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I really like the brevity of the beginning and it made me think that WINOL's opening sequence and headlines might possibly be a bit drawn out, especially when you consider the fact that our bulletin is typically < 15 minutes long.
Anyway, back to this evening's episode of 5 News:
Today's headlines were:
- Floods. Many flood.
- Foster parents
- Eurovision
There was quite a long sting accompanied by a graphic after the headline for the floods, which confused me as I took it as a cue that the programme was going to move on - but it didn't, it went back to the other two headlines.
A musical sting and a flash is fine but I think the gap in between the first headline and the rest is too long and confusing for the viewer, especially ones as remarkably unintelligent as me.
Over half of the bulletin was dedicated to flood coverage. I'm wondering if this was too much when a lot was made of the fact that there was going to be a 5 News special about the floods to be broadcast at 18:30.
Despite perhaps being too long, most of it was well done: the structure of the segment started with the presenter in vision as she threw out some stats as graphics played out in the greenscreen behind her. This was effective and a device that's used in pretty much every other news channel.
There were also three OBs which linked back to reporters who gave updates on the scene with rivers overflowing behind them which was nice to look at. The OBs were fantastic because of the visuals - it was some of the prerecorded packages that let them down.
What I think worked:
Astons/straplines for reporters, not just interviewees. Straplines which included the reporter's twitter account so that viewers can easily directly engage with them.
After thinking about it, I can't fault the decision to dedicate so much of the bulletin to the floods. In terms of pictures there was an excellent range of shots and all of them were extremely visually engaging. It was a pretty good excuse to crack out the helicopter to get shots of the flood damage and there were some excellent GVs of people trudging around in their wellies. Natural sound too was strong in this, with one reporter beginning their VT with water gushing from a pipe. It's also very relevant to their viewers and viewers would definitely be expecting updates about flood warnings and interested to hear from people who have suffered the worst of it. Editorially and visually, it was a good call.
The OOV belt was mostly good. The assault was sensitively handled and although it was just a compilation of shots of the park where the crime happened nothing more could really have been done. The Bank of England governor OOV was concise and I felt like I knew the story.
There was a back anno to the flood special which was great. We've done that a lot in our bulletin this semester and it always works very well.
The Eurovision 'and finally' had two interviews, but apart from that it was all either official or BBC footage of the event itself. I don't think there was any other way to effectively cover it, and the scripting was good at the top of the piece/in the link - it referred to the fact that some people think it's a bit of a joke, but that it's still a national institution rather than treating it super-seriously like I probably might do if I had to write a link for such a package on WINOL.
What I think didn't work:
There's a sweeping jib shot of the presenter when the bulletin returns from a commercial break which would have been nice if she wasn't side on. It's in profile and she's not looking any where near the camera, so it almost looks like there was a mistake in vision mixing. (It obviously wasn't, because someone had to make the conscious effort to move the jib but I wouldn't be thinking about that if I was a casual viewer.)
It's possibly a matter of house style here, so I won't be too scathing. But reporters being unnecessarily in shot is something that seems to be widely scorned by our lecturers, and yet, more often than not, I could see the back of a admittedly very nice head of hair framed in to an interview. It wasn't a device used to patch a cut in the interview - they were just there. I suppose there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that and perhaps it's just a pet hate that has been laboured upon by the journalists teaching us, but it bothered me.
One of the OB reporter's packages was almost entirely composed of shots where the lens of the camera had steamed up. I bet he was gutted. It obviously had happened right at the start of the day and I'm sure the camera crew must have noticed it. It had the unfortunate effect of screwing with some of the lighting and colours of the footage but perhaps the executive decision was made to run it despite not being top quality because of the nature of the story - it's about floods and there's water on the lens, so hopefully the viewer will cut them some slack.
The reporter who covered the foster parent package used some really bizarre effects. There was a black bloom applied to shots she or her crew had taken of close ups of toys (presumably) inside the foster parents house. It just had the overall effect of being quite creepy to look at and gave the impression of a terrible nightmare. Those same shots were used more than once in the VT which I know from experience means she was stuck for pictures. Finally, there were two written statements in the package, both from the actual subjects of the story. If we did that at WINOL it would be argued that there is no story. One of the statements was from an interview the parents did with the Telegraph, so it wasn't even comment they gave to 5 News directly.
The last OOV on the belt was about anti-semitic chants in a West Ham match, but the pictures were just football matches taken from BBC Sport. Including identifiable pictures of people generally chanting would have been clear libel so I can see why they avoided that, but had I been news editor I wouldn't have ran it at all because I don't think it told the story.
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Well, that was a fascinating foray in to criticising the work of people who are much cleverer than I am. I feel like a timid little first year being made to review WINOL all over again.
Until next time.
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