The Power of Facebook - Part 2

Facebook has become a phenomenon of sorts, the people that run the social network can do almost anything they want. In some ways they already have, they've completely changed privacy settings, making you vulnerable to having you're infromation viewed by almost anybody. They've changed the layout numerous times, making minute altercations that some people consider pointless and unnecessary.

Yet, all the people that complain at every turn when a change is made, they still stick through it, and eventually they adjust. They sit happily, as Facebook does exactly what it wants with hardly any long term repercussions. It has become a global brand. As big as McDonalds and Coca Cola, in fact, it may be even bigger. After all, it now boasts over 800,000 members. The number of active users on Facebook actually went up from around 1 million in 2004 to over 750 million in 2011. It's the most used social media website in the world by miles. It's Alexa ranking is number 2, only coming behind Google.

It has become a newspaper for some people, something to read when you wake up in the morning.
It employs more than 3000 people, incredible considering how basic the actual concept is, and the idea that it all began with just a handful of people. It can be how we find out dramatic news stories, and is slowly becoming the cliche answer to 'where were you when...' question. It's how I found out about Michael Jackson's death back in 2009. I'm sure it was also how people discovered Amy Winehouse had died earlier this year. There has suddenly been no need for journalists to break such big news, because it spreads across the internet within minutes.

Flickr - Davichi

Many would argue that this is all good news, and it's hard to disagree. News is spreading faster than ever, and at the same time you can engage with your friends and family miles apart as if they were sitting right next to you.
Along with this, Facebook has continued to try and take advantage of it's huge number of use, and the fact that they provide their 'friends' with such detail of their life. Facebook has improved it's system, particularly in the United States, to help those that may seem suicidal to their social network friends, through interactions such as status updates and 'FB Chat'.

Facebook houses offices all over the world, including in London which boasts one of it's biggest offices. They have job roles that range from marketing, corporate communications, monetization and developer relations. It just shwos you how broad Facebook is for something that on the surface simply connects friends online. A user can be 'flagged' by concerned friends, which then enables them to speak with a trained councillor through the facebook chat feature.

Faceook recently released what they consider the most discussed topics on the social netowkring website this year. The order was the following:-
1 - Death of Osama Bin Laden
2 - Packers win the Super Bowl
3 - Casey Anthony found not guilty
4 - Charlie Sheen
5 - Death of Steve Jobs
6 - The Royal Wedding
7 - Death of Amy Winehouse
8 - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
9 - Military operations begin in Libya
10 - Hurricane Irene

Along with this their 'Memology' showed what where the most popular(or trending) movies, songs, artists and stars on Facebook.

Harry Potter is the fastest growing movie on Facebook this year with an unbelievable 37,500,000 likes. That is far ahead of second police which is The Twilight Saga that has almost 27 Million likes.

Family Guy is one of the most liked things on Facebook with 40 Million Likes, with The Simpsons not far behind (37 Million)
House is the fastest growing tv show, and currently has close to 26 Million. Which is followed by Two and a Half Men(24 Million).

Despite not starring in any big blockbuster films this year, Megan Fox remains the fast growing celebrity page, with just under 30 Million likes.

Overall, their seems to be only a small sway of interest in comparison to 2010 as far as entertainment is concerned

To read more on the 2011 Memology, and for the full top 10 on each category click here.
To read 'The Power of Facebook - Part 1' click here.

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Existentialism

- It is a cultural movement

- Kirkegaard

- Phenomenology - a branch of philosophy, closest to psychology, and deals with the perpection of things.
Eg- the 'duck rabbit' - object of perception. You my can see both a duck and a rabbit in the picture(but you can only focus on one at a time).

The 'Duck Rabbit'

Kayka - Book called 'The Trial'.

Husserl

- Consciousness is intentional, and meaning is fixed subjectively.

Consciousness = intention - desire to see the object.
'Duck Rabbit' - humans choose between different things to see.

Huuserl had a student caled Heidegger.
Heigeger's man book was 'Being in Time'. It was about how the how the human personality develops over time.

- Structure of time - constantly looking towards the future.
- The way the future seems to someone varies on how long in the future they look.

Heidegger was a nazi, and thought highly of Adolf Hitler.
He wanted to go back to nature(much like Rousseau) and felt technology was wrong (bad faith).
He also thought western civilization was not sustainable financially, morally etc...

Described the present as 'dread'.
Heidegger also believed that we are always thinking about the past, and looking back through our memories to search for signs of what could happen in our future. And the main memory from our past is guilt.

John Paul Sartre
Was an economist (and not a nazi).
He takes from Heidegger the idea of 'dread'.

Takes 'Dassein' but calls it 'good faith'.
Sartre is brutally honest - feels it's the only way to combat nausea.
He was imprisoned by the Nazis.
- Solidarity - we're inevitabley doomed, but so is everybody else.



Existentialists are against fighting the collaboration from within.

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Winol - 07/11/2011

This is the second time I directed an edition of Winol. Overall, I was very pleased with my direction, and was again described as a very calm voice throughout.

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Winol 10.0

Week Starting 05/12/2011

Monday.
Today we had a guest lecture from Tom Hepworth. You can read my blog on the lecture here.

Tuesday. The day started in tab 9, with people preparing for interviews, Sportweek and general Winol work. I was asked by Tom Morgan to help him with his latest story about cameras (both video and sound) that have been placed in taxi's around southampton.
We had to travel to Eastleigh to interview Kevin May who has already spent around £30,000 to take the Southampton City Council to court and get the sound turned off of the cameras.

Wednesday. The day started very quiet at 9am, considering it was the last Winol of the year, but it soon picked up, and was buzzing with people by mid-day.
My main job today was director, a role which I have instantly loved since i first did it a few weeks ago.

This week's Bulletin

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November 30th 2011 - Highlights

November 30th was a great day for WINOL, with a LIVE 4 hour broadcast from the Unite offices in Southampton.

I spent the day controlling the various cameras that were in use in the studio. Here is a video containing some of the many highlights from the day.

You can read my notes from the week leading up to Novemember 30th here.
You can read my notes from the week of November 30th here.

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Video Journalism - Tom Hepworth Lecture

Notes

Flickr: SamJJordan

- Don't make pictures and words compete.
- When arriving to film a sequence, spend the first 20 minutes getting to know the people. Talk about what you want to film.

- Work out what you want to film before you even get the camera out of the bag.

- Important points of camerawork - Discipline and Economy.
No need to film shots your not going to use.
Shoot things that help you tell the story.

- TV is the opposite to press photo's (which are often posed for and unnatural)

- It's all about telling stories about people.
- Always look for the people.
- Always get faces - get in close on the faces.

Example - Restaurant package
Good shots - Eating, cooking, water, paying bill.
Bad shot - Exterior GV.
Chopping carrot - interest - close up of knife.

Sequences
Ideally you should have 5 shots.
- Close up of action.
- Close up of face (who)
- Wide shot (where)
- Over the shoulder or point of view.
- Another

Hold each shot for 10 seconds.
Go mobile with the camera for action.

- Be honest with the person you need to film.
- Just ask them, and talk them through what's going to happen.
- Interviews are there to add insight, emotion and reaction.
- Pictures tell the story
- Use a sequence showing someone do something from multiple angles.

Sound
- Mic AT (Mic Atenuation) - for things like a noisy factory.
- Radio mic - A hands (spread out hand) distance from mouth.
- Filming by a road for an interview - don't use omnidirectional microphones.
- You can have your back to the road and use the gun mic, or use a tie mic.

Lighting
- Use natural light (with your back to it) to light up your interviewee - The window behind the camera.

- When using white balance, put the paper in the light of where you'll be filming.
If necessary, it's better to go for slightly orange over slightly blue.

- ND - off for dark shots.
- Turn 'Gain' up(on the camera) to around 18 decibels when their is dark lighting around you.

Scripting
- You've got one chance to tell your story, you should be economical with words.
- Before you sit down to write he script, think about what you're going to say, and how you're going to say it.
- Use the spoken word not the written word.
- 'Less is more'
- Translate for the audience, don't use over-complicated words.
- Keep it simple - one thought = one sentence.

Visuals
- Graphics - Keep the figures/points simple
Around one number/word each.

- Pull focus - You need to be quite far back, and it requires light adjusting to the focus.
- Zooming in compresses your depth of field.
- Peaking(on the camera) - gives outline in red - useful in bright sunlight if you can't see the screen.
- Expanded focus - Zooms you in a lot on a shot so you can tell if it's in focus.

Other points
- You're allowed to film private property from public property (e.g.- a public road).

- If you're stuck for things to film, you can turn to areas/people affected. A good way to find a sequence if you don't have many/any good options.
If you have time, you can try to find a relevant expert.

- Shots of people doing things is key. it's what interests the audience.

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Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism can be seen as a form of dictatorship. It is a political system which produces complete control over both public and private sectors.
Political parties with the aim of totalitarianism usually have policies that are concerned with movement.
Previous governments have used positive laws - they replace them with teorror. Everyone then becomes subjectively innocent.

Single process of thought - This way nothing new can be learnt. Reality is seperated from ideological thinking - People's perceptions of reality are altered.
Loneliness then starts to exsist amongst the masses when you de-individualise them.
Marxist - 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their need'.


It goes against the 'positive laws'.
'Positive law' isn't needed. The police are seen as fair. It's best to not be guilty of anything, it's better that you're completely innocent, so that their is no reason at all for you to be killed.

Statutory law - Government
Common Law - Court cases (man made law)

Milgrams Theory - Stanley Milgram
The Malgram Experiment
Stanley's Experiment was influenced by the evnts of the Nazi Holocaust, and decided to carry out an experiment that would demonstrate the relationship between obedience and authority.

1963 - Milgram submitted the results of his 'Milgram Experiment' in the article - 'Behavioural Study of Obedience'.
1974 - Published 'Obedience to Authority'.

37 out of 40 participants administered the full range of shocks up to 450 volts after being instructed by someone that looks like they're in authority, the highest obedience rate Milgram found in his whole series. Those shocked were actually paid actors, and simply faked the effects(the shocks were fake)

According to Milgram, the subject shifts responsibility to another person and does not blame himself for what happened.

Resembles real-life incidents - people see themselves as cogs in a machine, 'just doing their job', avoiding responsibilities for the consequences of their actions.

Milgram also started the six degrees of seperation idea.

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Winol 9.0 - November 30th Live Broadcast

Week starting 28/11/2011

Monday. Today was a mixture of meetings in preperation for wednesday, but I spent most of the day putting together my package so that it can be used on the day if it is needed.
This meant recording my piece to camera and voiceover, and uploading it on Final Cut Pro, then chopping and changing pieces, and overlaying graphics which I design. I also recieved some archive footage frm Julie which show strikes from earlier in the year I was able to include this in my package to give the audience other things to look at as i had nor eal gvs.
Overall, i wasn't too pleased with the general look and feel of my package, but considering what i was asked to do and what I had to work with, i think I did a decent job, and the package is mainly intended to be an expo piece to provide some information on the unions and what they represent..

Tuesday. Tuesday started off early as I came into the newsroom at around 9am, only a few people were in there at the time, but i got to work on the straplines that I asked people to send me if they needed them. I finished them pretty quickly, and was then able to make a few alterations to my package. After watching the package, Julie had told me to alter a few of the graphics so that more acurately match what i'm saying. The graphic is mainly there to help the audience understand what you're telling them.
At about half 10, Henry drove to the university to pick me up, and me, graham, Henry and Jack went to Southampton for the day of rehearhsals in the Unite building in Southampton.
After seeing the building for myself, i agreed that it was a great location and a good size for us to set up an 'on location' studio.
Although i was originally going to be 2nd director, things were constantly changing over the fews weeks leading towards the broadcast, and i ended up controlling two of the key cameras that were being used throughout, in the studio. On the day this meant, moving the camera between different people, as well as changing between close ups, two shots, 3 shots and anything else that was needed. As well as this I had to change the tapes whenever they were close to running out, as we were also using tape to record as a back up.
You can watch my video package about Unions here.
Wednesday. Today was the big day. Lou was able to give me a lift in the morning, and we arrived in Southampton at the Unite building at around 9:30am.
I found that along with moving the cameras around, i occasionally had to work as communciation between certain people when someone like Will or Justina was too busy or didn't hear, because we usually had to remain very quiet throughout, except when the VT's were playing, and even then it was important that only a few people spoke at a time, because we were constantly deciding what to display next.
We went live at 12, but had a few technical issues throughout the start of the programme, mainly to do with sound. Their were issues with the wireless radio microphones which meant that the presenter wasn't heard very well by the audience.
At one point in the first hour, we decided that a 5 minute 'will be right back' vt would be played on a loop so we could try and sort out the issues.
While we fixed the problem partly, issues with sound became a theme throughout the day.

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Union Package

This is my expo package about some of the Unions involved in the November 30th strikes.
The package was used in WINOL's coverage that was streamed live on the day of the strikes from 12 until 4pm.

         

My thoughts on the package

At first felt a bit dissapointed in my package, I felt as though it didn't have much to offer, and wasn't particularly 'news worthy' or interesting.
But then I thought about the context in which it was used. Essentially it proved an important part of our live braodcast, as packages were needed frequently when we had nothing else to go to(either because of technical issues, a lack of guests etc...).
The package is entended to be an expo(exposition) heavy piece, meaning that it's main job is to explain things the audience. In this case I am explaining some of the key unions in the country, and their influence in the strikes.
This meant that I didn't have any GVs or 'talking heads'(interviewees) to use as a way of creating more interest, or varying what the audience sees/hears.
To combat this I tried making some graphics to help the audience follow along with everything I was saying. I also used some archive footage that WINOL had of previous union strikes.
Overall, I was pleased with the outcome, with the restictions of what I could actually produce, I feel it was a decent attempt. The package was used a few times throughout the broadcast.
One way i perhaps could have improved the package would have been to maybe try and get some of the union leaders/members to explain a bit about their Union, but some may consider that a bit pointless and would go against the idea of only showing a person giving 'comment' and only having facts in your own voice.

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Winol - November 30th Preperation

Week starting 21/11/2011

Debrief Notes

Monday. Today was almost nothing but meetings. Firstly a general meeting about November 30th and our plans for that day. In the meeting I voluteered to create an expo package about the unions, explaining who the represent and some of their history(such as what they've influenced or campaigned for).
After that we had a production meeting, to gather some ideas of what we will all be doing on the day.

Tuesday. Today we recorded Winol Life where I was controlling the sound desk. The sound for Winol life is more complex than Winol, as you have 4 mics to monitor - the two presenters, the guest, and the feature team. So it can be difficult to try and get them all up at the right time after a package, and you need to remember to fade them all done as well as pushing the VT sound up at the start of a package.
Afterwards we recorded the links for Sportweek, and I was sitting at the autocue, which also meant typing up (and editing some parts of) the script.

Wednesday. Today theirs was no Winol as the preperations for November 30th continued. I went with Tom Morgan in the afternoon to Southampton, to help with an interview with the Southampton UCU President.

Thursday. Again I went down to Southampton with Tom Morgan, this time to interview a Southampton City Councillor Jeremy Moulton about the Novemeber 30th Strikes. We interviewed him at his office in the Southampton City Council building. He came across as veyr media trained, but gave some good answers to a few quesitons that we'll be able to use in some form for a package.

Friday. The aim today was to do some more research for my union package which i was able to do. I was also hoping to collect interview pieces from the various reporters that had done them, but unfortunately the news room was pretty empty apart from a few people, so my package was unable to make as much progress as I had hoped. My aim is to try and get it as ready as much I can over the weekend, despite the limits to what I can actually do.

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The Power of Twitter - Part 2

Flickr: Baddog_

Twitter continues to grow not just as a social network where you can speak to friends and colleagues, but as a global phenomenon where people from across the world can connect and discuss issues that affect us all.

It’s now a primary news source as I found out when the BBC reported today that ‘Associated Press has reprimanded some of its journalists for breaking news on Twitter before posting it on the wires.’ (source – BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15772243)

Twitter is now a place to go for news, celebrity gossip, film reviews, music reviews and just the latest ‘must knows’ across the web.

The number of users continues to grow at a pretty fast pace. After meeting people for the first time, you then feel like you can add them as a ‘friend’ on Facebook. With Twitter, you can comfortably follow someone without ever meeting them, and you most likely never will. Twitter is about building a connection through your computer screen, and if that connection doesn’t come, it just takes one click for them to disappear from your life.

Twitter has recently tried to take similar ideas to Facebook, and trying to give it even more of a 'community feel'. Meaning that their new 'activity' tab allows you to see who people are now following, as well as what they have favourited and retweeted. You can continue to keep up to date with the people you follow in every way. But that's not what Twitter is for, and I doubt it ever will be. Most people will stick to Facebook if they want to continue tracking all aspects of their friends lives.

One difficult now, is for people to keep a balance with the number of people they decide to follow. You can either follow hundreds of people, in which case you get a very lively twitter feed with constant updates(usually mutliple tweets a minute) and you get a wide variety of opinions and viewpoints. The downside being that you perhaps recieve too many tweets, and it's hard to keep track or establish a connection with a select few. One way around this can be the use of twitters 'list' feature which allows you to split your favourite 'tweeters' into seperate feeds to you can track them more easily. But even this can be hard to manage, depending on how many people you intend on following.

Alternatively, you can follower a smaller amount of people(usually around 100 or less). Which means you get less updates (maybe one tweet every 1 or 2 minutes during the day), but it's a lot more manageable. It also means that you can have easier conversations with the people you follow because you can quickly learn what they like and what theri opinions are, therefore you know if the chat is going to go well or not. This also means you have created your own personal community, arguably what Twitter is for.
But the downside to this is the limits of diverse opinion, your only getting a small sample of the millions and millions that use twitter everyday. And your Twitter may have slow days where you read hardly anything interesting. You may also find that you could recieve news slower. Obviously the more you follow, the better chances of seeing the latest news quicker.

What Twitter can do

The Prince of Wales' private office had created a Twitter account so that it could announce the engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

After this tweet, @Leighfazzina was saved after getting lost in a 300-acre forest, and then crashing her bike while trying to complete a mini-triathlon. Unable to walk, she tried to call somebody, but couldn't get a connection, fortunately she was able to tweet for help. And with over 1,000 followers, atleast half a dozen called for her aid. Within minutes of her sending the tweet, an ambulance was on its way.
Generally, in areas such as large parks, where signal isn't usually very good, it's not unusual for people to be able to send instant messages or 140-character tweets when they can't make phonecalls.

To read 'The Power of Twitter - Part 1' click here.

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Keynes - 'The General Theory...'

John Maynard Keynes wasn't a socialist, he came to save capitalism.
'The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money' my be considered a conservative book by some people.
Keynes wrote during a time of mass unemployment and this greatly effected his writing.

Many had concluded that capitalism had failed (capitalism being the economical/political system in which a countrys trade industrys are controlled by private owners for profit.
Keynes argued that these failures had narrow, technical causes.

Keynesian economics in general argues that private sector decisions sometimes lead to inefficient macroeconomic outcomes and therefore advocates active policy responses bu the public sector.

According to Keynes - 'Wages regulate demand'.
The state must inject money into the economy in order to boost consumption.
If wages go up, the demand will grow, and therefore production restarts which creates new jobs.

Aggregate deman will increase if:-
- Wages go up
- and/or savings go down
- and/or imports are down
- and/or intrest is down

A lack of aggregate demand can cause unemployment.

Generally, people won't be willing to accept lower wages (known as 'sticky wages'). A way to raise aggregate demand can be to increase exports and government spending.

Some of the key ways that the British government spends money is on things such as the Military (most likely the most expensive public sector), as well as the NHS, education and public transport.

Flickr: Gwydion M. Williams

Their are two main economists - Keynesianism and Monetarism.

Keynseianism
- Inject money into everything.
- Like to plan the economic growth.
- Support a mixed economy.
Mainly private sector, but with a significant role of government and private sector.

Monetarism
- Think people accurately work out what they want.
- Are followers of Adam Smith.

Keynes had a solution to the great depression
- Reduction in interest rates.
This would encourage people to stop saving their money, and to spend it instead.
- Government investment
This would keep people employed, and therefore spending would continue.

Keynes was opposed to excessive saving, which was usually due to pessimistic speculation on the economy.
It would result in a climate of financial uncertainty and the consumption would be affected.

Classic economists tend to think that unemployment is impossible, and without government interference this could be true. As those without jobs can be paid by others too for example clean their house. But they could just get paid £3 an hour(below minimum wage).
That way everyone would stay employed, and it can be argued that a small amount of pay would be better than no money.
This would mean that money is constantly circulating and dropping down from the highest earners, to those at the bottom.
They would be recieving just enough pay to survive as  prices would drop because otherwise sellers wouldn't be able to sell anything as their customers are too poor. That way, a balance remains.
However, minimum wage (government intervention) prevents national balance.

The multiplier effect - this is a circular flow of money. Where one person spends a chunk of their wage on (for example) a sandwich each day at work. The business that sells the sandwiches then spend that money on a drink at the pub, then those that run the pub spend their money at a restaurant. And it goes on as the money is passed down through a number of different people and business, and continues to spread.
But also the value shrinks as the government continues to claim money each time through tax etc...

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Winol 8.0

Week starting 14/11/2011

Monday.
Debrief Notes
Got to split the audience. Their are people that are interested in politics, those that are mildly interested, and those that aren't interested at all. You need to cater for all of these audiences.
Eg - The Chris Huhne story wouldn't appeal to all audiences, and you need to make a bigger deal out of the fact that he's a minister, and cover recent stories involving him and his wife. Don't be afraid to ask questions that may upset your interviewee, or people around you.
- 'Assume no knowledge' - from your audience

- Audience is key
You need to connect with the audience.
- Make sure you have a strong quote.

- This week we're going to start a new 'behind-the-scenes' style piece to add onto the end of our weekly Winol Bulletin. Showing parts of the debrief, and discussions between editors and reporters etc...

- The spoken parts of the headlines are too descriptive, as well as some of the links into packages. Their was also comment for no reason.

- Take control when filming, instruct you're interviewee and guide them if necessary to ensure you get a good shot, and that they're looking in the right place.

- Be careful of juxtaposition libel. Eg - The bin story update included a shot of Biffa bins which could imply them to be be completely in the wrong/to blame.

- The graduation piece was a bit too descriptive, more focus should have been made on the identical twins.
- Need good quotes
Eg - The teacher saying 'It's amazing news!' in the school story.

- Your experience at the point of filming isn't the important part. It's what the final package looks like that is important.

Tuesday.
Today I was helping Tom to film some gv's for his news piece this week. This involved travelling over to the Winchester Recycling Plant.
I found out on Wednesday that unfortunately the footage wouldn't be used, as Tom was unable to secure a second interview on statement to give his story balance, and therefore it couldn't feature in the bulletin. However, the shots could perhaps prove useful in the future, if a similar story comes up.

Wednesday.
Today started when I arrived in the news room at around 9am. I was surprised to see absolutely nobody in thier, unfortunately this was a sign of things to come. Lee came into the news room shortly after me, and said that he had come in simply to drop of his euipment and make sure his packages were sorted, as he had been sick all night, and still felt ill with the flu.
As the day went on I helped open up the gallery and set up the equipment, as well as going around sorting out straps with Graham and George. I then had to distribute them to the reporters.
The headlines were a big problem this week. It's hard to put my finger one exactly where it went wrong. Their was a bit of a wait for some headlines, such as the Estonia piece, this was because the mac with the footage on had freezed multiple times.
We also had trouble with the music for the headlines, and also a black hole was in one of the clips.
Ideally we should now have a template to rely on each week, but we still seem to be facing a few problems.
These were all errors that we tried to fix as quickly as possible, but unfortunately, the huge number of errors meant that it took a while to correct. For this reason, it took a while to get the headlines done, which consequently pushed back almost everything else.
In the end we were very short on time and only had around 30 minutes of decent rehearsal time.
I feel like everyone in the gallery still worked hard to try and create more time for ourselves, but everything seemed against us this week. George did his best to direct, but at times he faced some difficult problems. Over the last few weeks I've noticed different directing styles, all have there pros and cons, and I do feel like watching the different directors including myself) over the last few weeks has helped me understand the role more and more. I also feel really comfortable in the gallery, and can jump onto almost any piece of equipment last minute and control it if needed.
We faced some difficult challenges this week, some we managed to overcome and others we didn't, but I feel like I learnt a lot this week.

Debrief Notes

- It can be better to have headlines that make sense in 7 seconds, instead of trying to cram them into 3 or 4 seconds.

- For the unemployment story, we need to explain what's important abouts the figures going past a million, and that winchester has gone up by 100% - what does it mean? What if thier was only 1 person unemployed, and now it's 2. Suddenly 100% isn't such a big leap.
Should be more prepared and have it in a diary that the latest unemployment figures were goign to be announced.

- Southampton story - If you don't know the answer to every question, then neither will the audience.

- Need full VT rehearsals every week to make sure they're all correct and have no errors.

- The paedophile story should be nothing more than an oov/nib (news in brief)
If you only have the mugshot and not much other information can be used, then it's not really a package.

- No excuse for mistakes (stutters, pauses, strange noises etc...) in a piece to camera, as you can do it as many times as you want until it's perfect.
You can do it again and again as much as you like.

- Parking story - Cut aways can be elongated, not just 2 seconds, otherwise it's clear that you're covering up a cut in something like an interview. If you need to cover up a cut, then make the overlaid shot longer so that it doesn't change too quickly for the audience. You can even use more than one shot (one after the other). You don't have to neccesarily go back to the interviewee after a cutaway either, once you see them, you don't have to neccessarily show them again.

- Estonia story - Make the most of the trip - get good visuals. You should see things that we can't normally get/show.
You also need to caption her film piece, even though she's an ex studen,t that shouldn't matter, otherwise the audience might not pick up enough information.

- The nib had a black hole for the wipe between two oovs.

- Sport - First line of the package was exactly the same as the link.

- Should have made more of the hat-trick - it was the fastest hat trick from a sub in FA Cup history.
It could have been more personalised, perhaps gone to his house for an exclsuive interview.

- The Sportsweek promo - images didn't match what was being said.

- Banned phrasing - 'Our very own' and 'too little too late'

This week's Winol

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A Guide to Journalism - The Basics

Flickr: NS Newsflash

News Reporting

• You always need balance for your story.
• Facts in your voice
• Comments in your inteviewee's voice
• You're best visual should be at the very start of your package, as well as in your headline.
• Pictures and quotes are very important for a good package.
• Time is quality, not quantity.
• If you use a still (picture) in a package you should give it movement(such as a zoom or pan from left to right)
• If you use a categorical fact, you must:-
  a) Check it
  b) Have a source for it.
  You should either check these facts or simply leave them out. A categorical fact without a source is just an opinion.
• You should avoid doing too much expo(exposition).
  

Tips

• Informal pre-scripting - Interview a guest beforehand to try and find out what she might say. 'Pre-interviewing' them will help make them more comfortable and rpepared, as well as you.
• 'Fair Dealing' - can be used for purposes of review, criticism and comment. Should use fair dealing for the film piece, instead of loads of clips from the film press conference.
• A good way to start a package can be with natural sound.
• To make your piece to camera easier you should just focus on 3 key points, it it then easier to remember and say.
• Using a prop for a piece to camera can be a good idea(and can help you feel more relaxed with something to do with your hands) but you should be holding something thats relevant to what your talking about. 
• Source ProtectionNever use a blind source unless you really have to.
  Even so, if you offer them protection, you need to remember that thier is nothing to defer them from lying. Source protection should only really be used if in extreme cases such as protecting the source from violence, it shouldnt usually be used to preotect someone from being fired. If you agree to protect the person, you must protect them to the grave, and should be prepared to go to jail.
• 'Off the record' interview = waste of time. It should only be used as a journalistic technique so they brief you regarding the story, and sometimes to try and convince them to go on the record with a certain comment.
• You should have 'Fact Fear' - check, double check and triple check. Make sure its correct before using it, if your not sure, just get rid of it.
  You can also use phrases like 'they claim' to be safe if necessary. 

Website Write Ups

• Write headline that fits layout.
• Try to make a person the 'who' in your top line.
• Always remember(the method) who, what, where and when. - A 'simple summary intro'.

News Story Layout (Basics)
Paragraph 1 - Who, What, Where, When
Paragraph 2 - Why
Paragraph 3 - Quote
Paragraph 4 -Detail (Not always though)
Paragraph 5 - But (Balance)

Writing Headlines
A headline must :-

• Fit the story to tell the reader clearly what it’s about.
• Make the reader interested in the story and want to read on.
• Be on a front page, and should be visually striking enough to grab the eye of the readers at stations, news agents, and news stands.
• Reflect the newspaper attitude to the new story.
• Fit into a very limited space but still be bold and capitalized.

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How to... convert word files for the autocue

Flickr : Jacobo Garcia

Most of the time, when a script is typed up and handed over to production, it's not saved as the correct file, and therefore doesn't open on the autocue laptop.
The file needs to be a .doc file, not a .docx file.
One way to convert a file is to go on a website such as http://www.freefileconvert.com/

• You simply go onto the link. Wait a few seconds for the ads to show.
• Then click on 'Convert File'.
• Select 'browse' and find the file that you need to convert. Then select the file.
• For output format select '.doc'
• Then click convert.
• Once the file has converted, either select the link given, or right click and select save as/save target as/download.
• You should save it onto a memory stick to take it over to production.
• The file should then be saved and ready to go on the autocue.

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Modern Economics

This week, in our HCJ lecture we focused on economics. Money.
In the past we have looked at money in some ways, such as Adam Smith, and his look at free trade. We also looked at Smith's satirical solution to the financial problems in Ireland in 1729.

We have a desire to consume which outweighs our desire to produce. We have a number of 'wants' in our life, and finance usually means we have to decide which 'wants' to satisfy. People often say that they 'need this' and 'need that'. Humans don't 'need' anything. They simply 'want' it.
Economics ignores 'needs'. Need has no reference point.

Utility- To economics it is fundamental
- A phenomenon
- The reference of human wants
Humans maximise their utility.
'Utilitarianism'

Marx = Ricardo (Value theory) + Neo Malthusian

Value Theory
Embedded labour power

Eg- Piano = 5000 bins
Takes more work to make the biron - 5000 times more labour.

Malthus - the iron law of population
You should have 2 children, so that they can replace you.
- More than 2 children means a population increase.
- Less than 2 children means a population decrease.

Neo-Malthusian - the iron law of wages
- Internal contradiction of capitalism
- Inability of system to scoialize surplus vaue = crisis of revolution
= Crisis and revolution
- Neo- Malthusian means over productions and under consumption ecause of profit.

The answer to unemployment is growth.

Simple Economy (an example)
All that's made is 1 apple.
Value of the apple = £3
Producer of the apple is paid = £2
Profit would be = £1

However, if the producer of the apple went to the shop and wanted to buy the apple, he wouldn't have enough money.

They would then try to solve the problem -
Cut wages to = £1
Cut price of Apple to = £2
But this doesn't solve the problem.

Source - Flickr: Images_of_Money

Old economists thought of money as transparent.
Modern economists eel that money exerts popwer on the real world - irrational.
Karl Marx - Communist Manifesto
People didn't have enough money

1850's - The gold rush in America.
Until recently - gold had no real value/purpose.
Anthropology - Superstitions about gold.
Gold supply has varied through the decades.
But gold mines caused economic recession.

Paper (money) circulation is a small percent of that used today. It is now mainly electronic.
In some ways this means that the 'Economy is based on confidence'.

- 1880's onwards - Germany, America, Britain - The welfare state.
State education came at around the 1870's.
- Government bonds (gilts)

Why pay taxes?
Taxes help to pay interest on the bonds, because governments get charged interest on the bonds/gilts that they recieve.

Problem - Inflation
German hyper-inflation - resulting from 'printing money' (not backed by gold standard)
Too much money chasing too few items.

Two types of economists
1- Keynesian
- Don't care about inflation.
- Plan economic growth

2- Monatarism
- Followers of Adam Smith
- Classical in the sense of Smith
- Pre-modern and Pre-Freudian
- Think people accurately work out what the want.

'Know the price of everything, and the value of nothing'

People should accept cuts in their wages to help the economoy, but they won't.

National Health Service - helpful in avoiding inflation, as the government needs too keep spending money to keep people employed.
However, they need to keep public spending within the public sector.
Eg - War
- No private sector
- Means investing in public sector of war doesn't put anybody out of business (thier is priate sectar for war, so it doesn't damage any private companies).
Eg - Space programmes
Eg - Digging holes

Y = C + I + G

C = Household spending
I  = Private investment (eg - savings)
G = Government spending
If Y decrease, then thier wont be enough money to keep people employed unless they take pay cuts.

If banks won't take bonds, we end up with the situation currently in Greece. They are no longer trusted to eventually pay back the money.
Answer - print more money. Germany have taken out a lot of money and handed it to Greece to help them financially.
Germany has more ability to raise money, so they can continue to take out bonds.
Once banks default on bonds = Mass unemployment

In the long term, we can try to keep doing this and 'kicking the can' further and further forever. Alternatevly, we could try and wipe all debt, or could face a global economic crisis.
In the long term we're dead, and the problem moves onto the next generation, and so on.

When I was young I used to think that money was the most important thing in life. Now that I am old, I know it is.

Oscar Wilde

Wealth is the parent of luxury and indolence, and poverty of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.

Plato 

A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.
Jonathan Swift

Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.
Woody Allen

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Winol 7.0

Week starting 07/11/2011

Debrief Notes
The straps for the headlines need to be smaller so that we can see faces etc...
Sports is arguably too long, decisions are being made in order to help the viewer, such as explaining(just before going to sport) what other packages we still have for them too watch.

Features Debrief
Gonzo - Presenter Lead (Eg: 'I went to...' or 'I spoke to...)
Be careful as it shouldn't always be presenter lead. Those too phrases shouldn't really be used.
Gizmo - 'Quest'

Avoid too much exposition

Keep it balanced. Try and find something neutral to say. If you're reviewing or visiting a place, you should try to avoid always being really positive and make sure you don't come across as selling the product/place.

Be careful of sound.

Avoid too much padding.

Monday. Today we had a meeting to start planning for our November 30th broadcast.

Tuesday. Today started by helping Ewan and Graham to film their links for Winol Games. For this I was on camera 2, and wearing a headset to communicate between Dom (in the gallery) and Ewan/Graham (in the studio) as neither of them really needed talk-back.
We then showed members of sport and features some of the equipment that we use in the gallery. This included the autocue, vt machine, video mixer, sound mixer, cameras and lights.
We then filmed the links for Sportsweek. I was mainly watching over these recordings as some people tried out different jobs in preparation for 30th November.
Wednesday. Today was as usual a busy day for the whole team behind Winol. I took over the job of making the straps this week, and luckily the majority of them were done very early as not too many were needed this week (they were mainly for sport). Most of my day was based more in the gallery, setting it up for the day, helping to record headline, and of course helping throughout rehearsals and during the live broadcast. As well as this myself, Graham and Dom set up the OB kit in the newsroom. Although we haven't used the News room as a place to broadcast so far this semester, it is very useful to practice as much as we can so that we have a good knowledge of how to set it up. Dom's blog post has proved very useful. The OB kit also means we can communicate with the news room from the gallery to save time, while this doesn't always work (sometimes nobody can hear us calling for them), it's still useful to have. Also, it looks likely that the OB kit will be used in the news room on November 30th, in which case the practice will be very helpful for us.
For the headlines I was on autocue, whilst also adding the headline straps to the VT. The aim this week was to make them smaller so that they didn't take up too much of the screen or cut off big parts of heads. Whilst this cannot be completely avoided because of the tight shots, the smaller straps worked a lot better in this weeks headlines.
For the live broadcast I was sat on the vt machine. Usually it consists mainly of pressing play and selecting the next clip thats needed. Although, during rehearsals i realised how important it still is to keep you're attention at all times, as at one point I missed my cue, which was completely my fault. After that i made sure that i stayed focussed. Even if a job doesn't require too much attention, it doesn't mean you don't need to give it much attention, because that is when things can go wrong.
Looking at the bulletin overall, it was a decent collection of stories. One point raised was that (like 2 weeks ago) thier weren't any really memorable moments, and I can't help but agree. Thier were no outstanding visuals that really grabbed my attention, and the stories were a bit bland overall. However, thier was a decent balance in the type of stories we had, and the reporters did really well with what they had. I'm definately seeing improvements week after week.
After the headlines were recorded, at around 1:15, I decided to head into the news room to collect packages, and to my surprise they were all exported and ready to collect! I could simply walk up to each mac and transfer them onto the hard drive. This is the first time that has happened this semester. I don't know if it's simply because of delays with the headlines, or because the reporters have got used to the schedule, but I was very pleased and hope it stays the same next week. Package collecting ran very smoothly.
We experimented this week with a live feed, and it's good that we remain ambitious and always keen to try new things. However, we didn't quite pull it off. We were able to see Tom through skype and get it onto the screen, but it was hard to make out what he was saying as the audio wasn't particular good. But it was a good attempt and it's nice to see we're always trying to add something new, it's what makes student journalism such a great opportunity.

This Week's Winol (09/11/2011)

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Frege and Language

Language - Sense and Reference

According to Frege there are 2 different kinds of signification:-
1- Sense of an expression - The particular mode in which a sign presents what it designates.
2- Reference of an expression - The object to which is refers.

Account of meaning - there are items at 3 levels:-
1- Signs
2- Their sense
3- Their references

Frege believed in a weel-regulated language, every sign would have only one sense.

He also felt thart what is lost in translation is 'the colour' of the text. 'Colour' is important for poetry but not for logic: it is not objective in the way that sense is.

- The sense of a word is what we grasp when we understand the word.
- The sense of a sign is something that is the common properly of all users of the language.
The reference of a sentence is determined by the reference of the parts of a sentence.
Frege does agree though that there can be sentences that are lacking references.

A Young Frege

Many philosophers have accepted a difference between predication and assertion.

Pragmatists hold a slightly different view to Frege, they believe that if something is widely believed then it can be correct in a sentence. Such as 'Hitler is Evil' - Pragmatists would accept this sentence because it is widely believed and therefore accepted. However, Frege would state that evil isn't defined and therefore doesn't accept the sentence.

Semiotics -
1 - Natural Signs
Eg: Clouds = a sign of rain

2 - Iconic Signs [Signified by resembling their objects]
Eg: Sculptures, paintings and maps

3 -  Symbols [Determined by conventions]
Eg: Uniforms and traffic symbols

Iconic signs have two essential features:-
1- Should share with its object some feeatures that each could have if the other did not exist.
2- The method of interpreting this feature should be fixed by convention

Charles Sanders Pierce had his own theory's about Semiotics. He saw them as split into three.
1- Syntactics
2- Semantics - Study of the relationship between language and reality.
3- Pragmatics - The study of the social context and the purposes and consequences of communication.

Pierce focuses on meaning and truth. He believed that truth and not just meaning relied on thier consequences.

Thier is both Logical and Emotive language.

Logical is logical proposition.
Emotive langaue can range from religion, art, poetry, love affairs and hatred.
Emotive language usually can't have a reference.

As journalists - people often try to pass off emotion as fact.

'Capitalism is evil' - not verifiable.
Can try to identify evil by saying what you think it is. If you define evil then it would be accepted by Frege.

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How to...Make Straplines

The straplines are a slightly under-appreciated part of any news broadcast when you are watching at home, but in the news room they are a vital part of any package that has any form of interview.It provides correct, precise identification which helps from a law aspect, as well as providing the viewer with more information on who they are seeing without the news reporter having to explain in too much detail. It also provides the knowledge that the person being interviewed has some relevance to the story and has an actual purpose in the package. It (almost subconciously) makes their soundbite relevant to the audience, because they then know exactly who it's coming from, and can make up in thier own minds that it is from someone that has a write to voice thier opinion on the subject. This is usually either someone in authority, or someone directly effected by the news story.

The current WINOL strapline

The way the name and position is added to the strapline isn't very complicated. The member of the production team in charge of straplines simply goes around the news reporters and checks if they need any straplines to be made. They write down the full name and the profession. Some reporters will occasionally say they only have the first name(this is usually when it's not someone with a high position, and may instead just be a campaigner or 'local resident'). The reporter may argue that the person didn't want to give their full name for some reason, and they may even say the full name isn't important. But of course, it is important. As reporter you should tell the person their interviewing that if they are happy to go on camera, then they should be happy to give their full name. If they still refuse, then you should simply find someone else to interview.
We currently add the names to the straps using 'microsoft paint', but hope to soon move over to using Fireworks, which would enable the strapline editor to remain in the newsroom instead of having to go into the mmc.

The straplines need to be saved onto a memory stick, so they can then be 'delivered' to each reporter. Usually you save them onto the desktop for the reporter to then add onto thier package.

How to put the strap onto you package using Final Cut Pro
Once the strapline is on the desktop you do the following:-

- Import into final cut pro
- Drag onto the timeline
- Place over the interview that the strapline is for
- Double click the image and select the modify tab on the middle screen.
- Change the scale to 80
- On the far right screen, you should be able to move the strapline(if not, then it you should be able to do it on the middle screen.
- The strap should be placed near the bottom left of the screen (make sure their is a slight gap between the strap and the very edge of the screen, like an invisible border).
- Go to effects, then to wipe, then selected edge wipe.
- Place edge wipe on the beginning and end of the clips.
- Reverse the edge wipe that is on the end of the clip. (You do this by double clicking the edge wipe that you need to reverse, then look at the middle screen, and thier is a reverse button that you need to click)

Hope this helps.

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Winol 6.0

Week starting 31/10/2011

Monday.

Debrief Notes
- Fair Dealing - Few seconds - linked with review/comments.
Fully credit the clip.
This means you can't be accused of passing it off as yours.

- Time is quality (not quantity)

- Don't be afraid of cliches

- Always try to get a good quote/soundbite
It helps to warm them up before the interviewee.

- Pictures and quotes are very important for a good package.

- You're best visual should be at the very start of your package, as well as in your headline.

Tuesday. Today was another busy Tuesday. We recorded for both 'Sports Week' and 'Winol Life'.
I came in at 9am and helped to open up the studio. We then had to start preparing for Winol Life while waiting to start Sports Week. This included setting up an ob kit outside of the studio to plug into an extra camera so we would be able to have 4 cameras in the studio. This enabled us to film a yoga segment where Becki shows George some of the yoga moves that she picked up(to follow on from hers and Zoe's yoga package). I felt this added more depth to the overall show, it's always good to experiment with new ideas and possibilities.
At around 11am we were able to film the sports week links, and I had my first attempt at directing. It wasn't the most difficult of directing though (because they are just links) so it simply required me to cue in the presenter (which was Gareth) and just keeping communication with him to make sure he was happy with everything. It was a good practice ready for when i would be directing Winol which is more complicated when sound, VTs etc come into use, and also the fact that it's live and cannot be re-filmed will add more pressure.
We then moved our attention to Winol Life. This week's guests on Winol Life was Elizabeth Barnett.
In my opinion, it could be considered the most complex to film, as you have multiple people on camera, and multiple camera angles to use. This means more cameras are used, more microphones are needed, and you have a lot more people to speak over and instruct. However, their were huge improvement over the quality of the first Winol Life from two weeks ago, we were a lot more prepared and their seemed to be a calmer atmosphere.
I was controlling the VT machine for Winol Life, which meant playing the VTs at the right time for the broadcast. It's not the most difficult job, but you need to keep your concentration as you don't necessarily have a strict time on when to play it, as the interviews are mainly spontaneous responses.

Wednesday. This day is always a busy day, particularly for production. I came in today to be told that George had decided last minute to help Ali with his filming for his Bournmouth package. This meant that we were short by one production person, and with a small production crew as it is, we were a bit short of helping hands at the start of the day. George's job would have been to collect the packages and to control the vision mixer for the day.
Me and Graham decided that it made sense to try and get the straps done as quickly as possible, this was helped with Gareth having the straps he needed already prepared at around 9am, so we could then go away and have them done pretty quickly. In fact, we were able to quickly get everyones straps this week, they all seem more informed on who they had interviewed, and thier positions. While Graham did some of the straps, i went to help Jack prepare the gallery for the day, before heading into the news room to try and get the rest of the strap information ready before making some more a bit later in the day.
Without George, Graham did really well to then assume the role of collecting the headline clips and the packages, which really helped to keep us fairly on time.

Of course my big role this week was working as the director for Winol. The job carries a fair bit of pressure, and required a lot of organisation and concentration.
A lot of communication was needed amongst a number of different people ranging from the editor Will, to the people on the cameras, the production editor Jack, the production people controlling equipment in the gallery and also the presenters. So it can be difficult to direct my attention to multiple people at the same time, and when possible I tried to concentrate on one set of people at once.
I also had to keep remembering to keep the presentes and other people in the studio informed on what we're doing in the gallery, as thier are constant changes and check-throughs for the packages, and its easy to forget that your the one main communication to inform those down in the studio of what is happening.
I was really pleased with the support I got from everyone, as well as the praise afterwards, but I know that thier are areas that I can improve on, such as the timing for cueing the presenters and people in the gallery, and i feel like my voice needed to be maybe a bit more commanding. But overall I was pleased with my performance, and look forward to doing it again.

Debrief Notes
Good preparation

Should caption only when they literally start talking.
The link shouldn't be too similar to the opening of a package.

This Week's Winol (02/11/2011)

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WINOL - 02/11/2011

The following video is the 2nd November 2011 edition of the Winol Bulletin, and is my first attempt at directing. You can read my reflection of this week's Winol here.
Overall, I really enjoyed the experience, and felt that it was a very good first attempt and was pleased with the feedback that I recieved. But I have also picked up a few techniques and learnt a few lessons that will help me the next time I direct.

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Nietzsche, Freud and Marx

Lecture Notes

Frege - 'Sense and Reference' (1890's)

- The 'reference point' of the word 'deofinition' is 'sense' of the word which means its sense within the sentence. This is 'sential logic'.
Inidividual propositions do not have meaning, thye only have mkeaning in relation to other propositions. This is essentially relativity bought to logic.
Frege is the final rejection of syllogistic logic (Aristotle) as a path to truth.
When paradigm shifts occur, it is often in the field of logic first of all.

- 'No fixed meaning' - word emphasis can effect the meaning of what you're saying. Eg - 'I thought she was his wife'. Depending on which word you plae emphasis on, you could be saying something completely different.

- Without logic, all certain knowledge from reason, as opposed to pure sense data, is brought into question.

Friedrick Nietzsche
Source - Flickr: mansionwb

- Sentential logic - please understand and be able to explain this significance of these statements :-
(a) The evning star is the same thing as the morning star.
(b) The present king of France is not bald.
(c) There was nobody on the road.

Marx + Nietzsche + Freud = 'the three great skeptics' - they undermine the concept on enlightenment.
All 3 felt that truth always depends primarily on your perspective.

- 'Subjectivist Epistimology' - concerned with how we know things.
- Modernism = 'Nothing is certain'.

- Marx is the least sceptical and least subjective of the three.
- Nietzsche and Freud came in the following generation.

- Nietzche wrote in a series of outbursts, with particular use of 'Aphorisms'.
- Aphorisms are things such as :-
'God is dead'
'Dog bites man iisn't news, man bites dog is news'
'Mankind is a thing we must overcome'.

What lives on from Marx is the concept of alienation and of ideology. This is still alive and an important idea in social science, practical politics, journalism and in literary criticism.

- Frederick Engles - The origins of the Family State and Private Property and the subject of anthropology, assets that truth and systems of mroality are indeed subjecture and transitory.
- A key word in anthopology is 'taboo'.

Marxists argue that Freud lacks an anthropological basis for his theories, or a political framework.
 - Also that mental unhappiness often comes from issues around power and confromity/inability to conform to social norms - but he underestimates this social basis to subjective feelings and tries (and fails) to treat what Marx would think of 'alienation' as a personal, clinical medical problem.
Freuds 'talking case' is little more than people coming to terms with thier role in life.

- The ego fears death.
- Freud - triumph over the id 'self control' conformity, self realisation, constant psychoanaylsis and self-questioning.
- Nietzsche loves the ego and see's pride as a good thing.

- Nietzsche had a 'herd mentality', and saw 'resentment' as the 'one unforgivable sin'.

- 1885 - Zarathustra - the overman - 'Mankind is a thing that must be overcome'.
- 1895 - The Anti-christ - 'That which does not kill me, makes me stronger'

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Winol 5.0

Week starting 24/10/2011

Monday. Today was a slightly different debrief. Instead of focussing completely on the bulletin we looked at the overall quality of Winol, including the new Radio Station, as well as Winol Life, What's On and Sports Week.

Debrief Notes
What's On - If you have a big piece such as the launch of 'We Need to Talk About Kevin', then you should start 'Whats on' with that piece because it's a 'big deal'. And on a trip to London for filming you should try and get your moneys worth.

'Fair Dealing' - can be used for purposes of review, criticism and comment. Should use fair dealing for the film piece, instead of loads of clips from the film press conference.

Informal pre-scripting - Interview a guest beforehand to try and find out what she might say. 'Pre-interviewing' them will help make them more comfortable and rpepared, as well as you.

Tuesday. As usual we recorded Sports Week at around lunch time. Today I was controlling the auto-cue, which started with needing to convert the script into a file that would open on the auto-cue laptop.
Also today we had an extra task. Ewan wanted to record a piece in the studio for his 'Winol Games' feature. Again I was helping with the auto-cue aswell as monitoring the sound when we were setting up the microphones.

Wednesday. Today began by setting up the gallery so it was ready for the days recordings. This meant switching everything on, and setting up equipment such as the auto-cue and checking the lights.
Myself and George set up the tricaster ready for the broadcast. You can see a guide to setting up the tricaster(as well as the OB kit) here on Dom's blog.
One of my jobs for today was to make all of the straplines for this weeks packages. This week the straps were fairly straight forward, apart from a few late additions, including one strapline that I needed to sort out within half an hour of going live. It turned out I had already made the strap but Uldduz had forgotten and was on a different machine, so I simply had to uploaded to to the mac she wa snow on, and place it on the package for her which only took a few minutes.
For this week's Winol I was working on sound, a job which I quite enjoy. It's a lot about finding the right balance in volume as well as timing it so that you hear the packages at the right time and also the presenters. It becomes a bit more tricky when it comes to oovs, because some have soundbites from interviews which need the volume high at the right moment. Also, while some oovs have no sound, some have ambient sound such as football matches in sport oovs. This means you can hear some cheering from the crowd whilst the presenter reads what has happened.

I felt the overall quality of this week's news stories was a bit weak, but it might have just been a slow news week. We were still able to provide a good amount of stories, and George's first time as director wen't fairly smoothly other than a VT that wouldn't work when we were live, and we were left in a bit of an awkward situation. But we overcame it, and simply dropped that piece for the uploaded bulletin.
Once again we learnt a lot from our mistakes this week and will continue to improve and provide top quality bulletins.

Debrief
- Need good pictures.
- Your best picture should be at the very start of your piece.
- In production, if you reach a problem while live, you should just role with it.
- Avoid lazy wording, remember 'Fresh Fish Sold Here'.
- In TV and Radio it's very important to constantly keep your audience's interest.
- A newsbelt could be used in the future, this features all of the best quotes from the bulletin. This would encourage reporters to find better soundbites.
- Make sure thier are no black holes in packages or headlines.
- Remember subject verb agreement :-
Singular = is
Plural = are

This Week's Bulletin (26/10/2011)

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Sigmund Freud - Seminar Paper

Sigmund Freud

Freud was an atheist that thought of himself as a scientist, and he felt that his ideas on psychoanalysis were the invention of a new science.

He was born in Moravia in 1856 into an Austrian family, but the family moved to Vienna in 1860 and this was where he trained as a doctor before moving to Paris 3 years later to study under neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot.

Jean-Martin was very interested in ‘hysteria’, what seemed to be a mental disorder with physical manifestation, and he believed it was hereditary and caused by a weak neurological system. He felt that a hypnotised state had similarities to hysteria, and therefore used it to study his patient’s symptoms. However, this wasn’t to help cure them, merely to study. This to have some early influence on Freud’s ideas, as he published a book on Hysteria in 1895, but it had his own original analysis of mental illness. He also used hypnosis, but in comparison to Jean-Martin, he used it as a method of treatment.

He slowly stopped using hypnosis, and instead started using psychoanalysis, which is simply the patient and doctor exchanging words. He would encourage his patients to speak their mind while on the couch. The reason for this method was that Freud believed hysterical symptoms came from repressed psychological trauma.

Freud was also very obsessed with sex, and particularly (when it came to repressed trauma) infantile sex. It became the centre of his theories. He felt that psychological traumas dated back to infancy.

Freud believed in psychosexual development which consists of multiple stages during infancy where we should satisfy our sexual drive.

The stages are as follows-

-          The Oral stage - This is linked to the mouth.  Breast feeding is seen as the first human relationship both biologically and psychologically.

Oral Stage fixation can result in you chewing a lot of gum or the end of your pencils, and can make you immature, gullible and manipulative according the Freud.

-          The Anal stage - This is the time when you are toilet trained and represents a conflict with the id, ego and superego. Freud believed that if a parent is praising of their child in this stage and rewarding them, then they will pass through this stage. However, punishment or ridicule then they can become both really neat and organized (anal retentive) or reckless and careless (anal expulsive).

-          Phallic – This is between ages 3-6 when we develop physical curiosity, and learnt the physical gender differences. These experiences can alter parent/child dynamics and can lead to the Oedipus complex.

-          Genital – Once a child reaches puberty the sexual urges reawaken. Failure to get past an earlier stage can have an effect on this stage. Freud felt it could lead to impotence and unsatisfactory relationships.

There is also Latency, but Freud didn’t think this stage needed much attention as it contains no new stages of sexual development. It had relative stability. Freud was always fixated on human sexuality.

This theory was controversial for many reasons. One being that he said the female sexual desire was that they developed ‘penis envy’.

One of Freud’s most famous works was ‘Introduction to Psychoanalysis’. Freud states there are three signs of the unconscious – trivial everyday mistakes, reports of dreams and neurotic symptoms.

Freud also wrote about ‘parapraxes’ which are things such as ‘a slip of the tongue’, struggling to remember names and misplacing objects. He believed that these weren’t necessarily accidental, and could have hidden motives. He believed that sometimes you may express your unconscious views in the sense that you may not mean to express it publicly.

Sigmund Freud was in isolation from medical colleagues, and continued his practice in Vienna. By 1900 he had published what would be considered one of his most important pieces of work – ‘Interpretation of Dreams’.

Once again, he focused on sexuality, saying that dreams are a coded expression of repressed sexual desires. He saw dreaming as route to the unconscious, and contained our wish fulfilments. Although, Freud didn’t believe that everything in a dream was a symbol that had a specific significance.

A year later he published ‘The Psychopathology of Everyday Life’ and started to gain some pupils such as Alfred Adler and Carl Jung. He also worked with Wilhelm Reich. Reich felt that humans were overall good people and saw sexuality as good, and that sex was a measure of happiness. He did agree with Freud that sexuality was important to our unconscious and that we had no control over some areas of our mind.

Sigmund Freud
Source - Flickr: mansionwb

In 1923, ‘The Ego and the ID’ was published, and was seen as presenting a new view on the anatomy of the unconscious mind. It highlights internal tensions between the id, the ego and the super ego, as well as between love and death.

Freud believes that the mind has three processes – the ID, the Ego and the Super Ego.

The ID is there from birth, and is a number of instincts aimed at gaining pleasure and avoiding pain. Although Freud didn’t like to consider himself a philosopher, the idea of getting pleasure and avoiding pain was a big philosophical viewpoint.  Sex and aggression are the dominant part of the personality and are fused in the ID.

The ego (also known as the ‘self’) is the least powerful part of the personality – the voice of reason. It is where we get our common sense but is often overpowered.

The Super Ego is the ‘policeman in your head’, and is totally irrational. Freud believed that it develops after birth through socialising. It also makes you have irrational hopes and unreachable expectations.

Sigmund Freud saw the answer to psychological problems as analysis. He felt his method of psychoanalysis (with his patient on the couch) is needed to access the ID and in some ways to control it. It is also needed to strengthen the super ego.

In January 1933, the Nazis took control of Germany and Freud’s books were among those that were destroyed. Psychoanalysis was banned and Freud was forced to migrate to England in 1938 when Austria was taken over by Germany. His time in England was short as he died a year later when he got his physician to give him a lethal injection of morphine.

While Freud is unlikely to be studied by todays psychologists, his ideas can’t be completely ignored. Psychoanalysis is still a common way of finding out what is troubling someone unconsciously, and very often problems date back to childhood. However, people such as Wilhelm Reich could expect more praise for their less negative approach to the unconscious and human desires. Often referred to as ‘the father of psychoanalysis’, he made popular the idea of the unconscious and symbolism in dreams.

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