As mentioned in the headline of my post I have operated an Autocue in the TV studio as well as filmed football this week. After not very successful attempt to practice and learn how to use the Autocue on Tuesday I felt that it was in my own hands to arrange myself some additional training with someone that really knows how it works and most definitely what to do if it fails. Using it looked pretty straight forward but it kept freezing all the time and the text kept disappearing from the screen and so we could not do a proper practice on the script from the previous week because text would not be available when needed and I did not know how to deal with that problem. The next morning I went to ask someone from the loan counter to help me to understand how to deal with faulty Autocue.It is worth mentioning that before using the Autoque it is important to make sure if everything is set the way it should be. There are few things that can be followed to make sure of the right setting of the program. If you go to Properties, then Settings it has to be on Screen 2- and ticked: extend my Windows desktop and press OK.
- Properties
- Settings
- Screen2
- Extend my Windows desktop- ticked off
- OK
The next step is to upload the script:
- 1 P.Pro,
- START
- File- load
- change colour of the background to black and writing to white, and go to Edit- set up Two Displays - L-R (check if it on the right one)
- EXIT and adjust the speed of running or make used to natural pauses in reading of presenters or make sure that I did all the right speed-ups if it is needed during script reading.
As soon as we are used to presenters’ reading pace and know all the details of the script we have to make sure that if there are any last minute changes made to the script we simply have to update the text on the Autocue (typing in changes). While operating the Autoque it is also worth remembering not to use the mouse to move the arrow for scrolling the text up or down as that may interfere with the program working properly or even freeze the program. Secondly, as it happened to me the day before, the missing text from the script can be caused by a dongle being loose so I had to make sure that the dongle (small USB on the side of the laptop) was properly in and kept checking every so often.
In overall, the WINOL bulletin went well again, we had good links, good opening, a lot better graphics and quite strong pictures for the news and sport packages. We have been praised for good effort for getting the interviews for the reporters and also for the production team working smoothly together mastering the techniques of our inseparable roles. Unfortunately our sound had some issues this time, in some packages it was all over the place. We have been advised that it is good to write the script for the OOV before setting the pictures as it is easier and more accurate to set the right length of pictures to already recorded audio than the other way around. John's package had a really good sign off, and even though some of the framing was out of place his package had the right balance within OfCom regulations and quite a strong scripting.We have been told that we use too many sign shots and GVs of the campus and so we need to try to avoid signs and get other pictures than of the campus. Catherine's package had a very strong piece to camera and as we heard in the feedback it's production was pretty solid, however it was a little bit confusing and it didn't wasn't fully clear that there was a link made between the national newspaper's story and Winchester (which was originally planned). In sports story, we noticed that softening and disguising in editing (blending sound underneath the picture) was attempted but not fully achieved but as always great attempt for reaching for the right contacts and efforts put in filming and finding the stories. And finally story happened to name the drug company too much and it came out to make a little bit of an advert for it so it was suggested in the feedback that perhaps next time when doing similar story we don't necessary have to name the company at all or at least not more than once.
In summary, our news team is trying their best in getting the stories but perhaps it would have been a lot easier and less stressful if each of them tried to bring at least two ideas for the stories to the news editor on Monday morning instead of starting the research on Monday. As it was noticed by our tutors the stories this week did not belong to the strongest ones and they know our reporters can do a lot better if the put enough effort in it. It was also mentioned that not enough of the stories come from the previous ones- follow ups which can be a good source for new stories.
This week brought us around 180 unique user sessions what means that we are still below the score we are aiming at. As our tutors suggested more attention should be put into promotion of our website and continuity of Date with Fate- which again, hopefully will boost our user sessions up.
The University of Winchester Journalism Course
Multimedia Produvtion , WINCHESTER NEWS ONLINE WEBSITE
