WINOL Reflection - Week Seven

This week didn't go so badly, but only because I again got lucky with my story.

On Monday, I went to the law courts with the hope of blundering in to an interesting court case - this did not happen. Thankfully, Winchester's graduation ceremonies were being held this week so I managed to nab that instead - it was a blessing, seeing as it was so close (the cathedral - a ten minute walk away from the newsroom) and I was pretty much guaranteed some nice pictures.

George went to film with me on Tuesday morning and helped me to get some GVs of the crowds and do vox pops of the students before and after they had graduated. He was much better at holding the camera freehand than I was. Neither of us were particularly great at that, though. I'm not sure how much shakycam made it in to the bulletin, but it wasn't criticised in the debrief, so maybe I got away with it. On Wednesday morning I also back to another ceremony to interview some identical twins who were receiving identical degrees, which had been sponsored by the same employer.

In the debrief, Angus mentioned that human interest is always the best way to play a story; in my original script I hadn't done this and had buried the twins towards the bottom. I should definitely have gotten more footage of the them and possibly even renosed my story to be mainly about them.

My script was sloppy - I settled with saying 'a procession of councillors' instead of finding out who they actually were. Turns out most of them were a bunch of university higher-ups and professors - seeing as it was a story about the uni, I really should have known that. I didn't round my story off either - it went straight from a vox pop to my outcue, which I'll admit was a bit blunt and strange to listen to.

The bulletin as a whole went rather well, I feel. There were no major hiccups even though they had tried something as ambitious as a link from London. Angus did mention that it was a bit dry which I agree with: there were also no pictures that stood out that a viewer would remember. I'm going to try to work on this, because I know for a fact that I still don't approach a story with certain pictures in mind. I feel like I improved with that a little bit this week - I realised that when I'm introducing the twins, for example, that I'd want to just have a posed shot of them together - but I definitely need to work on sequencing.

I'm really looking forward to next week, I've got a few meetings to attend so hopefully I should find something newsworthy.

WINOL Reflection - Week Six

I looked for a story over the weekend, but didn't find anything particularly interesting; I did, however, notice that there would be a sentencing on Monday at court, so George and I went to that instead of the debrief.

The case concerned three young guys who had stolen £34,000 worth of stuff from loads of houses in Farnborough, and £4,000 in laptops from a primary school. We got enough identification - full names, ages, and their addresses by going up to the court clerk and asking to speak to the person who had access to the records.

What I now realise I should also have gotten while I was there was the criminal's exact date of birth, and the names of the officers in charge of the case - I needed this information to ask the police for pictures of the men to use in the bulletin. I had foolishly said that we were just students instead of journalists so we were led in to the public gallery high above the court rather than the press box - it would have been impossible to grab the officers and ask for their names. When I rang the court on Wednesday trying to get that information, I was told they didn't keep it on file - but I'm sure if I had thought to ask anyone on the day then I would have been able to find it out fairly painlessly. Now I know.

I've got a clearer, ever growing list of things that I have to do when I go in to court looking for a story:

• Look at the listings beforehand to get the full names and spellings of the defendants and the judge.
• Go to the clerk afterwards and ask to speak to whoever is in charge of records. Ask for the date of birth. Ask where they come from, and to be even safer get the name of the road. Name, age, location and occupation should give me enough id to make the story viable. Occupation can be found out through the court proceedings - in this case they had all been in custody for the past five months and were unemployed.
• Ask who the officers in charge of the case are so that I have enough information to request photographs of those convicted using this form: http://www.hampshire.police.uk/Internet/news/press/convicted_photo.htm
• Write down everything the judge says as he/she gives their verdict. They have privilege and can say whatever they like to the defendants with impunity, and I can repeat this. If they say anything particularly emotive, then it is a solid way to begin the report.

In the end, my package had to go on the spike because the piece to camera I had done was, while legally sound, a bit unclear and especially dull without any photographs of the criminals. I tried to re-do my PTC to make it a bit easier to follow but the wind ruined the audio and no matter how I tried to edit it together it was unusable. I still exported it and had it ready for production to use if another VT fell through.

I had also agreed to help Ali with his Occupy Bournemouth story on Tuesday. He helped me film my original piece to camera in front of the court in the morning, and we got on the train straight afterwards and made our way to the Town Hall where about ten of the protesters were camped out and more than willing to speak to us. They were very open and friendly and even made us coffee. As Ali was speaking to Becky on the phone, I shot some GVs of the campsite and the placards. They invited us in but said there was no-one available to go on camera at the moment, so we just chatted to them for a while. Many of them had very interesting things to say - unfortunately, those who were coming out with the most quotable material were camera shy.

With permission, we got more GVs of inside the tents. The men we wanted to interview arrived; Ali interviewed one, I interviewed the other. We both ran out of tape just as the council served the occupiers with a court notice which was incredibly unlucky.

I was a bit saddened that I didn't make it in to the final bulletin, but I still feel as if I contributed in finishing my own story and helping with Ali's, so it's not that bad.
Hopefully next week I can get another decent court case and be more on the ball with getting some photos out of the police.