Digital News Production Unit- Investigating possible Broadcast Sites

Recently I have been investigating which video-sharing site would be best for us to use for our News Network to operate on. In the brief we were given, both Youtube and Vimeo were the two best suggested sites to use. I am actually unfamiliar with using Vimeo to produce and share videos, and so I will have to investigate just how customisable our profile would be in there.

I do however have many years using Youtube to share videos, as my first Youtube channel and videos were first uploaded sometime between 2006-2008. Youtube has come a long way over the years and the customisation of the users profile and channel, as well as the youtube analytics system which allows the user to see exactly which gender, age-group and location on the planet a certain video is most popular with. This would of course be a very useful tool when it comes to creating our news network, as we will be able to see if we are attracting our target audience with our content.

In terms of customisation, Youtube allows the user to create a "channel" or profile which hosts all their videos. They are given their own URL (www.youtube.com/USERNAME) which can of course be shared online and spread easily. Other users of the site can also subscribe to youtube channels to ensure that they receive updates of the channels activity and get notifications whenever the user uploads a new video or broadcasts a new message.
Each channel can be given a customised banner (which we will probably create using Adobe Photoshop if we choose to use Youtube as our network site) which helps the channel stand out from the others. Users are also able to add in-depth descriptions to their uploaded videos, which are found underneath the videos.
Each video also contains a comments section where visitors can discuss and critique the videos which have been uploaded. This is both a blessing and a curse. The blessings are that genuine critique is available at any point from real life people with opinions. We can improve based on these opinions and hopefully learn to cater to a target audience via their suggestions.
The downside to this is that our channel could quickly become the victim of trolling by some users, which makes channels look quite messy and unprofessional. Obviously we don't want to resort to censoring users comments, as people have genuine opinions and suggestions to help better the network.

In conclusion, I think I should investigate Vimeo further before we make our decision.
Something to think about is also the amount of traffic that Vimeo and Youtube generate. I used a website called TrafficEstimate.com to find out how many visitors each site receives monthly.
Vimeo- 9341200
Youtube- 1883529000
The numbers speak for themselves really. Youtube is a much more popular website, which is something we should also consider when making our decision.

Digital News Production Unit- Research from books.

Today I visited the library at Rochester UCA  with Roxanne to read some books and collect some notes that should be useful for both the production of our news network, and also possibly the theory essay for this unit.
Alot of the books I came across during my investigation were based purely on Television and radio news broadcasting as opposed to digital and online broadcasting, but some of the traits of these two forms of broadcast also translate perfectly into Online news broadcasting which could be useful for this unit.
The first book I investigated was "Television Journalism" by Steve Cushion.

This book was very useful when it came to analyzing and investigating the inner workings of Television Journalism. The writer, Steve Cushion discusses the way Television Journalism is funded as well as how the news is slotted strategically into a television time-slot to fully take advantage of the audience and increase the broadcast's effectiveness.

Obviously since our particularly news will be broadcast online, and is therefore accessible at any time of day, the way in which it is slotted into a particular time-slot to appeal to a certain audience isn't something we need to massively consider, but it is interesting information to have anyway.

Another somewhat irrelevant but interesting topic discussed in this book was the idea of sexism and gender inequality in the journalism industry. I had never really noticed or considered this before, but Steve makes a brilliant observation on page 152 when he writes that it seems as though female news anchors are often made to present "softer" news stories, such as health and human interest issues, whilst their male counter-parts are allowed to present more hard-hitting stories, such as politics and war debates.
Of course, our group has no intention of following this stereotype with our news network, but it was interesting to discover something that I had been relatively oblivious to beforehand.
It may benefit our project to go "against the grain" and have a female news reporter actually reporting on more hard-hitting issues.

The second book I took a look at was called "Broadcast Journalism- A Critical Introduction" by Jane Chapman and Marie Kinsey.

I found the information in this book to be more technical, with an entire section dedicated to the discussion of law when it comes to broadcasting and journalism.
As someone who has studied criminal and civil law in the past, I found this book to be the most interesting one I looked at, and I feel that learning first hand what the rules of entertainment law are would be a very important thing to do before we begin running stories.
If we can understand how to abide by strict law when it comes to working in the news industry, we can avoid lawsuits and accusations that we have caused defamation of character or slander.









I also took a look at a few other books, which mostly presented me with the same information as the other books, albeit with some exception. For example, the book "Television Production and Broadcast Journalism" by Phillip L. Harris discusses the usage of the actual production set that the news studio takes place in.
This is a key point in creating news, as our sets will have to be laid out in a certain way to cater to the audience, as well as look attractive enough to give the audience something to look at.

Digital News Production Unit- Side-by-side projects and ideas lab.

I have recently been told I will be completing 2 projects simultaneously  in this university term. The first was mentioned in my previous blog and is called Fiction Adaptation. In that particular unit, I will work primarily alone, and the finished piece will be a reflection of my work and nobody elses.

However, in this unit, Digital News Production it will be a requirement for me to work as part of a team. I have no problem at all with this, as I have worked as part of teams on projects in the past and as such I am now very comfortable with negotiating ideas, relaying information and helping keep everyone involved in the project in the know.

In May of this year, myself and my friend Andy were working on our documentary unit. We enjoyed working together so much that we decided at that time that we would work together again when the new university year started. The reason for this was because we had worked extremely well together, hardly disagreed with anything, developed some very creative and individual ideas and we didn't see the point in fixing something that wasn't broken. If we were comfortable working together and produced the best pieces of work together, why partner with anybody else if we had the choice to continue our brotherhood of badassness?

As the year has started however, myself and Andy's 2 man team has merged with another group of Andrei Allen and Roxanne Meats. I have seen a lot of both Andrei and Roxanne's work on Youtube and when I have had discussions with them, and I know they are both very dedicated and committed workers. As such, I am very much looking forward to working with them on this project.

Once our class had split up into our respective groups, we decided to have an ideas lab for the afternoon, to try and begin creating the bare bones for our online "news network". Some of the things we discussed were:

• The target audience of our network.
• The kind of branding our network would have. (logo, colour scheme, what the theme would be etc.)
• Which online video sharing site we would be using to host our news show. (Youtube, Vimeo etc) and discussing the pros and cons of each site.
• What stories would have the most impact for our target audience and whether or not it would work at all.
• What task each member of our group would be assigned with.

We have not currently agreed on a branding for our network. We have agreed though that the branding we give our product is a very important task. By analysing pre-existing news channels and networks, such as the BBC and ITV, it is clear that things such as the colour used for network logos and studio layouts can help define the entire product.

For example, BBC One is almost synonymous with the colour red, thanks to their logo:

whilst ITV has claimed ownership of the colour yellow with their logo:

We have not actually decided on a colour scheme or anything as of yet, but what we are very comfortable with right now is the name of our group which I came up with, which could also be used as the name of our network. Our team is known as "ARMA", a play on the word "armour" and also the initial of each of our teams first names, Andrei, Roxanne, Mark, Andy.

At the moment we are not particularly sure what this name means, but "ARMA News" does sound quite catchy, and its connection and similarity to the word Armour could have connotations of defense and safety, which would hopefully make any viewer feel comfortable!

A very early attempt at a brand logo I created whilst messing with Photoshop. (Too detailed? Bland colour? Not watermark worthy? Possibly.)

Although we have no agreed target audience as of yet, we are kind of leaning towards a younger audience (probably around our age) as it is one we are able to cater to easily, and also what we feel would be most attracted and interested in the potential stories we discussed running on our network.

I will be discussing the possible stories we discussed in a later Video Blog, as well as some of the more practical aspects of this project, including how we hope to keep in touch and discuss ideas and problems over the course of our working together.

Final Thought:

I don't believe I have ever worked with 3 more capable people in my entire media career. I have had the opportunity to get to know these guys on a personal level as well as a professional one, and as such I know how dedicated they will be to this project and the course as a whole. 

This motivates me to work harder for their sake as well as my own. I feel that this project and this year as a whole will be the year that I get to show exactly what I can do with my creativity and hopefully the other members of ARMA will like the ideas and solutions I can bring to the table.

Fiction Adaptation Unit- University Return and Poem Selection

I have recently returned to university and have been assigned with a new unit to complete. This unit is "fiction adaptation" and I have been provided with a series of poems written about the events of world war 1. My job for this unit will be to create a short film in which the poem of my choosing will be adapted for showing on a screen.

 When I was first presented with the poems we could choose from for this unit, one immediately stood out to me as a suitable candidate. The poem "Anthem for a Doomed Youth" by Wilfred Owen details the horrors of war using very creative and interesting language. It also (aside from the historic wording of the time the piece was written) is written in such a way that the situation could very well relate to todays climate in regards to war. No specific events, items or people of the time are mentioned in the poem, and as such the entire poem could very well be speaking about a much more modern war, minus the historic choice of wording. 

A key theme in some adaptations such as the re-imagining of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock is taking a story which is set in a particular time period, and re-telling it in a modern-day setting. This makes the piece timeless, and easier to relate to for a modern-day audience. This was an idea that immediately sprang to my mind as I read this poem.

 I believe an interesting idea would be for me to re-tell this poem from the point of view of a modern-day soldier, or possibly a war mercenary. This could allow for some interesting comparisons of todays kinds of wars and World War 1. It would also be more practical for myself as I am unfamiliar with the basic operations of the armed forces during world war 1 and costumes and such from the World War 1 era would be quite expensive for me to get a hold of.
 There are also a lot of interviews and videos from a first person perspective of todays soldiers available through online and offline sources however, and as such background research on this subject would be quite simple.

To the left here are just some brief notes I took when I was first presented with the poems I was allowed to choose from for this unit.
At the time, I had a vivid picture in my head of a modern-day character preparing to go into battle in some faraway land (possibly dressed in some kind of modern-day war apparel such as a bullet-proof vest and cargo trousers etc.) and seeming quite cocky and proud, only to be unexpectedly killed.

I drew inspiration for this idea by comparing World War 1 with some of the more modern-day wars and army operations we have nowadays. It is common knowledge that both World Wars were terrible, and mentally and physically scarring for everyone involved, and the men that would usually be sent to fight in these wars would be young, naive and very scarred.
A sense of pride and a need to serve and protect the country seemed to drive the soldiers of the World Wars.

I personally have quite a few friends in the army, and some of them are not motivated by a need to serve the country at all. They are instead fuelled by the want to better themselves, become stronger and also earn money at the same time. This is a sign of changing times, and new motivation in our ever evolving youth, and I believe this is an interesting concept which I could possibly reflect in my film.