Unit 37: Presentation Techniques for Broadcasting - Task 1 - Part A

Over time, new coverage and presentation of news had a changed in a big way.

The first visual presentation of the news in the UK came from Pathe News in 1910. Before this, all news had been without visuals. Pathe News introduced the use of cameras to cover events. By doing this they were able to capture history defining moments such as Suffragette Emily Davison's death from jumping in front of the horse at the Epsom Derby & the Coronation of King George V.





Many people had never seen events such as these so being able to have visuals along with the news was something new and made more of an understanding for the audience. Also the visuals were an attraction to many people as, at the time, it was an incredible movement in technology. However being able to see tragic events such as the death of Emily Davison would be a shock to many people as there was no censor on what was shown when this was first introduced.

When the newsreels first began, they were silent, as were all films in that era. It wasn't until 1928 that sound was introduced into the news. Until then, the news was simply footage of events with text added over the top or in between shots. These newsreels were screened at cinemas twice a week where members of the public would pay to watch them. Each newsreel would last for about 4 minutes and update the audience on the news from that week.

In 1918, Pathe split and began two separate divisions, Film/Newsreels & Music. This was simply the first step towards what would be more divisions and separate shows covering different aspects. Different divisions continued to be made and by 1930 there were multiple shows such as Pathetone Weekly, Pathe Pictorial, The Gazette and Eve's Film Review, not to mention others.

In 1928, sound was introduced to the newsreels. This added a new level of information to the films and it added realism to them in a way that simply showing visuals didn't do. With the introduction of sound to these newsreels this also meant the shows could have presenters. At first the presenters were only used for voice over, replacing the overlaying text from previous newsreels. The presentation had to be very well spoken as there was no other aspect to it. It wasn't for a while that presenters would appear as a visual on TV. This was a trend that stuck and continues today. Having someone present the news makes it feel more direct to the audience.

It was in 1934 that the first real competition to Pathe News began, BBC News. BBC News was the first new show to be broadcast on television which made news more accessible and made less reason to go to the cinema to see the news. Pathe Newsreels continued until the 1950's when they were discontinued and no longer shown in cinemas in the UK. BBC News began to take over, however they weren't always a visual news show.

BBC News started as a radio show in 1922 and, despite a lot of negative criticism on the product, progressed it's way towards starting it's own news operation in 1934. This progression continued until 1948 when BBC News started their own Television Newsreel show which is when it became real competition to other news broadcasters. 2 years later a Children's Newsreel show was started and aired weekly.

Both these news shows continued for years, BBC still being on today and the children's newsreel progressed into Newsround in 1972, which also is still ongoing today.

Since Newsround was made specifically for children, to make news more accessible to the younger generation, it make sure every aspect of the show is aimed at that audience. This comes in the form of their logo and graphics, for example. These graphics are a lot less 'sophisticated' than the main BBC News and more bright and colourful to appeal to kids. On top of the Graphics, music is another aspect tailored towards the younger age group. The music is more upbeat than most mainstream news shows.

The presentation is very simplified compared to mainstream news. The the way the presenter speaks is aimed at children and is therefore slower and they use a more child like vocabulary to make the news understandable to kids.



As time went on Newsround continued and is still going today. It made it's way onto CBBC, the BBC channel designed for kids, in 2002. Many aspects of the show stayed the same such as brighter colours, more 'fun' graphics etc. One thing that does seem to change when you compare the 2014 broadcast to the 1972 broadcast is the presentation style. The presenter in the 2014 episode seems as if she is reporting for a normal news show rather than aiming her presentation towards kids. This could be because of a way in which the children who watch Newsround have progressed. Other than the presentation and updated graphics, the show follows the same format.

Unit 37: Presentation Techniques for Broadcasting - Task 4 - Evaluation

The Ufilms Oscars Rundown came to an end on the 2nd March and I think that it's been a very successful experience. We aimed to film and distribute daily episodes for 2 weeks straight pre-Oscars and post-Oscars, which we did with only a couple of issues.

This project required a huge amount of team work and cooperation amongst the group which I believe we managed to achieve. We were able to film most of the episodes as scheduled (except for a few issues that couldn't be helped) and we were able to rotate crew roles for everyone and people were able to stay back or spend a little extra time on shoots to help each other, which is essential for a team to be successful. Our communication was great, organising filming, editing and upload ahead of time and even when things did go wrong, we were able to communicate and come up with solutions.

As for my personal presentation, I think this also went very well. Alongside Kane I was able to present myself as a confident, natural host for our show. I feel I was able to achieve all the aspects of my presenting style that I was hoping for, drawing specific parts from different inspirations. Our episode and our presentation got good feedback from teachers and other members of our Ufilms audience who had watched the video.

Watching both my episodes back, I am able to say that I'm happy with my presentation and think I did a great job myself. Kane & I worked very well together as a presenting duo. We were able to work mostly unscripted and still create an interesting discussion for the audience to watch. The only thing I would change about the filming process would be our time keeping as we ended up filming for a very long time and had to cut out a lot of good footage to keep it at a reasonable length.

In summary, we created a successful channel with mostly professional standard videos which is a success, not only for the assignment, but for the business aspect in Ufilms as well.

Unit 37: Presentation Techniques for Broadcasting - Task 2 - Planning/Research

Group Research


In the week before we began filming The Ufilms Oscars Rundown to upload to our YouTube channel we gathered as a group and started the schedule filming and upload dates.

We all decided on which subject we would each cover, the majority of us getting into pairs. For example, Kane and I decided we would do a video on our predictions for the 2017 Oscar winners. Once everyone had their subject. we also had to think of a follow up subject that would fit our original idea. This was because the filming was set over 2 weeks, pre-Oscars week and post-Oscars week. Kane and I decided that our post-Oscars follow up video would be reactions to the winners and discussion about the night.

Everyone decided on the subjects for their two episode and we began to schedule the order. We first decided on the uploading order and then sorted out which order the episodes would be filmed in. We decided multiple episodes would be filmed on the same day, ready to be uploaded when we needed them. For example, you can see on the scheduling sheet, we decided Chloe & Jordan's video would go out on the YouTube channel on Thursday however it would be filmed at some point on Monday or Tuesday along with another 3 episodes.

Pre-Oscars

Before Kane & I filmed our pre-Oscars video on Thursday, it was important that we did research on this years Academy Awards. As we were doing predictions for the show, I decided to start my research by looking at other predictions and general thoughts on who will win each award. I looked at different articles and tried to look for reports which had less obvious predictions. I also got some facts and info about the Oscars which I could use in the video such as "Only twice since 1981 has the winner of Best Editing not won Best Film"


I also got quotes from some articles to reference in the video such as:

“Hollywood loves nothing more than an industry tale and this glowing, although somewhat surface-level, tale of struggling artists feels perfect for the Oscar. The fact that it's a mostly feel-good movie also gives it the upper hand in a tense political climate. The movie embraces escapism while maintaining a real bittersweetness, and musicals are often Oscar bait—even if La La Land doesn't have the same show-stopping numbers as Chicago or West Side Story. The film also earned a whopping 14 Oscars nominations, which gives us a pretty good indication of its impact.”

      - Emily Zemler, ELLE.com

Kane printed off the nominees and noted down any nominees who'd won Baftas and Golden Globes in that category. We used this to familiarise ourselves with the people nominated and it helped us when filming as we could check it along with out notes.

As we planned to use the TV in our episode, so we could have graphics to refer to and help our presentation, I had to design the graphics we would use. This took some time but we were able to do more with our presentation by including this. I gathered the posters for all the films in each category and made a slide show with a slide for each award.

 

Post-Oscars

For the post-Oscars episode we had a lot less preparation for planning and research. I decided I would stay up for the Oscars so one of us had seen the entire show and had a better view of what happened instead of just catching up on highlights. During the show I took notes and tweeted about the shows events on the Ufilms Twitter account. This meant I had a better insight into the show and more to offer when presenting our episode.

Similarly to the pre-Oscars show, Kane printed out the winners of each award so we could use the sheet as notes during filming.