Critical Review – Sam Sheard
WINOL OVERVIEW
This semester can be considered a successful one for WINOL
after a number of challenging projects were completed, alongside our weekly
news and sports bulletins.
The aspect of WINOL which has seen the most progress over
the course of this semester is undoubtedly the website, which has seen a
complete overhaul in the space of the past twelve weeks. We have changed
platforms from Joomla to Wordpress, which, despite somewhat restricting the
website’s functionality, has created a more structured site. The front page has
been made to resemble a modern broadsheet, reminiscent to some extent of the ‘i’
newspaper, with a strong focus on high quality pictures and our most recent
stories. The latest bulletin no longer features permanently on the front page,
it now only appears on the front page on the day of broadcast. A team has been
assembled to continually update the website with news stories throughout the
week, so that the website is as up to date as possible. This change in design
and approach to our website has improved it dramatically, creating a more
professional site and ensuring that the content of the site is always relevant,
to increase circulation throughout the whole week. We have also experimented
with hosting a twitter feed on the front page, to integrate the site with
social media, keeping WINOL as modern as possible.
The Features department has also seen great improvements,
with many high quality pieces being submitted throughout the term. This has
contributed to a rise in the average visit time on the site, which is now
roughly six minutes per user. As a wise man once said, they come for the news
and they stay for the features. The quality of work by the features team this
semester has ensured that our site has many interesting pieces to grab the
attention of the reader, and keep them on the site.
Another of the great successes of this semester has been the
special events and programs produced and coordinated by the team. This year’s
BJTC awards were hosted at the university, and were filmed and photographed by
the WINOL team. The footage featured in that week’s bulletin, as well as a
highlights package on the website and a written article. The event was a huge
success and the coverage was of a very high quality, giving the team a strong
piece very early on in the semester. We also produced a multi camera live stream
of the Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner debate, which was hosted at the
University, and organised, filmed and edited by members of the WINOL team. This
event demonstrated the ambitions and capabilities of the team, and gave us
another high profile piece with which to attract people to the site. Arguably
the most ambitious special production of the year was America Decides, our US
election program which aired live on the site. This piece brought together pre
prepared packages assessing the two candidates, footage from the US embassy
Election Night Party, live in studio discussion with a variety of guests, and a
live transatlantic Skype conversation with University students in Illinois. The
program was incredibly challenging, and we came across a number of problems
throughout the preceding weeks, but these problems were overcome and we were
able to produce a live, three hour program with a variety of good quality
content.
Such ambitious projects undoubtedly benefited the team and
the site, creating a high pressure environment in which to work and teaching us
a lot about how to produce such programs. The content also was of great public
interest, and was always audience focused. This, along with the high quality
weekly bulletins and an impressive website, helped to improve our Alexa ranking
greatly.
Our ranking is now significantly better than any other
student journalism, with us well within the top 500,000 worldwide and narrowly
outside the top 10,000 in the UK, beating our nearest student competitor,
eastlondonlines, by 15,000 places in the UK at the time of writing. We have also significantly outperformed the
website of the Hampshire Chronicle in Alexa rankings. The Daily Echo, however, remains
far ahead of us, both in the UK and worldwide. Our Alexa position, comparative to
our direct competition, underscores the success that WINOL has seen this
semester.
My personal role on WINOL this semester was as a sports
reporter, specifically covering the home matches of Winchester City FC.
My first package was on the game between Winchester and Yate
Town. The footage of the match was average; there were no glaring errors, but a
lot of room for improvement. At times I zoomed in too close to the players and
so found myself losing the ball in shots, as the play moved quickly. I also
framed my post match interview with the manager poorly, centring him in the
frame and speaking to him from too close to the camera, so at times he was
speaking directly into the lens. Henry showed me how I could edit the footage
of the interview on Final Cut to improve the positioning, but also taught me
how to correctly frame and conduct interviews to get the best possible footage.
My next package was a profile of the University Rugby team,
in which I filmed shots of the players training, held an interview with the
captain and did two pieces to camera. As I was filming alone I had trouble
filming the PTC’s as I could not be sure where I was positioned in shot,
whether the gun mic I was using was visible, and whether the sound was being
picked up. As a result I learnt that PTC’s are far more successful when there
is someone behind the camera, to ensure everything is working correctly.
Fortunately, I managed takes that I could use for the package, where I was
framed correctly and the sound quality was good. I also failed to conduct the
interview at the same time as I filmed the training footage, and so had to
conduct the interview at the next training session. This made the package feel
inconsistent as the footage of the training session was at night, while the
interview was conducted in broad daylight. I had trouble with the brightness of
the interview, and was shown how to edit colour and brightness on Final Cut,
which improved the footage greatly, however it was still of a lower quality
than I had hoped it would be. The sound quality on the interview also suffered,
as the sound of wind was picked up by the microphone. I was advised to attempt
to conduct future interviews somewhere more sheltered if the sound was being
affected by wind. I
My next involvement was to film second camera for an AFC
Totton match, where I was asked to zoom in on players and stay tight. This was
challenging, but from the previous Winchester match I had attended I had learnt
how to keep tight to players while not losing track of the ball. The footage I
got was much improved from the Winchester game. I also framed Liam’s PTC’s for
his package, which were also much improved on my previous efforts, obeying the
rule of thirds.
I filmed two further Winchester matches during the semester.
The camerawork was much improved, however in both I had some issues.
In Winchester’s match against Mangotsfield United I had
accidentally left the camera on automatic settings, which caused the camera to
fail to focus in time for one of the goals as I zoomed on the player. This was
very disappointing, as other than focus I felt the shot was good and it also
meant I had to leave out a goal from my package, which I felt made it
incomplete. My footage of Winchester vs Didcot Town was very dark as it was an
evening kick off, and the floodlights at Winchester’s ground are not strong
enough. I managed to brighten the footage in final cut, however this negatively
affected the quality, and it was not as sharp as I would have liked.
With each package of football highlights I struggled with my
voiceovers. The quality of the track was consistently good, but I found myself
describing the action too much, the words simply showing exactly what the
footage did. Angus advised me that I need to be less descriptive, and could
afford to speak less, with the commentary being sparser to allow the pictures
to tell the story. For each game I submitted a written match report, which
overall I was pleased with, however I lacked still photos to compliment the
words.
As well as sport, I got involved in a variety of other areas
and projects. On multiple occasions I helped in the gallery filming the
bulletin on Wednesdays, predominantly working on the sound desk, but also
behind the camera and on the autocue. I initially struggled with keeping the
autocue moving at the right speed; however with Graham’s assistance I quickly
mastered this. I felt comfortable behind the camera and on the sound desk, and
was pleased with the job I did in those roles.
I was also involved in the US election program that we
produced, both scripting a package and filming at the US Embassy Election
Party. The lessons I had learnt from my sports coverage meant that my framing
of interviews and pieces to camera was much improved, with the subject well
focussed and framed, and the sound quality was strong in a difficult room. I
was disappointed not to have managed to get a better shot of Russell Watson
singing The Star Spangled Banner however, as I failed to get a spot on the
raised podium in the room, and so the quality of the footage is weak. The
package I scripted for the program eventually got divided into four separate
packages, and as such my script was edited by others. I felt that my original
script was fairly strong, however I was told that it was slightly too
complicated, and that it would be better if I simplified the wording. This
helped me with future script writing, as I developed a different style when
writing for video, as opposed to purely written work.
Aside from this I also presented the Sportsweek show on
Sound Radio, helped film a feature with Ben Hatton, and worked on production
for the WINOL super bulletin.
