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.