TELEVISION

Immediately after being assigned our group, we held a meeting to discuss potential ideas for the two group pieces – the youth show and the documentary. We decided to base our youth show around the young people and politics – partially because we were aware that local MP Jim Knight was to talk at the university in the next few days and we could attempt to arrange an interview, but also because we could clearly demonstrate our ability to cater for our target audience (16 – 25 years old) by presenting the subject in a manner which made it accessible for young people. We conducted our interviews throughout the week, with questions based around why young people should get involved in politics and the political impact young people have made in the community. We decided to call our youth show “Agenda”, as we felt it was memorable and could easily be implemented in various cheesy puns (“let’s see what’s on the agenda today!”).

On the day of filming, I was assigned as presenter. We filmed introduction credits, which consisted of various outtakes of myself, followed by me pushing the word “Agenda” across the screen. The youth show itself flicked between shots of me filmed “live”, as I queued up each interview and linked them together, and the pre-recorded interviews. We also featured a “60-second news” (presented by Isobel) and ended by reading out the opinions of our viewers taken from our Twitter feed, which we felt was a suitable feature for our technologically in-touch target audience. Overall, I felt the youth show was successful, with my only criticisms being my slightly uncomfortable presenting style and the fact that the Twitter responses were read from a sheet of paper instead of linking a camera feed up to the computer screen to display the responses directly.

We decided to make our documentary on the Bournemouth Folk Club, which is a modest and intimate venue for folk music and singer-songwriters just outside the town centre. I volunteered to conduct all of the filming for this, and brought the camera along to a gig night to film the artists performing and interview a couple of them. I asked questions about why they enjoyed playing at the folk club and their opinions on the venue itself. An interview was also conducted with Paul Burke at his home, Paul helped found the Folk Club originally, so we asked him about his love of folk music and reasons for starting the club in the first place. Isobel and Lauren edited the footage into our 3-minute documentary, interjecting performance footage with interviews with the artists and Paul. Although the quotes from our interviewees provided a reasonably comprehensive insight into the club, I also recorded a voiceover to fill in any gaps. I’m quite satisfied with the final result – despite some poor camerawork and video quality which I am entirely to blame for.

Our final task was the 10-minute news magazine, consisting of news packages created by each group member. My story was about the dormant IMAX cinema. Councillor Ron Whittaker had recently questioned the council on what progress had been made with making use of the IMAX building, so I conducted an interview with him about why he was upset with the council and what action he hoped would be taken. I used this interview footage alongside a piece to camera and GVs of the IMAX. Sam presented the news show on the day (which also featured a news bulletin presented by Lauren) and introduced each package with a short cue. I’m happy with how my package turned out, although another interview may have been necessary in order to flesh the story out.