. After going over this we went over the homework of having to edit our interview clips together.

Moving onto the lecture presentation we started to compare news interviews and profile interviews. We were shown an interview done by The Guardian with Daniel Radcliff as an example of a profile interview. After watching and discussing this we watched a bunch of the classes videos that they had edited, we were given questions that we had to answer about the videos.

We moved onto practicing ‘Vox Pops’, we watched a few examples. Learning that they are framed left to right and right to left and that they always come in groups of threes. Finding a relevant location in order to find opinionated people is important, the answers should be short and to the point and the background location should change as it will link the three Vox pops together smoothly. In order to properly understand this, we were given an assignment to go and film ‘Vox pops’, my group decided to relate our question to the recent celebrity suicides that have been going on, from this we derived the question ‘why do you think people should be nicer on social media?’.

For the afternoon session with Michael we focused on script writing. However as always, we started the class by discussing the homework, which was to pitch our ideas for the audio packages. We discussed these thoroughly, going deeply into each idea, being provided with a lot of feedback.

Using the audio file that we had created on the day we took a trip to Westminster and using an online program called headliner we edited this audio file. We could add pictures, a transcript, title pages and wavelengths. We spend a while just editing these pieces in class.

After finishing this we went over a script writing guide: opinions don’t matter, having a discipline and fair report, keeping it short and simple as well as always making sure to introduce the audio.

Moving onto story telling features: the general story structure is called ‘Flatline’ and is very common however can be quite boring. A more interesting structure would be ‘Introduce an Arc’, done by adding a question to drive listeners through, promising an answer to this question. Another structure is ‘divide in acts’, generally being divided in three separate acts (beginning, middle and end). One of the last examples given were ‘Signpost’ which is telling the audience why they should keep watching, explanation of why you are doing what you are doing, small reminders. We listened to some examples of these story structures.

Michael ended the class with one final tip: MAKE IT SPECIAL, done by adding interesting elements, surprises and interaction.

Georgie

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Week Eight: Reporting controversial topics

The morning session started with discussing the New Zealand Mosque attacks, discussing the editors code of practice and by answering different questions that should be considered about it (such as how do you describe the incident at first? do you publish or show the attackers video? and how much details of weapons used, method of attack, planning etc would you reveal?) Michael showed us different covers of how ‘The Mirror’ wrote about this story, by using very controversial titles. We had a thorough discussion/debate about this.

After this we moved on to fight hoax, doing a similar task as the previous week where each group searches a Brexit article on their social media website. Then using fight hoax to answer questions about the article. After finishing off fight hoax we moved onto the homework which was to present our datasets and initial thoughts on how to approach it as well as ideas for graphs.

Finishing off the lesson, we were reminded of our workbooks and what exactly we had to do for it.

During the afternoon session with LJ we focused on a program called ‘In design’ which could help us make the layout of our infographic. We learnt how to use the program, being able to split it into columns, add text, add images, titles etc. We were given an assignment to create our own article layout using an article we found online, done in order to practice using the program.

Georgie

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Brexit VT Package

With March 29 just three weeks away, we aimed to give a voice to the younger generation who feel that their needs are being ignored, even though they are the ones that will face the long term effects of Brexit. 75% of people aged under 25 voted to stay in the EU, according to YouGov whereas the majority of older people voted to leave. We spoke to two international students who spoke about how the Brexit outcome could change their view on the country they’re studying in, and we also asked them their opinion on how the Labour Party have backed a second referendum.

Above you can watch our very first practice VT Package, which covers Brexit at the houses of Parliament in Westminster, London, United Kingdom.

My groups VT package was focused on the younger generations, at the time, current opinion on the Brexit Situation. At the time, labour had just backed a second referendum, meaning that younger people could have their chance to have a say and vote. With Brexit being the hot topic in England, many angles are covered by different news stations, we thought being young ourselves, it would be interesting to see what young people had to say.

My VT Package group met up the day before where we jotted down a few different ideas of the angle that we could take, we choose one specific one however had a second favourite for a backup story if the first one didn’t work out. We then discussed what type of information we would need. Knowing exactly what we wanted to talk about, we wrote down a step by step order of how we wanted out package to be laid out (thus starting with a presenter, moving on to shots of the protestors and houses of parliament where a voice over will be attached etc..). We then gave designated roles to each member of our group, meaning that some of us had to go home and prepare some things for the next day. On the day, knowing exactly what we wanted to film, we got everything done quite quickly, we shot the establishing shots and the presenters (my) pieces. The only part we struggled with was the interview, the reason being because it was a normal day, most young people were either at collage/university and not outside protesting, which we didn’t think to consider. Thus, meaning it was very hard to find young people to talk to. Once we had gotten all the footage we needed, we sent it all to Alessia so that she could edit it all together.

Regarding the feedback that we were given, we were told that the presenter should do all of the audio in the VT package, the voice over should have some kind of natural sound behind it, rather than only talking. Specifically, regarding the interviews, we were told that it looked slightly un professional as we had one reporter either side of the two girls we were interviewing as well as that the interview didn’t fit in that well considering the girls were around 25 and thus didn’t fall under our story idea of talking to younger generations. Regarding the positive feedback, I was told that I spoke very clearly with good pronunciation and acted as a very enthusiastic presenter.

What I learnt from this process is that you have to be fully organised on what you want to do in order to make the filming process easier and quicker. I learnt a lot about how a VT package should look, especially with the feedback given. Realizing that the talking should all mainly be done by the presenter. I think my group and I also learnt a lot about how to compress a lot of information in a short video as well as what are the most important parts to include, as we had a lot more information however that would have made the video far too long. Next time my group should make sure to think thoroughly about what we are doing so we don’t come across a similar problem (all young people were busy with collage/university and thus weren’t around houses of parliament). In general I think that my group did very well, we were really organised and knew what we wanted to do, we just came across a few small problems and this practice VT showed us what we need to think about next time.

Georgie

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Week Seven: Brexit Editing

Today we started off the lesson by going over the homework, which was a few different things. We started by going over the homework of watching evening TV news from the night before and discussing the story order and the way of filming. Moving on, we discussed the piece we had to write about what we learned as a broadcast journalist when making our VT packages, linked with this project we were handed out sheets that we had to fill in, discussing the roles that the different group members had. Many didn’t write this Brexit piece so we were given around 15 minutes to sit and do it, having to discuss an overview of the VT, what the story is and why we are covering it now. Discussing the process of making it, talking about the feedback we were given, both positive and negative and what I learnt from the process and how I would do it different next time. Moving onto the last homework, which was finding someone to interview, together with this we were told how to make an interview good and why they are necessary.

For the afternoon session with Michael, we started the class off by listening to our audio files that we made when we went to the Houses of Parliament and discussed Brexit. Many of us had not edited our pieces and so we only listened to one piece, a sound scape, which perfectly used sounds to make you feel like you were standing in front of the houses of parliament on that very day. Considering that none of us had edited it, we were given time to edited our pieces. After editing and handing in our Brexit pieces we had a short lecture on interviewing, the skills that are needed for interviewing and what type of questions we should ask.

Georgie

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Week Seven: Ryerson Exchange

We only had the morning session considering that LJ was ill and thus meaning we did not need to come in for the afternoon session.

We started off the lesson by discussing the data that we had to find and collect to make our infographics with. We spent a lot of time on this, with Michael going over each student’s data thoroughly and providing everyone with in depth feedback. After this we went back to discussing fight hoax, we were put back into the groups that we were split into the previous week and each group was given a specific social media on which we had to find any single article about Brexit.

Moving on from this, we had a speech by Ryerson University about doing an exchange in Canada, where they also handed out free pizza. They were trying to encourage students to do an exchange with them because their university really focuses specifically on the creative industries.

Georgie

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Week Six: Picture Writing

Still being ill I was unable to go to today’s lesson as well however after reviewing Moodle I was able to see what they did in the lesson. They started off the lesson by going over the homework, which was discussing TV evening news from the night before.

They then moved onto showing the Brexit VT packages and reading out the studio intro for it. After watching all of the videos, each group was provided with some feedback on what they could do better next time, what went well etc. Continuing, we went over the skill of writing to pictures, which is of much importance.

To end the class, the homework was handed out. We have to write a better version of our Brexit voiceover and record it. We also have to write and record an audio of a piece called “What I learned as a journalist” and talk about the five most valuable things we learned as a broadcast journalists from producing the Brexit VT.

Georgie

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Week Six: FIGHTHOAX

Once again, I was not able to attend this class as I became very ill however I heard that what they did was go over the data sets that we had to find and were given feedback. They then had a guest speaker who introduced the class to ‘Fighthoax’, telling them what it is about, how the system works and how they can use it.

Georgie