Digital News Production: ''Live'' script DRAFT 1

Throughout today Charlie, Vic and I met up to carry on with our drafts. On my previous post I showed our second draft of our package script, however today we have finished our first draft for our ''live'' news story: The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

So far, we're all happy with the draft as we've included much more information and facts on our ''live'' piece, and have tried to make it more serious than the other script (as the other is more lighthearted). We've decided to use 2 second delays to emphasise that the show is ''live''. We have decided to shoot on Lodge Hill and show how beautiful the environment is with the nature and wildlife and then discuss that soon it may no longer be there if the houses get built. We've decided we want interaction in the news piece to make it more interesting to the viewers and entice them into staying tuned in. To do this we decided to use vox pops and interviews with local residents and campaigners stating their opinions on the change. 

We still need to finish the end of the script adding 'back to the studio' and signing off, however we are all pleased with the first draft so far.

Bird Script Draft 1

Digital News Production: Package script DRAFT 2

Vic, Charlie and I have all been doing individual research on the package story: Hugh Lowe Farms

We have all met up again to write the script and have created a 2nd draft of our script below.

We have all put in ideas to create the structure of the script, and tried to add as much detail as we can regarding visual discription and dialogue. However, we're not sure if to have the ''live'' news piece first as it's the most important or have our lighthearted news at the beginning, but it might be better to end on a lighter note.

We've decided we're going to interview the Regan family as they have a LOT to say about what activities, events, charity events, and job promotions they have going on on the farm including a barn dance every year and events for red nose day. They can also talk about how the farm has been running for over a century and they are the 5th generation family. They also won a Taste of Kent Award for their soft fruit and strawberry jubilee variety. We may also interview the cherry picker and managing director if we have time in the poly tunnels.

Another point we wanted to mention in the interview is the fact the farm nearly was shut down in 2011 after petitioners said it was 'damaging to the environment' and 'a waste of water'. however the farm luckily was able to keep the farm running as the environmentalists said that it wasn't a danger at all. We're not sure werther to mention this or not as it's old news and we want to focus on the good events that the farm does.

The script below is our 2nd draft and we are still working on it but so far we're happy with what we've got.

Hugh Lowe Farm Package Draft 2

Fiction Adaptation: CHOSEN POEM + RESEARCH

After consideration of each poem I decided to further elaborate on the poem 'Summer in England, 1914' by Alice Meynell.

 

I felt like this was the best poem to adapt as I loved the contrast of the mood throughout the poem and how Alice talks about 'the calm before the storm' meaning at the beginning of the poem Alice discusses what the environment is like during summer and how it's calm and peaceful.
The poem's name stood out to me from the very start - the title: Summer in England. It immediately sounds odd as Alice sarcastically makes the war sound quite casual within the title as it's obvious that a 'typical' summer doesn't consist of a war.

I was straight away drawn to the style of the poem Alice has taken on. I really like how she discusses that while the world looks beautiful and the natural cycle of the climate carries on the war is also taking place and she doesn't ignore it with the random outbursts of 'death' that is mentioned throughout the poem. For example Alice says ''and when this chaste young silver sun went up softly, a thousand shattered men, one went corruption, heaped the plain, after a league - long throb of pain.'' we can see that she used a juxtaposed contrast of whilst the sun is rising beautifully, men are falling painfully which is quite a sad way of looking at the deaths.

Alice says in the first paragraph ''Most happy year!'' to show that the war wasn't expected, people where happy generally and the summer was gracefully turning into autumn. However towards the beginning of the 3rd paragraph everything begins to go down hill, she comments on soldiers being 'shot through the eyes' and it is such a contrast as a few lines ago she was talking about apples and berries being beautiful.

I really liked the contrasting throughout the poem of good and bad and thought the style could be adapted to the screen in many different ways and genres. To get more of an in-depth into the poem I decided to do some background research on the poem and look at who Alice Meynell was.

Alice Meynell, born in England in 1874 was extremely passionate and influenced by religion, this is why it's heavily referenced throughout her poems. Alice was a poet and campaigner for women's suffrage. She has written many poems however they are all extremely under rated although after I looked at them they all seem extremely passionate and in depth whilst referencing religion a lot. 

I found that when reading the poem, Alice focused a lot on contrasting between two things back and forth. She would speak of flowers and berries, and then suddenly talk about how soldiers are getting shot through the eyes. I liked the contrast as I believe I can convey a contrast between beautiful things and disgusting things in my film. Alice also focus' on the seasonal changes and cycles from summer to autumn which once again is a contrast. I took from the poem that Alice is trying to show normal life continuing and seasons continuing, however whilst all this is happening and flowers are blossoming, men at war are dying and for them it's not as beautiful as everything looks from the outside.

I also found that in the poem religion is heavily used at the end, I feel like Alice is using religion as  way to to cover up the soldiers death. Alice says in her poem, ''the soldier dying, dies upon a kiss, the very kiss of christ''. This makes the death sound like it has been rewarded in some way by christ and that it's okay that he died as he died in a 'christian death' as it was in place of his friend and they now have received the 'kiss of christ' reward. I think this is a way to cover up the real emotions going on inside Alice as she doesn't want to hear the truth that actually, it wasn't such a beautiful and peaceful death and that he didn't deserve to die at all as this is too much to handle.

After looking into the background of Alice a little and the poem, I feel like I know more about the poem and what exactly was going on when she wrote what she did, and wrote strange contrasts. I think religion plays a huge part in what she says and the reasons behind everything - which allows the poem to have a more sweet ending.

Digital News Production: Casting Advert.

In our group we decided that we want to cast for our ''live'' news film and news package. Myself and Vic wrote down who we need for our news pieces and came up with a presenter for the studio and a reporter for on location and interviewing.
Looking at http://www.starnow.com/ and http://www.castingcallpro.com/uk/ we wrote an advert on each website seeking 2 reporters (one for each story) and 1 presenter. We decided that we wanted our news reporter to be around 24-40 in age as we want them to look mature and professional. We aren't sure whether we want a male/female presenter yet so we are allowing either gender to apply for the role. We've decided we want the attire to be formal/smartwear and have neat hair and makeup (if female). I'm going to create demographics and psycohgraphics for our audience so we can narrow down who we are aiming our news TV show at. I'm also going to do further research on nature news programmes to see if the audience is a niche audience - very specific, or a wider audience - with lots of different views and personalities.

Here is the adverts we created below:

We've decided to book dates at the Maidstone Television Studios to organise auditions for people that apply. We've also decided to start filming towards the middle of the month so we can film the farm before the winter begins to kick in. We will film more depending on the footage we shot after the first draft has been handed in after critical feedback on the 31st October.

Here is what we wrote on our add:

''We are in university and are creating a news production, and are in need for 3 actors to play the roles of either a presenter or reporter. The first role is a presenter who will present a short news show and introduce each story. The 2 reporters are going to report on 1 specific story each and interview people. We need actors with confidence and around the ages of 24 to 40. We are looking for both male and female actors. AUDITIONS will be taking place on the 14th,17th and 20th of OCTOBER 2014, at the Maidstone Television Studios, Vinters Park, New Cut Road, ME14 5NZ. Times: 12:00PM-18:00. You will need to be available to film on these dates: 21st to 24th of October and if needed we'll contact again for further filming.
WE WILL PAY YOUR TRAVEL EXPENSES AND FOOD FOR THE DAY OF FILMING.
Contact either Vic on vittie1@hotmail.co.uk or
Ruby on ruby_rogers@icloud.com

We look forward to hearing from you,
Thanks
Vittorio Falcucci and Ruby Rogers''

We also created the same advert on Castingcallpro and have already received 1 application.

Digital News Production: CONTACTING BUILDING PLANNERS

During our group meeting Charlie mentioned he had contacted the company which are planning on building on the Nightingale site in Lodge Hill. Charlie sent a message to them to receive their response or send us a statement on what will be happening.

The message Charlie sent is this;

''Hello, my name is Charlie Ansell and I represent a local news production 'Kent Nature'. We were wondering if you were able to give a response towards the dispute on your plans to build on the Nightingale site. We would ideally like to have a filmed interview but if we could gain any response at all from ou we would be very grateful. You can contact me via my email.''

The company responded to us and said this:

''Hi Charlie


Do get in touch if you have any further queries.

Regards,

Rhian
For and on behalf of Land Securities


A spokesperson for Land Securities, said: “We were delighted when Medway Council approved our Outline Planning Application for Lodge Hill, which will allow for a truly sustainable development to be delivered. We have worked hard over several years to create a masterplan which addresses all potential impacts associated with the regeneration plans and we are grateful for the constructive involvement of Council officers, local residents and other important stakeholder groups.

“Lodge Hill will benefit life and business in Medway by bringing much-needed homes and road improvements and will create approximately 5,000 jobs to secure the Peninsula’s status as a significant economic destination in the region.”

"The proposals for Lodge Hill will create a new community hub on the Hoo Peninsula, that will bring with it benefits and amenities for people living in the area, including a countryside park, sports facilities, health services, a nursing home, three new primary schools and a new secondary school."


After reading the statement we was slightly confused as they didn't mention the nightingale birds at all or the current home of the birds - they didn't tell us what would happen to the birds. They did tell us the plus sides of building on the land however, such as creating over 5,000 jobs and also building schools and health services.

We will contact the company again to try receive some more information about the work taking place.

Digital News Production: Package script DRAFT 1

Vic and I have been working on the script for our package story: Hugh Lowe Farm.

Our first draft is very basic as we've only completed 50 seconds. However we are going to all create some ideas for how we can start our story and whether to focus on the poly tunnels or the whole of the farm and come back to discuss what we should add. We have wrote in red shot types and tried to work out how long each shot will take. We've decided we want to report at the studio for the beginning of the package and introduce both our stories then focus on the first story.

In a few days we will all meet back up to continue with both the package script and the ''live'' news piece.

Before creating the script myself and Vic did some research into how we could set it out to look professional, and give all vital information to everyone who reads the script. 

We looked at a template the BBC used for their scripts:

BBC news scripts template link

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/30_08_06worksheet3.2.pdf

We really liked this template as it was simple, yet we could edit it so that each column had the relevant information needed such as visual description, dialogue and word count/time in secs.

Whilst writing the script we looked back at package examples so we could get ideas on how the presenter introduces the reporter and different shots used. We also made sure we was looking at shows at 6pm so that the content and language fit with the time slot of our news show.

BBC News at 6 package example

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04kfldh/bbc-news-at-six-06102014

Other full episode package examples.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aqzMrIvb1w

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnk7ZK4eyhc

Digital News Production: CONTACTING HUGH LOWE FARM

Today Vic, Charlie and I all met up to discuss our two news stories and look at the scripts we'd been working on. We needed to contact Hugh Lowe Farm to make sure we was allowed to film there and have a definite answer from the farm regarding interview dates, who would be getting interviewed, and times we could visit the farm.

We rang up and spoke to the receptionist who informed us that the family and managing direct wasn't available at the moment and that we could leave them a message - as we did.

We are now waiting for them to follow us up as we left them an email and telephone number.

This is the message Vic left to the farm:

''Hello, this is Vittorio Falcucci and I'm a student at Maidstone TV Studios, we are filming a short news show and was interested in filming at the farm, as I've read that you've won the ''Taste of Kent Award'' and wanted to know more about your award winning produce. We was wondering if we could come along to the farm for some test shots, talk to some of the workers, family and yourself and ask if they didn't mind us interviewing them. Could you please get back to me my number is 07********* thankyou, bye''

Hopefully Hugh Lowe Farm will contact us back ASAP so we can begin test shooting and further planning out our production.