WINOL: Week 5 Review

This week I knew I would be presenting the news. It seems to be an unwritten rule in WINOL that the person presenting does not do a full video package, but instead does an OOV (Out of Vision-pictures with the presenter speaking over the top.)

My story involved Joy Carter (Vice-Chancellor of the uni) signing up to an open letter to the Government in an attempt to persuade them not to change immigration rules for foreign students. This is quite an important story in education as many universities rely on income from foreign students.

I interviewed the head of the International student society as part of this but decided against using it as no strong answers were given. I was also supposed to interview the university's foreign student officer but she cancelled on me after her boss told her not to speak to the press. So my OOV only consisted of shots of the uni again. I did try to be quite innovative this week; I took shots through flowers and shots of reflections in order to make the uni look more interesting.

On the day there was some confusion as to who whould be presenting what as Katy also thought she was presenting news. I settled the problem by saying I would present sport if the managing director (Karen) guaranteed me another chance at presenting news after Easter. This felt like my first real deal within the newsroom environment.

Part of the job as presenter is scripting, writing links etc. I would have to write a script for an OOV of a streaker at a local football game. I managed to work the pun “bare-faced cheek” into the script, and although it was massively cheesy I think it worked well. Thank to Jake Gable and Gareth Messenger for help with the scripting (having been on sport all term they know more about the local teams than I do).

I think the presenting went quite well for a first go. I only stumbled over one word and that was a double-barrelled name in a long list of names. I must admit to being quite nervous beforehand but once the cameras were rolling that all disappeared. I think I came across quite naturally on screen although I could have relaxed my posture a little and given my eyebrows a bit of a rest!

I also spent much of the week helping Sam shoot his story. His story involved a protest by mums against the closure of their Sure Start centres. We took two cameras down to the protest and got some superb footage, managing to interview the head of Hampshire County Council, a man who manages a budget of over £1Billion.

Sam's package was brilliant this week, he did really well editing it. I'm sure he won't mind me saying I came up with his outline about the centres floating away as he cut to a shot of a baloon floating away. It may have been a cheesy line but I think it worked in this situation and didn't step over the line into cringe worthy. It was perfect for local TV.