Digital News Production Unit- Inside Out Viewing and Workshop

Today I and the rest of my class watched several videos as part of a workshop we took on improving our interviewing, presenting and reporting skills. We began by watching a short video in which a man explained how when reporting we must be sure to only move around a lot to different areas in the same shot if we are illustrating a change in scenery. (For example, a lush green field which is situated directly opposite a highly pollutant power plant.)
I found this film to be very useful in terms of learning how to present (as I will be the presenter for our news network in this unit) and I found it interesting to note all the little details the presenter showed during some of his broadcasts. I made sure to study the presenters tone of voice and body movements, as well as how he uses his body and certain camera shots to illustrate a point and show a sense of scale when it comes to landscape shots and showing large open spaces.

Rachel Royce (Right) speaks with an affected parent.

The next video we watched was of a recent broadcast of a BBC "Inside Out" program, in which Rachel Royce investigates the cases of several British parents who have had to escape from the country and take their children with them to avoid the social services taking them away.
The great part about this was the fact that Rachel Royce was actually our guests today who was helping operate the workshop we would do later, and so it was an opportune moment to ask her some questions and find out some information about her part in the creation of this episode of the program, as well as what it's like to present and investigate stories like this in general. One of the main questions I asked Rachel was whether or not she still gets nervous appearing on camera even with all her experiences. I asked this as I get quite nervous getting in front of the camera (despite apparently appearing calm and collected on the outside) and I was relieved to be told that she did indeed still get nervous before shooting.
This makes me feel a lot better about myself, as I was beginning to feel that broadcast journalism was something I would never be able to pursue because of my nerves, but this brief conversation with Rachel has convinced me that being nervous before a shoot is natural, and I broadcast journalism is still potentially an avenue I may wish to go down.

When we began the actual workshop this afternoon, we were presented with a script and asked to present a short studio news report, complete with links to VTs and even a weather report. Myself and Andy Cox took on the roles of presenters with other members of the class acting as director, cameraman, boom-mic operator and light operator.
I found this experience to be very beneficial in giving me a taste of what it is like in a news anchor position. Some feedback I received about my performance was that my delivery of lines and my tone was very good, but the fact that myself and Andy were quite erratic with our body language and uncoordinated with the way we were looking around the "studio" was very distracting to watch. Also, we kept looking down at our scripts.
Personally, I think we'd have done better if we'd have been given a second run, and also, the problem of us looking down at our scripts wouldn't be an issue in an actual news room, as we would be able to use Auto-Cue.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon investigating a certain case (which we cannot mention as it is an ongoing case) and collecting the information we would need to stage a news report and a "live" interview. I chose to be the field reporter interviewing Andy, with Roxanne and Andrei portraying the news anchors that would be presenting from the news room.
I found this to be a very enjoyable experience.
One of the main problems I found however was that I seemed to be trying too hard to follow a script we had written previously about the story, and as such, I would often stumble on words, or forget certain details and have to do a retake. This would not be possible in a real-life live report, and as such it has given me a much deeper insight and respect for those that can do live reports.