Winol wins BJTC award for innovation in Journalism :
I have created both videos in Gonzo style, I filmed hand held, having the permission for only one camera and no cables for microphone loose I tried my best to capture the event, its mood and keep the audio levels to its best possible quality. despite few audio level issues I managed to put the two videos together and made it available on youtube to reach not only our local audience but also bring the interest of all the people that were at the ceremony. I produced the two videos concentrating on reaching the audience and increase our traffic, as well as celebrate our students being given the award.
BJTC Awards in London, October 2010
Our deadline for preparing the content for The New Winchester Review Online feature magazine is Wednesday 27th October, Chanin has progressed significantly with building a website for our Features and we have to put our best efforts to make everything ready for him by this deadline!
Our Alexa ranking proves that (300 views) winol won the audience battle (on campus) with the Hampshire Chronicle and probably even the Echo (on campus only). "The Alexa rating though for the site has gone up from 1 million (over the summer) to 328,157" (Ref.1) as we know from our last statistics check up," that compares with Westminster News Online (for example) which ranked 10 million - so have at least 30 times as many readers, Westminster University has a target audience of probably 50,000 students and staff and locals. So on a level playing field your audience figures already indicate that you are at least 300 times better at journalism than MA students at the University of Westminster, for example." (ref.1)
The way we can see that our feature films work, prove the ranking we saw recently, the most popular video on winol was win with wiol, followed by my studio debate 'Your voice matters', then Your guide to university hot spots. The fifth place took the profile of James Knight, eight Navigation around Winchester and the nineth profile of the SU president: Seb Miell.
Important information that I would like to highlight for my second year Video reporters working for Features is that what was mentioned in the feedback from our tutors, I share the opinion and would like to remind our whole feature team about few important facts. You have the primary responsibility for avoiding legal difficulties when you are making the videos, taking pictures or writing the articles. Also to make you aware the editorial system is to make sure that that any problems are kept out, which is for me to make sure of. The dynamic of this is that the report should know the law, but be keen to press on right to the edge of what is allowed, notifying editors of potential difficulties and asking for advice. Then the editors decide or the balance of risk against the impact of the story. The case I am wondering to see if you can spot introduces a slight risk but does not make the package/video feature any stronger. (ref.1)
In light of all the above the best decision of the editor would be to take out the risk, because there's no pay off. Just as I always say if in doubt leave it out, and that is going to be my policy if i feel that there are the mentioned risks appearing in any of our Feature videos/articles/photography. It is hard for me to make decisions like that knowing that you have worked so hard on your videos and so on, and it is also hard for me as I am not yet experienced editor but I am sure that together we will overcome all the difficulties and learn and master the roles given. Another point that arose from our tutor's feedback worth reminding is that we all have to be very careful with GVs -" they are easy and lazy and they are rarely anything more than padding, and they bring with them a legal risk we simply don't need." (ref.1)
We all have been experiencing technical problems with editing and speed of the program, however, once again we overcome the difficulties and produced good standard of student journalism. This week i could assist my team fully, I kept everything under control and made sure all the processes run smoothly and efficiently. From our plans for this week, on the morning conference I presented the list of new plans for my team for the week:
After the conference and assisting my team I stayed after hours I finished of editing the winol awards films and did the last touches.
From our plans for this week Jake wrote an article on fashion of the season for males, which is in preparation for his next week's studio based fashion feature. I sent the article and pictures for sub editing.
He also presented for this week's Win with winol. (uploaded onto winol website)Visually, the competition film looked a lot better, I really liked the green screen background, it is definitely a lot more attractive now than the last week's one. The content was as good, witty and attention grabbing.As we could notice from the ranking on the winol website the both videos the the most popular on the winol website and gains the most hits of all other videos which is exactly what we are looking for!
Thom, hosted and produced this week's debate, wrote a script for Win with winol and wrote an article for the detailed analysis of the fees report - he is still finishing it off, will send it further on this week. The debate looked a lot better this week, I made sure that cameras had right angles and single shot on the guests was well framed and tight enough. The lighting was a lot better and the background more interesting. If it is for presenting, Thom still looked quite nervous and was rushing to read the script, we should work on Thom's presentation, looks and script reading. Thom also wrote an article on bad and good moments of athletic stars (sports feature) analysing in detail careers of few athletic stars. After I gave him go ahead he uploaded the article an pictures onto joomla for sub editing,
I would also like my other reporters to try presenting and Thom to keep on writing the script as he does it very well.
Justina and Hannah completed their project from last week on surviving on a student budget, the video is completed and uploaded onto youtube - not yet on the website. Unfortunately, girls didn't use radio mic in most of the cases and the audio levels came out quite bad, we managed to make it louder by putting a layer on the layer of audio pieces but it still kept unclear and echo-y effect. as it is all process of learning for us and the whole idea was ambitious and required daily filming and experimenting as well as the idea was quite original I decided to give it a go ahead for this week and upload it to you tube to be then uploaded to winol website. I'm sure that girls will know that good quality of sound is as important as pictures and them two combined along with good content will make a good feature. further more, I decided to send their article back to them to still work on it as I felt that it could have been written better. I'm awaiting for their final version of the article.
Stu was meant to finish of his video on investigative feature on two sisters and their dead father, he completed the article- which i sent for sub editing (along with the pictures) but has not finished off his video. His idea was ambitious and interesting, touching important matters and requiring in depth investigation.
On Tuesday our feature team as well as the production went through quite an intense production process. First in the morning Katie and Claire recorded their first best video on autumn trends:
Studio debate on situation on tuition fees, scripted and hosted by Thomas Hobbs: Students reaction on Browne Review
And another fantastic competition WIN WITH WINOL!
Which sustains to be our absolute bomb for attracting hits!
The green screen worked and visually it's looking a lot more professional. Thom did another good job on script writing for it and Paul once again edited the video.
I assisted with all three productions, helping in filming or photographing. I also decided to do a photo slide show for behind the scene for the fashion feature making which will be ready for next week.
Another video and article produced for this week was in Gonzo style, How to survive a week on a student budget - food - £20 a week
By Hanna and Justina
Despite major audio issues girls did not give up, they spent hours on editing and correcting it. There were few pieces of the video that after consultation with me girls cut out of the film, I followed the rule "if in doubt leave it out" once again. I wanted to be sure that we were not promoting any brands in the film or making a free advertisement for some. as I asked after Thursday's law lecture, we can sometimes leave parts that mention brands as long as they are without malice or defamatory, and therefore because girls did not say anything bad but only mentioned the brand saying that they personally like it (it was about organic bread) it was allowed to leave it in. However, there film did not suffer any from leaving that bit out and I think that I made a right decision at that point as i didn't have anyone around that could have given me that advice at the stage. With Justina's PTC that had a certain brand in the background, legally we could have left it the way it was provided that what she was saying in her PTC had nothing related to the brand. So it is actually allowed to do so provided that it is not destructive for the PTC, after all I think it was and it was good that we got rid of it at the background.
From the plans for the new features, Jake is going to do a studio based fashion feature on this season's trends for men; katie and Claire are going to London on 13th November, Saturday for a wine tasting event. It will be a Gonzo style video on them learning how to taste wine. Jake is likely to go with them as an additional camera person.
Claire and Katie are also going to do a program in style of 'come dine with me' - come dine with students.
Another idea was to make a make up makeover with a celebrity, Katie and Claire have a a contact with a celebrity make up artist that they will try to contact and arrange it (this is still quite unsure).
Justina and Hanna have not given me their plans as of yet.
Stu is finishing his video on two sisters.
The debate will be on religious views (opposite views of the matter) and we are planning to invite the alien believing guy from Winchester. Thom will write the script and I would like to ask one of our reporters to be a presenter. After the debate we will be recording our win with winol again, presented by Jake, scripted by Thom and edited by Paul.
Another idea was to organise a Contest and host it, 'Quinn and kind of dramma' xfactor type of program hosted by winol. details have not yet been discussed and the project would be quite big to realise but we will keep it in mind as part of new ideas for feature section.
1. Post on http://www.winchesterjournalism.co.uk/, Friday 8th October 2010
