TV News Unit | Project Evaluation

'The Cost of Motoring' - An Analysis

When we set out on this task we knew that the deadline was going to be tight and we had our work cut out for us. I teamed up with Alex B, George N and Andrew A and we set to work thinking about what sort of topic we could cover. Many ideas were tossed around in the think-tank to begin with, one of which was heading to Brand's Hatch to interview a driver however we ended up disposing of this idea after settling on coverage of electric cars and the motoring industry as a whole.

I will be splitting this piece into four sections; Successes, failures, things we learnt and ways in which I've developed over this time.

What Went Well? 

I think one of the major strong points regarding our project was the planning throughout, we managed to keep stress somewhat minimal by detailing everything we were going to be doing within shoot week, with necessary scripting and shot listing when required. This meant that the days we were due to shoot went as smooth as they possibly could. Whether it be me, George and Alex spending the day in London getting b-roll or even the interview with AJ towards the end of the week, we meticulously noted what we would be doing beforehand and for the most part it was executed well.

Furthermore one of the strong points in this project was the access to equipment that we had, we're fortunate enough to have the new Panasonic DVX200's to play with from the studio's kit-room. As I've mentioned in the blog prior to this, being able to use high-end equipment like this in our projects really helps ensure quality for our work, providing we utilise the features of such technology. New equipment such as the TASCAM came in handy towards the end of production for providing multiple direct audio sources which we couldn't have done prior to this, additionally being able to use 4 different cameras thanks to Alex and George's own that they brought to production ensured that we had enough coverage of each area we decided to film.

What Could Be Improved? 

One of the main things that threw us off towards the end of our production for this unit was the necessity for reshoots. Upon sitting down with our unit leader; Helen, we understood that our live piece interviewing AJ wasn't going to be sufficient enough to satisfy the project brief, mostly due to the fact that it lacked much substance for an 'as-live' piece and while Helen wanted somewhere like an event, a 'reason to be live', being in AJ's back garden didn't quite fulfill that. For this reason we ended up making last minute decisions to head out to Brand's Hatch last Saturday in order to interview 2 drivers that were competing that day. I was unable to commit to the filming that particular day as it was incredibly short notice on a weekend and I had already planned to spend time with Family over that period, which while irritating, I simply cannot fault Alex and George's dedication to this project by knuckling down and getting stuck in out on location that day.

The other thing that caused us some issues was the use of the greenscreen material as in-studio pieces. There was a minor dispute amongst us regarding who should do the presenting in the studio, with Andrew wanting to do it initially and me being open to the idea of doing my version of it also. We debated having both of us presenting together, splitting the dialogue between us however we originally dismissed this in favour of individual presentation. Unfortunately the material that we recorded during our first session the Friday before last was soon made redundant upon switching to the Brand's Hatch live piece, meaning we had to re-write the in-studio script and re-record it this past Tuesday. One of the things we changed the second time round was to go with our original suggestion and have both me and Andrew presenting, not only did this prevent any fallings out over petty arguments such as 'Who could present better?' while also speeding the process up somewhat by alleviating the amount of lines each of us were required to memorise for camera.

I think George and Alex would agree with me when I say that working with Andrew proved somewhat problematic for the project as a whole. Whilst the reasons Andrew gave for his absence were justified to some extent (providing that they were genuine), however even during times when I was at home rather than in the studios during the edit weeks, I spent a large portion of that time doing work at home, whether it be editing portions of the project/trailer to completing research material, finalising pre-production planning and/or liaising with potential contacts and places of interest for our project, whereas Andrew hasn't contributed a great deal to the project himself with help on two of the shoot days as well as providing the music for portions of the package, regardless of this however I think it wouldn't be farfetched to say that me, George and Alex find his contributions comparatively lacking.

What Did I Learn? 

I feel that the key areas in which I personally developed within this unit would be going hands-on with professional equipment such as the DVX200 as well as the TASCAM which allowed us to increase our production value significantly, our entire piece in fact was shot and rendered in 4K resolution (3840x2160), leading to a much higher level of clarity than traditional 1080p HD. For this particular project most of my time was spent in the practical and planning side of things with George helming the editing phases, I'm incredibly impressed with how certain things turned out and did learn how to utilise 'keying' within Premiere Pro which involves removing the background from a green-screen image and applying your own backdrop; considering the importance of this technique industry-wide, I value this new skill deeply.

Another area in which I feel strongly about was the ability to adhere to tight deadlines, especially as a group. Cracking under pressure would've been all too easy here however I'm proud to be able to say that we got through the unit as a group without that much dispute at all. There were a few minor disagreements regarding pedantics of the project, such as certain artistic choices in terms of the GFX that George created, regardless of this though it never turned into anything more than that and were for the most-part resolved fairly promptly. Had we not have had to do reshoots this week, we probably would've been finished much earlier than we actually were which is a good sign, furthermore despite having to take part in said reshoots and re-arrange our project at a late stage, we were all able to cope fairly well considering and pulled things together nicely for tomorrow's hand-in.

What Could I Develop? 

My weak-points are similar to those I've had in the past, sometimes I wonder whether I push myself enough during these projects. One of the things I can say is I feel like I've made much more of a conscious effort to get stuck in and be creative this project, when compared to other projects in the past. I think that is primarily because of the group atmosphere. I much prefer working in a group rather than the individual projects we've had towards the beginning of last year and I feel that it is a much more realistic interpretation of the industry that we'll be going into at the end of this course. I.e. Different people have different roles on the majority of projects, people will dedicate themselves to editing, shooting, planning and producing etc. So in that respect I feel that I could develop my independent working skills, however there were aspects of this project in which I was given the opportunity to go off into my own little corner and be creative, for example the teaser trailer I did this week, which I was given full creative freedom with.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I feel that we've been successful as a whole throughout this project, overcoming a number of tasks that initially I found myself very intimidated by such as going on camera for the green-screen material as well as fulfilling my role of lead cameraman on this shoot. To the boys' credit, they all said I did a good job in said role and that at-least gives me confidence that I am capable of doing these things when in truth I probably doubt my capabilities a little too much.

When looking back at this project in the future, I'd like to think I'll remain proud of the cohesiveness of the final product, as well as our abilities to micro-manage aspects of both pre-production and production without falling out over something, and for that... I am grateful.


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