Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Friday, 17 February 2012
Winol Semester 2 Week 3
Week starting 13/02/2012 Debrief Notes
- My link was good, but could have used one more sentence.
- My package had a limit to the shots I could use, and it showed in my package, I was told that my quotes were good.
- For my writing of the two oovs scripts (Broadband and Jamie Oliver), both Angus and Chris said that they were well written, which I was quite pleased with.
News Story Preperation + Meeting
Today I came in with an idea for two different stories.
My first story regards the growing housing list for the city. My plan was to interview someone at the Winchester Nightshelter because of the ever increasing number of people try to find somewhere to live, with families being moved into hotels and bed and breakfasts, because of lack of space.
To balance this, I was going to interview a member of the council, preferably a member of the housing comittee. When I called the nightshelter, I was told that the woman I wanted to interview was away today, so I immediatly felt that this story was going to struggle to progress in time for Wednesday. I decided that it was safer to turn my primary focus on my other story idea.
My other story revolved around the citys carbon footprint. over recent years it has developed a bit of a reputation as one of the least eco friendly citys in the country.
I had already arranged an interview with Robert Hutchison, a councillor who has been vocal about the councils carbon footprint in a recent council meeting. I was scheduled to go to his house on tuesday afternoon at 2.
I then arranged an interview with the WACC - Winchester Action on Climate Change, for 10am on
Tuesday.
My other fresh angle to the story (and also to help gather some slightly interesting shots), I discovered that two new 'zero carbon' homes were being built on the outskirts of Winchester. I decided to contact the company behind the buildings to try and gain access to film inside one of the homes.
Sadly, the person I spoke to wasn't in the area this week, and was therefore unable to show me around. However, he said that he would speak to Hamptons, the estate agency that was selling the houses. However, I didn't get another call back on Monday.
I had an interview with the Director at 'Winchester Action on Climate Change' 10am, thier offices were in the Main Building at the University, so luckily I didn't have to travel too far. It was a good interview, and I was able to film a sequence of her typing at a computer.
I had then secured an interview with Ian Tate, a conservative councillor in winchester. And I travelled to the guildhall to have the interview at 12:30. Again this went smoothly, and this time I filmed Ian walk through a door as a shot I could use in my piece.
I then helped George for his interview with George Beckett which was also at the guildhall, at 1pm. After that we went to the home of Lib Dem Councillor Robert Hutchison, which was not too far from the train station. I interviewed him, and then we popped into Hamptons so that I could see if I was able to film inside the home in time for the wednesday bulletin.
I was told that the best they could do was 10:45 on Wednesday. I decided that it was the only way my package would work, and agreed.
Me and George then returned to the news room after he had collected a few gvs, and got I got to work on editing.
I then recieved a phonecall from Hamptons and it turned out that I was unable to get access on wednesday, as Hamptons were going to be a man short.
I spoke to Tom Morgan, the news editor, and we decided that I should try and see if I could get permission to use some of their images in my package.
I did get permission on Wednesday morning, but the conditions were a bit hazy, and myself and Tom were abit cautious about using them. And after speaking with Brian, we agreed that the piece was more reliant on actual footage of the homes. We then decided it would be best to postpone the story until next week, when I would have more time to gain access to the home.
My sights then suddenly turned to the lobby meeting I was expecting today. Brian thought this should be my new focus today, and we began to discuss me heading down to Southampton where the unions would be holding a rally outside the civic centre.
As I was beginning to prepare for that, I was then told by my news editor Tom, that he had decided that it was more valuable for me to handle the new unemployment figures that had been released today. I was lsightly hesistant, as I had a deeper knowledge of the union rally, and thought it would be more interesting visually.
But I understood Tom's desire for us to have coverage of the new unemployment figures as it would interest our audience.
I tried to speak to someone at student services about the figures, but after being moved all around the building, nobody were willing to talk. Also, we struggled to find to find local figures in time, which made the story impossible to localise.
It was then decided that I should try and pursue the union story once again, but it turned out to just be a lobby, and no officla decisions were being made on the day. And because it was now too late to travel to southampton to cover the lobby, their was little I could do. he hope was that I'd be able to record a shrot piece in the news room possibly reporting that their was going to be a strike sometime in the future, but sadly for me that wsn't the case.
As Tom Morgan was presenting this week, I was given the temporary role of news editor for the remainder of the day. This involved looking through peoples packages and communicating with Ewan (production editor) to ensure everything ran smoothly as we went towards going live.
This weeks Winol
Thursday, 9 February 2012
Existentialism - The Outsider by Albert Camus
Seminar Paper
Existentialism seems to focus on the idea that we can individually structure our own lives and values, and is the search for our ‘true self’.
In ‘The Outsider’ by Albert Camus, this idea is explored throughout the book with numerous examples. In the first few chapters, a lot of focus is put on the death of the main character, Meursaults mother. It’s immediately clear that her death doesn’t seem to have a big effect on him. The closest to sadness is him saying ‘I’d rather mother hadn’t died’ and that he ‘probably loved mother quite a lot, but that didn’t mean anything’. This distant emotion was the first example of someone not placing too much value onto one life, and showed signs of not feeling real emotion or pain. However, part of Meursaults thought process was that his feelings or reactions to her death shouldn’t affect anybody, including his mother, because she is dead. Later in the novel, he also says ‘Given that you’ve got to die, it obviously doesn’t matter exactly how or when’.
In ‘The Outsider’ by Albert Camus, this idea is explored throughout the book with numerous examples. In the first few chapters, a lot of focus is put on the death of the main character, Meursaults mother. It’s immediately clear that her death doesn’t seem to have a big effect on him. The closest to sadness is him saying ‘I’d rather mother hadn’t died’ and that he ‘probably loved mother quite a lot, but that didn’t mean anything’. This distant emotion was the first example of someone not placing too much value onto one life, and showed signs of not feeling real emotion or pain. However, part of Meursaults thought process was that his feelings or reactions to her death shouldn’t affect anybody, including his mother, because she is dead. Later in the novel, he also says ‘Given that you’ve got to die, it obviously doesn’t matter exactly how or when’.
Kirkegaard, a key figure in existentialism, felt that it was important that we all accept that death is both unpredictable and inevitable, as many people struggle to grasp the idea that they will one day die. He blames society partly, because of its denial of death, which makes it harder for people to accept it and move on when it suddenly affects them.
The way Meursault handles his mother’s death also emphasises the ‘accept everything’ viewpoint that existentialists seem to have. If someone dies, you should simply accept it and move on. This is the same when in prison, as he explains that he is able to adjust to life without too many problems. Such as not being able to smoke, he states that within a short period he was soon able to become accustomed to the change, and did the same for living in the cell with not much to do.Similarly, the killing of the Arab seemed meaningless to him. He states that he doesn’t feel any true regret for the murder. From an existential point of view, this is a fairly reasonable response. What was interesting was that before he shot the Arab, he never really had any intention to kill him. Even when the Arab withdrew a knife, it was the intense heat of the sun which made him feel uncomfortable and lead to him shooting. Meursault seems to have two sides to his personality; the physical side seems to be his bigger focus. It was the annoyance of the sun that leads him to shoot, not his emotional feelings towards the Arab.
When he discovers he has to go to court, he finds it difficult to understand, throughout part two he refers to how the situation is ‘simple’, and that he must pay for his actions of murder.
While in prison, Meursault seemed to constantly look towards the future, imagining if he had to spend a long time in prison, and how he would adjust. He says ‘I’d never really been about to regret anything. I was always preoccupied by what was about to happen, today or tomorrow’. Again, this reflects a very existentialist view of constantly looking forward, ignoring the past, moving forward. They consider the future to be the most important dimension.
At one point in ‘The Outsider’, Meursault is standing by the sea, and says ‘I denied myself the water for a bit longer’. The fact that he is ‘denying himself’ shows that he is going against what his body craves, but in a sense that makes him more in control. He speaks as if he is two separate people, the person that is structured by society, expecting to feel certain emotions and react in certain ways, and what could be considered his ‘true self’. Ironically, this is the stranger side of him, as it analyses every moment, and sees it from a clear viewpoint. It looks at choice, something that is seen as crucial by existentialists.
One of the few times we see a sign of true emotional connection, particularly towards the past is Mr Perez who is very sad about the death of Meursaults mother. It was a good way of being able to compare two different emotional reactions to the same situation
Nietzsche is an important figure to look at when studying Existentialism, specifically, Nietzsche talks about existential nihilism. This is the theory that there is no specific meaning or value to life. He was against moral ideas such as Christianity and utilitarianism (which suggests that you can only asses the morality of an action after knowing all of its consequences). He believed that morality should be left to the masses, and only more prolific people should have their own ‘inner law’.
Heidegger is another key philosopher in existentialism, for his book ‘Being and Time’. He realised philosophy had explored all beings in the world, but not actually what ‘being’ is, and also how humans develop personality over time. By being, he means knowing what it is to exist. He calls us ‘Dasein’, just like every other creature. He looks at the idea of life itself, and suggests that we may not live (or exist) long enough to truly understand being, and confesses in the book that there is no real way of knowing if Dasein is able to understand life.
Going back to looking towards the future, Heidegger had described the present as ‘dread’, he felt that we are always thinking about the past, and using our memories to see what could happen in the future. He argued that the main memory from our past is guilt.
At the end of ‘The Outsider’, the author – Albert Camus, explains his view of what the novel shows through the main character. One point that interested me was that Camus labelled him a ‘hero’. I think that this may be because he is always telling the truth, ignoring the consequences. In my opinion, many would consider him an anti-hero, only his honesty is a heroic-like characteristic. Although, Camus does admit that Meursault doesn’t claim to be a hero. Meursaults acceptance of his punishments for the actions he took is a very existential approach.
Camus describes him as ‘an outsider to society’. And I agree, as throughout the book we see him go against what would be considered normal human reactions. His focus is often more on the physical reactions of life, rather than the mental reactions. He shows know real passion towards other people, such as not crying at his mother’s funeral, and not showing real love towards Marie.
In the novel, Camus seems to suggest that there is no natural basis of morality, and is merely something we have developed. Also, through Meursaults lack of belief in God, Camus seems to suggest that we shouldn’t fear there being no higher power.
The fact that the novel is called ‘The Outsider’ or ‘The Stranger’ reflects my own feelings towards the character throughout reading it. His unusual reactions to events in his life make seem almost inhuman. That could be because society has implanted me with a default setting of what I should view as ‘normal’. A key concept that existentialists are against, seems to be the expectation that we should all follow certain rules and beliefs. This is seen as a way of destroying our individualisation, and it should be our own judgement and feelings that determine what we believe. Otherwise we are not so much human; we in a sense become no more than an object. Towards the end of the novel Meursault says that the prosecutor ‘announced that I had no place in a society whose fundamental rules I ignored’. This is another example of the point made by existentialists that we have been made to follow certain rules that have been laid out by society, and always question and fear those that don’t.
Winol Semester 2 Week 2
Week starting 06/02/2012
View my package from this week here.
Monday. Today started with a debrief of our first real bulletin of the semester. We looked at the developing design of the Winol website. This includes the new addition of Twitter, wich we are starting to focus a lot more on this semester. As a frequent user of Twitter, I'm pleased with this decision. As I see Twitter as a great tool for modern journalists to not only promote their work, but to find out news(sometimes quicker than through other forms of media).
Tuesday. Today was a very busy day for me. It started very early when I left my house just after 8am to head out to the train station to travel to Southampton for my interviews and filming.
My first interview was with the Deputy Leader of Southampton City Council - Cllr Jeremy Moulton. The interview was a 10am, I arrived about 10 minutes early, but this seemed to be fine for Jeremy, he mentioned that he thought I may have arrived slightly early.
We then commenced the interview, and I was pleased with the responses I got, their were some good quotes. my particular favourite was 'this is the peoples museum', which I ended up using in both my package, and the headline clip that was used for the broadcast.
After the interview, I was left feeling quite pleased at the good start made to my story. I had decided that it was best to try and get my other interview(for balance) sorted today. Especially after calling my news editor Tom Morgan, he told me that a lot of the stories from other reporters were falling through. So the bulletin was starting to rely a bit on my package to work out. I decided that since I was unable to get a lift from anybody, and I needed to get to the otherside of Southampton rather quickly, that I would have to catch a taxi to Thornton, so that I could get the balance that I needed.
Before that I walked behind the City Council, where they are still doing building work for the Sea City museum, and I filmed a number of GVs. I knew I would be light on footage, as I as of yet have not recieved access to go and film the building work inside the museum. So instead I filmed the building work that was happening outside. I noticed a few of the builders shovelling some dirt and gravel, and remembered when Brian asked us to try and start our package with some natural sound to give it sometime to breath before entering the voice over. So I asked them if I could just film them shovelling the dirt into the wheelbarrow. They agreed. After my filming there was done, I jumped into a taxi, and went to Thornhill. I walked into the Thornhill Community Centre, and was able to interview Cllr Simon Letts. He was very polite and helpful, and then afterwards I asked to film a sequence of him just looking at some sheets of paper. We've been told in the past, that if your lacking shots for your package, sequences are often a good solution.
I managed to catch a bus back to the city centre, and then got the train back to Winchester.
When I arrived at the newsroom at around 1pm, I then got to work on editing my package together.
Wednesday
Monday. Today started with a debrief of our first real bulletin of the semester. We looked at the developing design of the Winol website. This includes the new addition of Twitter, wich we are starting to focus a lot more on this semester. As a frequent user of Twitter, I'm pleased with this decision. As I see Twitter as a great tool for modern journalists to not only promote their work, but to find out news(sometimes quicker than through other forms of media).
Tuesday. Today was a very busy day for me. It started very early when I left my house just after 8am to head out to the train station to travel to Southampton for my interviews and filming.
My first interview was with the Deputy Leader of Southampton City Council - Cllr Jeremy Moulton. The interview was a 10am, I arrived about 10 minutes early, but this seemed to be fine for Jeremy, he mentioned that he thought I may have arrived slightly early.
We then commenced the interview, and I was pleased with the responses I got, their were some good quotes. my particular favourite was 'this is the peoples museum', which I ended up using in both my package, and the headline clip that was used for the broadcast.
After the interview, I was left feeling quite pleased at the good start made to my story. I had decided that it was best to try and get my other interview(for balance) sorted today. Especially after calling my news editor Tom Morgan, he told me that a lot of the stories from other reporters were falling through. So the bulletin was starting to rely a bit on my package to work out. I decided that since I was unable to get a lift from anybody, and I needed to get to the otherside of Southampton rather quickly, that I would have to catch a taxi to Thornton, so that I could get the balance that I needed.
Before that I walked behind the City Council, where they are still doing building work for the Sea City museum, and I filmed a number of GVs. I knew I would be light on footage, as I as of yet have not recieved access to go and film the building work inside the museum. So instead I filmed the building work that was happening outside. I noticed a few of the builders shovelling some dirt and gravel, and remembered when Brian asked us to try and start our package with some natural sound to give it sometime to breath before entering the voice over. So I asked them if I could just film them shovelling the dirt into the wheelbarrow. They agreed. After my filming there was done, I jumped into a taxi, and went to Thornhill. I walked into the Thornhill Community Centre, and was able to interview Cllr Simon Letts. He was very polite and helpful, and then afterwards I asked to film a sequence of him just looking at some sheets of paper. We've been told in the past, that if your lacking shots for your package, sequences are often a good solution.
I managed to catch a bus back to the city centre, and then got the train back to Winchester.
When I arrived at the newsroom at around 1pm, I then got to work on editing my package together.
Wednesday
This Weeks Bulletin
Mike Smartt Feedback on WINOL
Mike Smartt Feedback on WINOL
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
Sea City Museum Package
Written Piece
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| Image courtesy of Southampton City Council |
Labour councillors have criticised Southampton City Council over it's plans to give away free tickets to the new Sea City museum writes Daniel Mackrell.
The council announced a scheme last week which will see every household in the city receive tickets worth up to £25. The offer will be made to over 100,000 people.
Labour councillor Simon Letts said this week: 'It's not surprising that some people suggest that this is in fact an election stunt.'
He also suggests the best way to encourage museum attendance would be offering free tickets to schools.
But for the Tories, Southampton City Council Deputy Leader Jeremy Moulton says it will not cost very much compared to the benefits of having a lot of visitors.
Moulton said: 'when you give something away for free, people do tend to spend more money, buying books and merchandise'.
The museum will open on April 10th to commemorate the voyage of the Titanic.
Friday, 3 February 2012
Winol Semester 2 Week 1
View my package from this week here.
Monday
Today we had a small debrief which mainly involved looking at the new production changes, such as the new opening credits.
Tuesday
Today involved finishing off the editing of my piece, which meant
recording my voiceover.
Wednesday
Today started with me double checking through my package, as well as adding the strapline for the sot in my package.
I then turned my attention to writing the written version of my news story. Before that I spent some of the morning helping Graham to film some GVs nd his piece to camera for his housing story.
We had a first year, Sean Ward, come in for the day to see us all at work on what is always considered the busiest and most stressful day of Winol. I took him to the gallery just after 2pm so he could help out with the production side of the broadcast. Ewan(production editor) placed him on the autocue. I shadowed him throughout incase their were any issues, which unfortunately there was.
This Week's Winol (01/02/2012)
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
Deep Sea Vents Package
Written Piece
 |
| Newly discovered shrimp species |
The discovery was made about three miles beneath the ocean surface, on 'black smoker' vents in the deepest part of the Caribbean.
Scientists used an underwater robot called Autosub6000 to locate the deep sea vents, south of the Cayman Islands.
Dr Douglas Connelly, one of the team at the National Oceanography Centre, described the experience as 'absolutely brilliant, it does represent the culmination of a lot of hard work'.
The undersea environment is able to support life despite no sunlight reaching these depths. The shrimps do not gather energy from sunlight, but by breaking down chemicals in their surroundings.They have been named Rimicaris hybisae, and are closely related to the mid-atlantic species.
Dead tube worms, which are normally located in the pacific, were also found near the vents. Mining companies are hoping to start working in the vents, which are believed to be rich in iron and copper.
The next two research projects will be taking place in the Scottish Sea Loch to do a trial CO2 release.
Their will also be an expedition in the North Sea as part of a project called Eco2, which focuses on renewable energy in the UK and Europe.
Image: Courtesy with National Oceanography Centre and University of Southampton.
Link to written piece here.
