Holy Mackrell!

Monday, 3 March 2014

About www.TubeChum.com

Monday, March 03, 2014 Daniel Mackrell No comments

I am the co-founder and co-editor for www.tubechum.com.

TubeChum.com was launched in August 2013 as a platform to provide news and features, covering stories exclusively on the worlds most popular video-sharing network - YouTube.

What started as a small project has grown into a larger website with a loyal selection of readers. We have a number of guest writers and contributors who have helped to further establish the website as a reputable source for YouTube news.

We host a growing number of news pieces, user competitions, feature interviews, comment pieces and video tutorials. A regular podcast is also being developed.

As co-editor I help maintain the website, from its overall design to the content that is uploaded. I manage the small team of guest writers and contributors and sub-edit their writing. I also help run the website competitions and write regular articles that go up on the site each week.

The editorial team has regular meetings to discuss future plans for the website, as well as assessing the statistical data of the site and ways to improve traffic and audience interaction. Despite the website being at its early stages, it has already seen a consistent level of traffic each day.

My Guardian Videos

Monday, December 09, 2013 Daniel Mackrell No comments

While I was with the Guardian Multimedia team, I helped with a number of videos for the website. And here they are.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/video/2013/nov/28/playstation-4-review-xbox-one-comparison-video
I helped the team to produce this video.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/video/2013/dec/03/gran-turismo-6-launch-ronda-spain-video
I edited together this agency news video

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/dec/04/thailan-protesters-urge-police-curb-violence-video
Another agency video that I edited together.

Sport
Here are sport videos that I edited together for the Guardian.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2013/nov/29/michael-laudrup-swansea-city-manchester-city-video

http://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2013/nov/29/norwich-city-crystal-palace-chris-hughton-premier-league-video

http://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2013/nov/29/tony-pulis-crystal-palace-premier-league-video

StantonPace Articles

Thursday, August 01, 2013 Daniel Mackrell No comments

I am currently on a six-week internship with StantonPace, producing content for Caravan Times and Motorbike Times.

You can keep up with all of my stories and features here.

Week One

http://www.motorbiketimes.com/news/sport/motogp/marc-marquez-extends-motogp-lead-with-victory-at-laguna-seca-$21382499.htm

http://www.caravantimes.co.uk/news/towcars/mini-cowley-caravan-shows-that-good-things-come-in-small-packages-$21382945.htm

http://www.motorbiketimes.com/news/makes/yamaha/yamaha-reveals-new-lightweight-d-elight-commuter-scooter-$21382505.htm

http://www.motorbiketimes.com/news/sport/world-superbikes/bmw-motorrad-pulls-out-of-world-superbikes-for-2014-$21382515.htm

http://www.motorbiketimes.com/news/sport/motogp/rossi-believes-marquez-can-become-the-greatest-rider-in-motogp-$21382516.htm

http://www.caravantimes.co.uk/news/gadgets/caravanners-warned-about-holiday-tv-licence-laws-$21382959.htm

http://www.motorbiketimes.com/news/sport/motogp/crutchlow-calm-about-2014-motogp-with-five-contract-offers-to-consider-$21382519.htm

http://www.caravantimes.co.uk/sites/parks/south-west/stowford-farm-meadows-$21382966.htm

Week Two

http://www.caravantimes.co.uk/news/towcars/mazda/extreme-towcar-testing-on-top-gear-caravan-special-$21382976.htm

Daniel Mackrell - Published Work

Thursday, July 04, 2013 Daniel Mackrell No comments

Your Local Guardian

http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/sport/10501391.Robson_takes_time_out_to_send_a_message_to_schoolchildren/

http://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/sport/football/hamptonandrichmond/hamptonandrichmondnews/10499297.Brewer_finds_the_love_for_the_Beveree_once_again/?ref=rss

PCProhttp://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/376705/windows-7-tops-xp-for-first-time

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/376804/twitter-angers-developers-with-more-changes

Computer Active

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/ca/news/2200013/german-privacy-chief-reopens-facebook-facetagging-probe

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/ca/news/2200432/people-prefer-to-buy-new-pcs-rather-than-upgrade-says-crucial

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/ca/news/2201963/confusedcom-releases-free-app-that-could-improve-driving-skills

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/ca/news/2202224/faa-considers-dropping-ban-on-use-of-phones-laptops-and-ebooks-on-planes
MSN
http://tech.uk.msn.com/mobiles/zte-enters-the-top-5-smartphone-manufacturers
http://tech.uk.msn.com/apps/sophos-launch-new-anti-virus-app-for-android
http://tech.uk.msn.com/features/technology-of-london-2012

Winchester News Online
http://www.winol.co.uk/winoladventure/2013/05/andy-green-breaking-the-sound-barrier/

Wimbledon and Wandsworth Guardian - Work Experience

Monday, June 24, 2013 Daniel Mackrell No comments

The experience was a great learning experience in the world of journalism. My main experience of local reporting is through my reporting at university and a day I spent documenting the Basingstoke Gazette.

So this was my first time getting hands on with a real local newspaper.

Firstly I was surprised at the size of the team. Although the office was quite big, both the Wimbledon and Wandsworth Guardians had two reporters each alongside an assistant editor and editor for them both.

For my first two days the reporters were working towards their printed paper which is produced on Wednesday. I was given a couple of press releases to turn on my first day to turn into news stories.

On my second day I was given a few nibs to write, and also a story to follow up. It involved writing a 300/400 word piece, including calling the people involved, for more information, and also organizing a photo shoot with them. The story was then

It was interesting seeing the process of producing a local paper, particularly with stories constantly changing and new stories turning up.

On Wednesday morning I went to court in Kingston with one of the Wimbledon guardian reporters. Court can be quite hit and miss, and unfortunately we didn’t get any sentences. I then did some work on a leisure piece about activities for young children during the start of July.

On Thursday I worked for the sport team. This included conducting a phone interview with a non-league football player that had signed for his local club.

I worked on some more news and sport stories, including one about Laura Robson promoting sports and activities with local school children.

http://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/sport/football/hamptonandrichmond/hamptonandrichmondnews/10499297.Brewer_finds_the_love_for_the_Beveree_once_again/?ref=rss

http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/sport/10501391.Robson_takes_time_out_to_send_a_message_to_schoolchildren/

Will Vine revolutionise Video Marketing? [Guest Post - Silverbean]

Wednesday, June 19, 2013 Daniel Mackrell 1 comment

This article was written on behalf of Silverbean.

Since January of this year, there’s a new app available on Android that’s been taking the market by storm. The Twitter Vine video sharing app works in a similar way to the popular social network but in a different medium. Whereas Twitter limits you to 140 characters of text, Vine instead gives you the ability to create a video of up to six seconds in length and share them with other Vine users, as well as users of both Twitter and Facebook. Users can then share videos, look up trending content and find friends.

The rise of video content on the internet has caused a shift in internet marketing, with advertisers branching out into creating videos catered to an internet audience. However, research has revealed that people’s patience with internet videos are on the wane, and customers no longer have the patience to even read a video’s title before clicking away. What does this mean from a marketing perspective? Is Vine the next step in revolutionising video marketing, or even the thing we needed to keep video marketing alive?

At the moment, it’s difficult to say what impact Vine will have, if any. For one thing, there’s a similar app to Vine that’s been available on the internet for longer but has gotten less people talking despite working in much the same way. Tout describes itself as ‘a real-time information network’ where users can post and share videos of up to 15 seconds on whatever subject they like; you can even engage in conversation with other users. Generally it’s made less of an impact on the public consciousness here in the UK than it has in America, where it was founded, because it seems like not many people have actually heard of Tout, and the ones that have seem a little perplexed by it. They wrinkle their brows ask and ask, not unreasonably, ‘what’s the point?’ Other view it as simply being a fad that will die out as quickly as it started.

The question is whether this indifference will have the same effect on Vine. The fact that videos can only be six seconds or less means that marketers have little to work with, which is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a curse for obvious reasons; marketers are left to figure out how to make six seconds of content memorable content, but the blessing comes from the fact that the content itself will be entirely relevant when produced. Social networking is a simple and effective way to get your video circulating too. The short nature of the videos should prevent someone with the shortest attention span from getting distracted, but if more and more people are actively avoiding marketing videos, does that really mean anything? It’s becoming increasingly clear that the medium of video is incredibly limited and this is where the problem arises. Instead of catering to the impatience of consumers, marketers should instead be looking for ways to reinvent and revolutionise the content that they’re producing. The success of vine is currently in a suspended state; only time will tell if it’s set to become as core to our internet experience as Facebook or Twitter.

Showreel

Monday, June 03, 2013 Daniel Mackrell No comments

Andy Green - Breaking the Sound Barrier

Friday, May 24, 2013 Daniel Mackrell No comments

You can view the article on the Winol magazine Adventure and Travel here - http://www.winol.co.uk/winoladventure/2013/05/andy-green-breaking-the-sound-barrier/

: Andy Green beside the Bloodhound SSC
Picture Credit - Stefan Marjoram
Images provided by Curventa and Siemens'

Written by Daniel Mackrell

At the 2012 Olympics, the world watched on as some of the fastest men on the planet competed in London.

Andy Green's taste for speed however, is on another level, becoming the first man to break the sound barrier, and currently holds the World land Speed Record. The RAF fighter pilot will be looking to break this record again in the near future with the Bloodhound SSC, which will be targeting more than 1,000 mph - faster than a bullet.

Andy was born on the 30^th July 1962, and met his wife Emma in 2007. He studied at St Olave’s Grammar school, before gaining an RAF scholarship to Worcester College in oxford. After graduating with first class honours in mathematics in 1983, Andy then qualified as a fighter pilot, spending time on the F-4 Phantom and Tornado F3. These gave him a taste for speed, with the F-4 Phantom reaching up to Mach 1.97, and the Tornado F3 has maximum speed of 1,480 km/h.

: Picture Credit - Stefan Marjoram
Images provided by Curventa and Siemens'

He spent time in Bosnia, Iraq and the Falklands, before spending a year in Australia.

Andy’s big opportunity came when the holder of the World Land Speed Record at the time – Richard Noble, announced that he wouldn’t be driving the Thrust SSC (Super Sonic Car). Andy saw an article about the announcement in the Sunday Times, and applied for the position.

After a number of exhausting tests in hot conditions at a rally school, Andy Green was announced as the driver at a ceremony at Brooklands Museum. His reflexes and driving skills were tested to the limit before he was finally chosen as the man that would drive the first supersonic car that would break the World Land Speed Record.

Andy broke the sound barrier with the ThrustSSC on 15^th October 1997, setting the new World Land Speed Record of 763mph. It became the first car to officially break the sound barrier. During an interview with AskMen, Andy said that the whole team were worried that something would go wrong and cause them not to break the record. He told AskMen 'We were all nervous about making mistakes'.

Andy Green still works full time with the RAF, and is currently working for the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall.

He has a taste for speed and adventure, spending some of his time as a skydiver, a yachtmaster, an aerobatic pilot and as Captain of the Royal Air Force Cresta team.

Andy said he admires Neil Armstrong for his skill and performance, as well as Richard Noble, the man who held the World land Speed Record before him, and who is currently leading the Bloodhound SSC project that will look to break the record again.

He has been around the country, promoting the Bloodhound SSC, which aims to create an interest in science and technology for young people.

Andy has gained many honours and awards. In 1997, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year’s Honours List. He was given the British Racing Drivers’ Club John Cobb Trophy in 2006. An Honorary degree was awarded to him in July 2007 by Staffordshire University.

Andy isn't spending as much time in the air now as he would like, but he is continuing to work towards breaking his own record with the Bloodhound SSC in South Africa's Northern Cape. The target is to go faster than 1,000 mph, which would be faster than a speeding bullet.

Basingstoke Gazette - A Day in the Life of News

Monday, May 06, 2013 Daniel Mackrell No comments

Eric Birbeck - Confessional Interview

Monday, May 06, 2013 Daniel Mackrell No comments

Barry Collins - PCPro Editor Interview

Monday, May 06, 2013 Daniel Mackrell No comments

My Journalism Work

Thursday, February 28, 2013 Daniel Mackrell No comments

All of my videos and written content for Winchester News Online can be seen via this page - http://danielmackrell.blogspot.co.uk/p/videos.html

The rest of my published written work can be found on these links-

Computer Active
http://www.computeractive.co.uk/ca/news/2200013/german-privacy-chief-reopens-facebook-facetagging-probe

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/ca/news/2200432/people-prefer-to-buy-new-pcs-rather-than-upgrade-says-crucial

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/ca/news/2201963/confusedcom-releases-free-app-that-could-improve-driving-skills

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/ca/news/2202224/faa-considers-dropping-ban-on-use-of-phones-laptops-and-ebooks-on-planes

PCPro
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/376705/windows-7-tops-xp-for-first-time

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/376804/twitter-angers-developers-with-more-changes

MSN
http://tech.uk.msn.com/mobiles/zte-enters-the-top-5-smartphone-manufacturers

http://tech.uk.msn.com/apps/sophos-launch-new-anti-virus-app-for-android

http://tech.uk.msn.com/features/technology-of-london-2012

Privacy injunction for Kate Winslet family

Thursday, January 17, 2013 Daniel Mackrell No comments

Today, the Guardian wrote this piece about a privacy injunction made by Kate Winslet and her husband, after The Sun were planning to publish pictures of Edward RocknRoll (her husband) partly naked, but Mr Justice Briggs made the injunction.

The reasoning for preventing them being published was to protect the couple's children from being teased at school.

The Sun had informed them of the intention to publish the photo's(but didn't reveal the source).

he full judgement can be seen here. In it he refers to Articles 8 and 10.

Looking at Article 8, the images showed him at a private party with friends and family, and the partial nudity shows a manner in which he would unlikely act in public, and would therefore have an expectation of privacy. The Judge also claimed there was no sign that the photographs were taken with consent, including Edward saying that he didn't know the photographs were going to be posted on Facebook(which is where they were found).

One way to step around Article 8, can be for certain public figures, as we have seen in the past with people such as Princess Caroline, but the judge explains why that doesn't a play a role in this particular case -

'Taking those points separately, the claimant's employment with Virgin Galactic comes nowhere to placing him in that narrow category of persons who, although engaged in no public office, may be regarded as having reduced expectations of privacy due to their important role in national affairs. They may include the chairmen of major public companies, and the captains of national sporting teams, but the claimant was, so far as the evidence goes at this stage, no more than a not very conspicuous middle manager in his uncle's private business empire. In any event, that role ceased some two years ago.'

Overall, the decision was that Edward's privacy was of higher standing than freedom of expression for The Sun.

Covering Elections

Thursday, January 03, 2013 Daniel Mackrell No comments

Covering elections is an example of journalists carrying out a public duty, or public service. Reporting elections help inform people about information on the parties running, their manifestos and other information.

During an election, while these are important for a journalist at any time, it is particularly important to have fairness, impartiality and accuracy, particularly for broadcasts.
Broadcasters have special rules regarding elections and political bias, whilst newspapers can be less balanced.

'Keep an eye on the clock' - this refers to the amount of time each political party gets on screen. For broadcasters, it is important to give each of the major parties equal coverage. You must talk to the major party candidates, and possibly minor party candidates if they could influence the result.
It can also be a good idea to use small parties, particularly when they are visually interesting and add colour to your piece.

The sort of things that can be covered during election time includes -
Constituency profiles, Candidate Interviews/Profiles and Local Constituency issues.
When covering local issues, speaking to one candidate about them is not good, you have to either speak to all of the key candidates or you can't run the story.

Their is a duty to the voters and candidates to be fair/impartial. Politicians can come after you if they feel your report was unfair or unbalanced. Their is both scrutiny and power for journalists at election time. Citizens can base their choices on your reporting, which can make accuracy and impartiality even more vital.

Relevant laws to focus on for election reporting are the Representation of the People Act 1983, which has been amended regarding exit polls.

Their are a particular areas of the law that journalists need to be careful of when reporting elections.
- False statements about candidates
- Maintaining impartiality - broadcast only
- Reporting opinion polls or exit polls
- Keep an accurate log of part coverage - keeping a tally of how often/long the candidates are featured.

It is a criminal offence to publish opinion polls and exit polls before the polls have actually finished. Their should be no exit poll speculation either. Eg - Vox Pops of voters saying why/how they vote can't be shown until after polls have closed.

WINOL Critical Reflection [Year 3]

Wednesday, December 19, 2012 Daniel Mackrell No comments

Critical Reflection

As News Editor this semester, I had a huge amount of responsibility to produce consistently good bulletins week after week.
My first week was very difficult as the majority of the focus was on covering the BJTC awards, which meant I was fully in charge of the first bulletin. Meaning I chaired the news meeting alone, with some help from the Year 3 reporters. After the first meeting, I decided the stories weren’t really good enough, so I gave them feedback on the ideas, and arranged another meeting 3 days later on the Thursday.

I printed off the upcoming meetings from Winchester City Council, Southampton City Council and Hampshire County Council, and pinned them onto the news board for the reporters to get easy access to the information. This meant they always had a place to start when thinking of stories in the first few weeks. This seemed to help a bit, as my 2 political reporters Tom and Faith went to a council meeting early in the semester.
In the first few weeks, we had a large number of reporters delivering content that was broadcast-worthy. There were too many to fit all of them into the bulletin. So I decided to create a playout for the end of the bulletin where we would display all of the unused packages in 5 second bites to promote our extra content and direct people to the website where the packages would be featured. I feel like it was great way to utilise our overflow of content.

We planned to provide coverage of student protests that were happening in London. It would have been a great story to have, as it had protestors from Winchester. As the campus news service, we could utilise as the source for student updates. We had a live blog, but had no footage or images for the bulletin, which was a disaster. The two reporters I sent to London got their footage, but didn't give themselves enough time to upload any of it. Despite instructions to send us images throughout the day, they failed to do so, which left us with nothing to use, so we couldn't even make an oov out of it. The problem was partly that we didn't do enough planning on the Tuesday, and should have done a practice of uploading the footage on the Tuesday too, but that didn't happen. The reporters should have done this, but I feel that I should have been more instructive on the Tuesday to get it all planned out. Unfortunately I had to spike the story for the bulletin, however I found it to be a good lesson of how important planning is, particularly for a live story like this that we know is going to happen.

I had noticed that the bulletins were looking very overbearing, and had nothing to break it up. It was package after package. On the 4th WINOL of the semester, I decided to add a 'coming up' to the bulletin. It is something which I believe had never been done on WINOL before, and I consider it to be a good innovation as it has done a great job of breaking up the bulletin and promoting our upcoming stories. The top of the bulletin tends to be very heavy; the 'coming up' reminds the audience that there is lighter stuff still to come. I noticed pretty much every news programme, such as BBC South Today and Channel 5 has one, so it is now standard practice to have it in a bulletin. I also managed to get some of the reporters to record coming-up PTC’s at the scene of their stories, which gave it an even greater effect,

OOV's played a big role in the bulletins this semester. During the week that I introduced the 'coming up', it was decided to try and create an oov belt to follow straight afterwards, which would include graphics and a bed, providing the 'news in your area'. However, this isn't exactly what happened. We struggled to find a good bed, and settled for no bed at all, and used no graphics because it didn't really work leading into the stories. Instead we just had the 2 or 3 oovs connected together.
On other weeks, we had oovs that could stand alone as bigger news stories, such as the US Storm story, and the Jamie Dack court case, and the Barton Farm update that the campaigners and given up. These were moved further up the bulletin away from the belt, and were another way to break up the bulletin, giving it some light and shade and multiple layers.

I wanted to get some fresh stories from the Wednesday into the bulletin each week. To do this I put a reporter (sometimes 2 or 3) on the wires, checking to see if anything breaking came through on the day. This often led to update pieces such as Barton Farm, and the sex hotel story. This was great as it helped give us the live feeling, making it fresh and also showing ourselves constantly tracking the stories we cover. Which we have done a lot this semester with multiple packages on stories such as the Ford closure and the on-going wind farm debate.

We put new tape on the news board early this semester, green for these stories going into the bulletin, yellow for the finished packages that we can still use, and red for the spiked stories. On some weeks, the yellow was empty, which I didn't want, to combat this I sometimes took unused stories from sport (such as the Pompey news piece and the wrestling package) to bulk up the yellow so that we had back-ups in case something went wrong. This was another reason why I liked to try and have fresh stories from the Wednesday, to bulk up the yellow section of the board.

I got an idea from Claudia Murg when she came in one week and mentioned that reporters should be able to talk 30 seconds straight about their news story without any problem. I decided to try this at the next news conference, giving each reporter 30 seconds to explain their story and get the idea cross. However, when it came to do it on the 19th November news meeting, I could tell straight away that it wasn't working. It just made reporters stumble over their words and rush to fit everything in, which just meant they had to explain everything again anyway. The hope was to streamline the news meeting, and make sure reporters had researched their stories, but it didn't quite work.

Features were good this semester, a big improvement compared to recent years, because it had a schedule, monitored by lee Jarvis (features editor). The Paul Blackburn interview has been a huge success, with over 500 views in one week. I was asked by Tom to help film the interview, and controlled the camera facing Tom for the interview, and was pleased that it turned out well.
I was involved in the HPCC debate, which was organised by Louis O'Brien, and was a cameraman on the night, filming 3 of the candidates, which meant moving smoothly between each of them as they spoke throughout the night. It was a sold out event, and was a great way to showcase the candidates. It helped promote Winol, as a few members of the audience approached me after the debate, and asked where they could view the stream.

I wasn't too involved in the BJTC award ceremony, but I was in the audience when it happened, and thought it was a very professional production, and was a great way to promote ourselves.
I helped a bit with WINOL's new Tuesday Sound Radio takeover. For the first week I helped Nadine with some of the script work and story ideas, and also read out 2 of the news bulletins for that day.

The website was a massive improvement this semester. I feel that the switch from joomla to wordpress was the right decision, as it better fits what we are trying to do on Winol. We managed to feature a lot of content on the homepage, which was important because of our constant expansion. This has included a new fashion magazine, and a new arts part of the website. It is also easier to add new content, and meant that we could use pictures in better way.

Along with Sam (web editor) we have managed to improve the regularity and quality of WINOL's written articles, which were previously an afterthought in previous semesters. We encouraged written stories to be on the website by 5pm on Wednesday's to coincide with the bulletin. Gradually over the weeks, I eventually assigned reporters to days over the week to put content on the website. This kept it fresh and brought the site to life in a way it never really was before. This affected the type of stories that featured on the website, as we had a broader area of stories. Including many that wouldn’t make good packages. This meant we could cover more areas of news, and helped with expanding our audience.

The main issue we had with written stories were the pictures used. We mainly wanted action shots and faces. Although, this improved slightly over the semester, the best solution was to make the website less picture-dominated, and more about the text, which happened when we switched to broadsheet.

WINOL started with a fairly low Alexa ranking at the start of the semester (close to 2 Million) because of the website's lack of activity over the summer. However, the emergence of competition from other journalism courses such as East London Lines (at Goldsmiths University) was brought to our attention when they were second place for Student Website of the Year in the BJTC awards. We then began to track their site, and learn from it. Over the next few months, our Alexa rankings (both Global and UK) continued to improve week after week. By the end of the semester we had overtaken East London Lines, reaching the top 500,000 globally, and the top 10,000 in the UK.

We also have a better Alexa ranking than the Hampshire Chronicle, but are behind the Daily Echo. However, we have tracked the Daily Echo frequently over the semester, and have noticed spelling errors in headlines (including on the front page of the newspaper). We also beat the Daily Echo at reporting number of stories, including an arson court story which we reported a week before them, but it then lead their front page. Beating local rivals to stories is a good way to establish ourselves as one

We also kept an eye on other rivals such as Leeds, Westminster and Bournemouth. It was very useful, because it gave us ideas of where we could improve. Such as making our Twitter more prominent and also making sure that the site was getting regular updates to keep it fresh.

We also improved delivering the bulletin Live at 5 every week, which helped rebuild a viewership because they could start to expect the Wednesday bulletin to be up at 5 every single week.

Promotion for news stories is something that could have been improved. We made multiple attempts during news meetings to think of ways to get our best stories across to a wider audience. This included reporter setting up WINOL twitter accounts, which some did, but I don't feel they were interconnected enough to get the full benefit. We needed to contact more people influenced by the story, and maintain a good connection with the people we spoke to about the stories and send it to them.

WINOL 28/11/2012

Sunday, December 02, 2012 Daniel Mackrell No comments

Overview
An ok week, although it seemed to be one of our weaker weeks in terms of story quality. It seems that people that don't have a story by the end of Monday, give up for the week, which isn't the way to go about it.

We had a number of items in the yellow, but hardly any of them came from the news team. Apart 2 oovs from when I sent out to of the reporters to get some GVs for them after they decided on them as oov options on the Wednesday. The other stuff in the yellow was 2 sports packages, and a feature back anno(which we used).

Focus, exposure, white balancing, and microphones all seem to still be a bit chaotic, which shouldn't be happening this late in the semester. You know what you need for a story now. So you need to put a bit more focus on the quality of what you film. If it doesn't look good, then you're going to struggle to get it into the bulletin this week.

People are still not using focus properly. Lighting is terrible at times, and their have been many interviewees either over-exposed or under-exposed.

We've been having less camera zooms, and while a few people are fans of them, I don't think they look good, and I think a lot of people agree. I think it has helped improve the general quality of shots.

Feedback

George
A very solid package updating the Club Kiss story. Arguably this story could pass as just an oov act, but I think you did well to make it a solid package with interviews from both sides, and a couple of vox pops. One of my main disappointments was not having the councillor interviewed outside of Club Kiss. Also you could have pushed more to get a stronger quote from the owner.

Barton Farm OOV
This was a good OOV that was something I felt we should include once I was told that it had broke on Wednesday. Much like the Club Kiss story last week, it's always good to show ourselves reacting to breaking news. Especially for stories that we have covered in the past.

Tom
Certainly not your best week, it was visually very poor, and I could have dropped it for that alone, but I wanted a bit more political content in the bulletin. You really need to improve your shot and be more creative, especially with a beat such as politics. I think I now see the Southampton City council building when I close my eyes, because I've seen it so much.

Spence
You say olympic legacy just before Jonny Brason does, which seemed very odd to me, and I'm not sure why you decided to do that, sounds like an echo.

Faith
You had some great shots for you story, it was a difficult Wednesday though. You worked hard to try and make your story work, like you do every week, but after digging a bit deeper, it turned out that your story didn't have much substance and was a bit of a non-story, which was unfortunate, but that was just a bit unlucky.

Joiners OOV
Once again it's great we had a breaking update to a story we covered last week.

Christina
Far from your best package, literally you in vision throughout with a cut away of the court. I should have left it out of the bulletin, not really your fault you just had no pictures, which left your story stuck.

Coming Up
Once again a good 'coming up', no real complaints. It was interesting and had a good PTC one too.

Harry
I liked this package, it was great that we had a case study for this story. Something that our audience would be interested in. The statement was pretty long, and we toyed around with how to display it a couple of times, but perhaps we should have just tried to trim it a bit.
The lighting was a bit dark, but at least we were able to see the face of the interviewee. I felt like you could have got him to do a few more things, making tea, maybe a shot of you talking to him. I just felt like you could have made more out of getting a case study, it's not often that we have them.

Jack
A nice package, very similar to the Christmas lights story you did last week. It was a shame your dead camera meant you missed the opening, but I think you made the most of what you had. Considering it was night, you used the lighting to great affect, and the ice skating gave you more interest. It was people doing things.

'I was Hitler's Neighbour' back anno
This was great. It showed how diverse WINOL now is, and drives more and mroe traffic to the site.

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Covering Elections

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WINOL Critical Reflection [Year 3]

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WINOL 28/11/2012

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