WINOL week 5

After spending a month as a News reporter, I have decided to move onto the Production and Features team, to ensure I get experience in a variety of areas.

In my first week on production, my role was to work on the soundboards, up in the gallery and to mic up the presenters. This involved checking the sound and voice levels with the presenters and those in the gallery. I also had to sort out any technical difficulties that presenters were having with their mic packs and talkback. The production team also began the entertainment show, 'Good Morning Winchester'. I was also placed on soundboard for this, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Unfortunately, we fell foul of violating OFCOM by creating a piece related to cocktails, which was seen as encouraging alcoholism in the morning. This is of course is a very valuable lesson to of learnt early on in our journalism careers and an issue that we will be sure to scrutinise in the future. I also produced my first feature on smoking. The 9th March 2011 was non-smoking day and so I did a 1500 word piece on the history of smoking.

General points this week:

• Check the spelling of everything - on one of the sport's graphic a word was misspelt.
• New backgrounds needed
• Production straps for both sports presenters and news presenters.
• Skype and phone interviews produce a much more successful and ambitious bulletin.
• Shira's New Zealand story shows how a story can be made even though there is a lack of pictures.
• The sports this week was very good, but must double check that rights to footage is granted. I.e. the streaker footage was checked and fortunately it had been granted.
• When editing the bulletin, just re-touch certain parts where the vision jolted.
• Both production and promotion issues need to be resolved by four o'clock.
• Headline clips need text.
• Dig in to find the story and analyse interviewees.

A phone line system has now been set up so that when people ring up this particular telephone number, they will automatically be recorded. The WAV file can then be collected from Andy Couston to input directly into Final Cut Pro. Make sure you inform the speaker that they are being recorded for the whole duration of the conversation.