TV News | Project Evaluation

What worked?

I feel we worked together as a group very well, and we all felt comfortable to discuss what was working and not working within the project.  This helped on the shoot days, as we were having a good time in each other's company as well as shooting what we needed to.

I think that we achieved the tone we were aiming for, whilst maintaining the informativeness required for a news piece.  There is not a moment in the piece that something isn't happening, so I feel the branding and tone came together effectively.

The first shoot day (interviewing John) went very well, which I think is a result of keeping in touch and keeping good rapport with him as a contributor.

The edit stage also went very quickly, and a fast turnaround is important for this sort of project.

Whilst I took charge of this project, as I did with the documentary unit last year, I do not think I became too much of a control freak as I did before.  Each member of the team participated what we agreed on and more, and I am very happy with how we balanced the workload.

What didn't work?

We took a while to work out what our stories were and how to fit them in with the tone of the channel.  In an actual news studio, this would not be practical due to the fast turnaround, so we could have fleshed out our story earlier on in the process.

I had some technical difficulties on the first shoot day and struggled to see the colour, brightness and exposure settings.  This was partly due to the light conditions on the day and my colour blindness.

The second shoot day (hangover cures) took a lot longer than we intended it to, which I feel is largely due to time management.  We could have planned out the day better than we did.

In the final edit, I also feel that the lemon joke fell flat in the studio part (where I am drinking the glass of water with the lemon slice), and we did not shoot a version without it, so we could not get rid of it when we realised it did not carry through.

Helen suggested quite late in the edit that it would have been nice to see a 'bunker' of some description as an establishing shot - we did not think of doing this initially, so we did not have time to add this.

What did I learn?

I learned a lot of technical skills during this project, particularly in the editing software, including motion tracking, animation, and titles.

I feel I also became a more confident camera operator, especially when it comes to holding shots and filming handheld.

Working to a faster turnaround was also something I had to adapt for, and I feel my group and I rose to the challenge well

What could I develop?

Time management is probably the most prevalent thing to develop in my opinion, so we do not waste time on shoots in future.

I would like to build confidence in communicating with contributors, as Katie and Jason did the bulk of it for this project.  This will involve overcoming a lot of anxiety I have, but will help me a lot in the long run.

I would also like to expand my skillset on Adobe After Effects, perhaps learning more about motion tracking and 3D in my spare time.

I think it would also be useful to spend a bit of time getting better acquainted with Premiere, so that I can troubleshoot any issues myself in future.