Television by Ida Frank

Unit

"Fiction Adaptation"

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Role in the production

With the development and work of this unit I have not been in any spesific group, as I knew what I wanted to film and achieve would be very doable on my own, as I was not going to reccord anything but atmos-sound on set. Therefore It was basically handeling the camera, and only one person can do that anyway. I was, for two of the shooting days, lucky to have my friend Sunny over, to help out as prod ass and cam ass, which was very helpful and nice. To have someone along with me, and not just traveling about on my own. The roles I have had for this unit has been, cameraop, director, producer, sound, and editor. The time we have had at our disposal, I have made good use of and been structured, organized and efficient.

Actor(s) & Casting

As my chosen poem was about unity, I quickly got the idea that I wanted to involve a lot of different people in the film. In order to show off diversity as well as unity between all human beings, no matter where they are from and what they do. I put out an ad on casting call pro and got hold of an Mandal artist, as well as through Facebook I got in touch with a parkour society at UCLU in London. It took me quite a while to find a dancer, as the ones that came through on CCP, dropped out last minute - and I had to re-schedual for new shooting days and was lucky enough to find a dancer the day before the final shooting day. The graffiti artist was a guy I luckily got to film on the spot in London when asking him. And the girl in the bathroom it was my friend Sunny that got the honours of being, as I wanted to use a" normal" person (not necesserily actor) to portay the rawness and reality. I made the people involved sign consent forms, as to having permission to use the footage for the uni and myself.

Why I chose my poem

The reason I chose the poem "100% by Michael James Parker" was because of how it stood out to me when I read it. It made me feel, and visualise imagery already from the first lines, made me feel connected and engaged in the topic and theme brought up in it. It was also one of the poems I found to be more "normal" in the sense of it not being too abstract, as abstract poetry is not that much my cup of tea - not because I dont understand it, because I know it can all be connated or denotated to reveal meaning. - It is just that there is something that doesnt connect with me if it is to weird or too abstract, in the sense of being too strange.

The goal

The goal with this unit was to research, develop, set up, shoot and edit our own original fiction adaptation film in response to a defined brief. The goal for the adaptation I made, was to fulfill the criteria, as to what an adaptation actually is and consists of. Adaptations are not easy to define, there are many forms - but the most important was for it to explore montage, allowed to be creatively free and able to create something fictional. I also wanted it to consist of different styles, in the sense of filming in both 24 fps and 25 fps, as well as trying out the matrix effect to see how that would turn out.

My experiences

I found this unit to be a lot of fun, and I got to meet a lot of different and inspiring people! It has definitley been a unit and time of term that has challenged and stressed not only me, but everyone out, however I do think we have all learned a lot about ourselves as well as production and time manageing wise. I feel that I have worked really well on this unit, there has been some challenges in terms of acotrs and finding people, but I was able to pull through in th end, and get everything done. I wish we had got more production time, in the sense of finishing with the first "digital news" unit with the critical analysis both st the same time. So that we could have focused only on the fiction adaptation and had that in focus. However, like I said, this stress has contributed to learning more about time management and planning.

Conclusion

When it comes to if the goal has been reached, I want to say that I am very pleased with my finished product and the prep, and research work. I have learned as long as you want something or work hard towards your goals it is definitley acheiveable. It has been a cool experience and I have truly loved working with this unit. I feel that the criteria for the unit have been reached, and that I have managed to contribute positively with this project, and that I have managed to reach the goals with the adaptation. Have definitely achieved the look and style I was going for, and I am very pleased with how it looks. All in all a product I mean answers the assignment, and shows understanding for research, technique, editing tools, writing as well as camera techniques.

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//Image from behind the scenes on shooting day

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1ST SHOOTING DAY - Sunday 27th of November - Mandala Artist
- For my first shooting day I was filming the artist Elena, who is a passionate actor and Mandala artist. She is often inspired by the sea, beaches and light house that used to be where she lived in spain, before she moved to England a couple of months ago. We met up outside of Camden market and walked in the direction of the location I had found prior to filming. We set up for shooting and was lucky with the weather, alotough it did get a bit cloudy and started to dripple at the end of shoot - which made us quickly take down her artwork so it would not be ruined.

- I was lucky to have my friend as assistant this day, Solveig aka Sunny, and she took some behind the scenes shots, as well as camera assisted and helpted out with set and the shooti in general.

- The shoot was done in about an hour, and we went to the market afterwards to have some lovley food and ended up talking about loads of interesting topics about the actor and television/film industry.

2ND SHOOTING DAY - Tuesday29th of November - Bathtub scenes

- On the second shooting day my friend - Sunny, was kind enough to step in and be the "girl in teh bathrom character" We started filming about 12.00/13.00 and filmed for about an hour to two, unfortuntly the light started dissapairing, as well as we could not use the ceiling light in the bathroom as it messed up the screen frequenses when pointing the camera anywhere in the room.

- Therefore we had to make use of the day light, whch turned out to be a bit of a challenge when it started dissapairing, but we did get everything shot in the end. However, some of the shots resulted in a bit of a lower production value because of this.

- I feel Sunny did a great job, and I did not reallt want a professional actor for this part, as I wanted to keep it true to how a "normal" person can have it, and what we all at some points go through in life, and how we are affected by social media.

3RD SHOOTING DAY - Wednesday 30th of November - Parkour

- The third shooting day I went film the UCLU´s Parkour group/society , I contacted them via Facebook and agreed to meet up with them outside Kings Cross station. I met some of them at the meeting spot early and got to know one of the boys that would become one of the main "characters"/artists we meet.

- Filmed for a good couple of hours before the darkness invaded the shoot, we lost daylight, the police came to tell the parkour team they could no longer perform wehere we were, so I decided to leave not long after that.

- I attempted to do a matrix experiment, where I marked up spots with bright orange grip tape on the ground, in a half arch/half circle. Got Theo to perform the same trick on the wall, however it got darker and darker as we shot this, as well as the other people of the group constntly was in the way or about and around training. I think it still might look alright, even though I´d be only able to use half the arch in the final edit because of the darkness.

4TH SHOOTING DAY - 11th of December - Graffiti, Parkour, Dancer & Construction work

- I was looking for "The House of Vans" (indoor skatepark/house in London), as I stubled upon a underground passage tunnel, where in one of the ends there was this open area with daylight whereas different graffiti artists were expressing themselves and creating artwork on the walls.
as I hadnt had any luch with skaters yet, I decided to ask one of them if I could film him, and luckily he agreed. So I ended up switching him out with the use of skaters completely.

- I had to, on this day, go out to Tring - towards Northampton to meet up with Theo again, as when daylight suddenly dissapaired on the previous shoot, I had totally forgot about the sparkler and looking into camera part. So I went out there to film that, as well as we shot some additional footage where he did a couple of tricks.We spent about an hour doing this, before I went back to central london, to film the dancer.

- Next on the schedual for that day was meeting up with the dancer I was lucky to get hold of as all the others had dropped out or was not able to do the days I suggested and offered. It was a coincidence wich dance-form I ended up having in my film, as I was open to any style of dance as I simply wished to present the arform of dance in general. We filmed for about an hour on the Southbank skatepark and turned out quite nice location and colour wise, compared to the still and plain tunnel I was originally filming in. We had a nice meal after filming, talking about the industry and both our different projects.

- Throughout the day I kept finding construction work and buildings that I took snapshots off, and decided to fillm that on the go, as I couldnt really predict where there would be building work and constructions going on. Luckily there was quite a few on the soutbank and in the area around there.

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Call sheets - For this production I did not end up using call sheets, for the very reason that I could not possibly film everything all at once. Mainly because there was never a day all the different "characters" was able to do. It was much easier and stress-friendly in a limited time to give messages and details directly and promptly - whereas not to be delayed by having to change a call sheet. Normally I would have used a call sheet, but I had to take this project as an exeption, because of the time limits, people equipment hires, drop outs as well as to be as efficiant as possible.

//Images screengrabs from Raw footage

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100%

"Meet the very few, the band of brothers and sisters, stepping into the urban world of united expressionism revealed thorugh art and creativity. In a glimpse we see rebellians, copers and people just like you and me, some labled, some not, consistently pulsating with rawness and passion."

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As the planning and preperation for the fiction adaptation unit has gone on, so has some of its structure and story changed and developed further. Beneath you will find a couple of raw footage images that each goes with a verse of the poem from the footage, non colour-corrected, accompanied by an explenation of the story I wish to tell through visual images adapting the poem, 100%.

First off to establish and introduce to the film we see construction sites, cranes and buildings, as well as we are on a train. The combination of cranes and construction of new builings, re-construction of old builings represents urban as well as a sense renewing. I wanted to convey the contrast and the massive impact construction has on us as people as well as on the planet and earth on which we construct upon. I feel that the train is a nice way to in a sense show movement, this can be connotated to the way of movement towars a new era, a more modern world, an understanding of what urban is and means, as well as arts. It is a nice way of leading and almost taking the audince with me into the short story I am trying to tell.

In the next verse we meet the "girl in the bathroom", she represents the broken, shattered or even depressed. She is in a state where, to her, the passion she had doesnt matter to her any more. Whatever happened to her to make her lose her spark could be several things, some of them could be that she was assulted, missunderstood or not appreciated.
This has led her to the point of where she is no longer completley herself anymore, she is about to give up. That is what makes her bathe with her clothes on, and smoke cigarettes. She is a picture of how society can put too much pressure on individuals, whereas she feels she is not pretty enough, she doesnt like herself and struggles to see herself in the mirror as well as to look at her own body - thereas also why she is bathing with clothes.
When it comes to the location, I chose the particualr bathroom because I felt it would be exactly what I wanted. I wanted a prestine, clean, pure and almost sterile in the sense white. Of representing the good, the clean slate every induvidual have before we are tinted, scarred and wise. I wanted this as a contrast, as the girl represents the dark, the lost, the overly tinted - where the colours and dark has started to transpire outside of the lines. Like when a kid colours outside the lines of the drawing in a colouring book. - I wanted her to wear a black t-shirt to represent her heavy mind, and contrast all the white and clean surfaces.
I also decided to cut down on the amount of footage I will be using in the final film, as the shoot with the flowers is a bit too much and quickly makes it too much of a cliche. (at least they became some cool snapshots)

The girl is the first person we see and meet as she is the first one we need to get attached to in a sense, I want the audience to feel the need to want to help her. She sits on the edge of the bathtub looking at a [The Sparkler: represents the spark and passion, of all the people we meet] burn up. At the very last she blows out her own spark, as to represent that she will forever be lost without the passion, and without the spark.

Location - Maidstone, Kent

In the following verse I chose to put in a contemporary dancer, whereas I wanted the dancer to reflect and represent everything going on in the "girl in the bathroom´s head. Therefore we have a cutback between the clips of the girl in the bathrub and the dancer moving around in this verse. I also wanted to present dance as a urban form of expressing oneself, as an artistic artform.
For this part I originally wanted to use smoke grenades as to achieve a cool and artistic look, as well as the smoke would represent the "girl in the bathroom´s" clouded mind. The smoke would have been white, as to show purity and the light not reaching through anymore. However, I found it to be a too big hassle to get permissions and contact fire departments as it would have been done in a very public place with loads of people. And, very sadly, decided to not go through with this idea.
Location wise, I was originally going to shoot these scenes in a walkpath tunnel on the southbank, but as we got there the amount of people out and about on a sunday, as well as a balloon stand had set up in the middle of the tunnel I had to re-think my choices. As the skaters I was, originally, going to film at the southbank skatepark did not want to be involved in the project, I thought filming the dancer there in stead would be a great idea. Mainly as dancers often are portrayed in clean and elegant evironments, I wanted to show the true spark and passion, visually through seeing the urban graffitti and street art on the walls.

Location - Southbank skatepark, London

In the next verse the audience meets a new person, which this time an artist, drawing beautiful mandals. I had the idea of displaying the work of the artist on strings of thread, representing how vulnerable you are as an artist/creative person. Your work is hanging on a line, so easy to bend, scratch or even cut in two by others, the risk of putting yourself out there and presenting your work - always with the risk of it being torn apart.
Still, you do those things as an artistc person, you make and create and try not to let yourself break. Which is what I try to portrait, how the passion and spark can be so intense, that the interest and passion you have for what you do weigh up for the fact that what you produce is at risk of breaking you.
In this part I wanted to go and find a very creative place, still with a sense of urban atmosphere. Therefore I ended up finding this really cool and quiet side street right by the busy and artsy markeds in Camden. I feel that Camden is a place that very well presents diversity, art and creativity, so what better place could there be than here for an artist?

Location - Camden, London

For the following verse there was originally supposed to be skaters at Southbank skatepark, but as noen of them unfortunatley wanted to be a part of the project, even though I went to "House of Vans"- indoor skate house as well, I had no luck with finding a skater.
Originally I was also supposed to film a musician performing and reading out/singing the poem, but unfortunatly he dropped out on me on shooting day, and did never answer any emails, calls and I never heard from him again.
However when I was walking aorund Waterloo/Southbank to find House of Vans, I found this "underground" passage where there were several street artists creating graffitti/street art work.I found this very cool and got permission from one of the artists to film him as he worked.
He did not want to be filmed as in portrait like I had done with all the other people I had filmed, but I dont see that as a bad thing. I rather see it as a positive thing, because it is something that represents him as an artist in a bigger way, as well as the artform of street art itself.
In this part I originally wanted to use smoke grenades as to achieve a cool and artistic look, as well as the smoke would represent faith, confidence and stability. The smoke would have been blue, as it slows human metabolism and produces a calming effect, trying to "reach through" to the girl calm her down and show belief that everything will sort out. However, I found it to be a too big hassle to get permissions and contact fire departments as it would have been done in a very public place with loads of people. And therefore, very sadly, I decided to not go through with this idea.

Location - Waterloo / Southbank, London

Not as the last verse in the poem, but as the last verse we are introduced to someone new is mainly one guy performing parkour, also with his group of friends / parkour club members.
I chose to find a groupd doing parkour as I find it to be a very cool artform to express oneself, as well as it is a bit more high speed and action filled - compared to alot of the other arforms I display and protray in this piece.
I decided to shoot parkour in 25 fps as to be able to slow down the footage in post production, to be able to play around with the speed and look of the shoots, in post. I also tried out doing the matrix effect as an experiment, taking several shots of the same movement in a half circle / arch, which I think might look quite cool, different and artsy.

Location - Kings Cross neighbourhood, London & Tring

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ROUG CUT

At the rough cut stage, I only had half of the footage to show and present to Helen and Sam Creamer, as due to the dancers, musician and skaters dropping out. However I did put the whole sequence together in the right order with the poem I had recorded with my own voice with a zoom recorder, as well as I put in titles telling where the the footage would go once shot.

Feedback:

- Bathroom scene; too little light causing

low quality footage in some of the shots

- Batroom scene; "kill your darlings"- too much footage,

a bit overloaded. Quality over quantity.

- Bathroom scene; can quickly become to clishe, be aware of this.

- Bathroom scene; make sure to maintain the quality

from the sparkler shot throughout the rest of the film,

as well as in the new footage you are going to film.

- Helen; want to see the unity, diversity and etnisity

through seeing more different faces, old people. Scared we

will not meet enough people to represent the vast diversity.

- Sam; likes the sparkler idea, and idea in general.

- Looks really nice.

Have to work on:

- Getting good, high quality footage,

for the remaining shooting / filming.

- Creating unity through getting more faces,

and people in front of the camera.

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FINE CUT

At the fine cut stage I had retrived the rest of my footage, unfortunatley due to people dropping out and I had to re-hire equipment. I did not manage to film the very rest of the footage I needed before Sunday 11th of December, two days before the fine cut viewing + critical analysis hand in on hte following Tuesday. Therefore I did not have much fine cut for the viewing, Helen did suggest that I could change the viewing day. I felt confident enough in the footage and how the edit will turn out to show Helen and Sam the footage I had in order to get a pointer of the direction way I would need to go with it in the edit. - I did take in to consideration the feedback from the rough cut and had toned down the bathroom scene, cut out footage and tried to make it better. None of the footage was yet colour corrected at the fine cut point.

Feedback:

- Great footage, loads of variety

- Crisp and clear footage

- Bathroom scene; Still shots that

lowers the qualityand prodoction value.

- Make sure to pick out the best of the best shots,

in order to gain a high value production.

- Good idea regarding sound design, where

the sounds will not match the footage as in

order to contribute to contrast and underpin the

montage style going on.

Have to work with:

- The sound design

- Making sure to chose the right/best clips

and footage to work with.

- Colour correct

- As not much footage of diversity and faces

was captured, it is even more important to dispose the

time the best way possible. By choosing to use the best imagery,

to display diversity through the clips you have.

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//Images from

raw footage

behind the scenes

//Sources of information

http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-meaning.html

Online Critical Analysis of the Creative Project

Student Yak

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Name: Ida Frank

Student ID: 1507738

Word Count: 3047

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………… 3

2. CONCEPT / BRAND DEVELOPMENT ……………………………... 3

3. AUDIENCE RESEARCH ……………………………………………… 4

4. PLATFORM RESEARCH ……………………………………………... 5

5. NEWS STORY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ………………. 6

6. SCRIPTING AND STORYTELLING ………………………………… 7

7. CRITICAL REFLECTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS ………………… 8

8. ILLUSTRATIONS LIST ………………………………………………. 9

9. BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………………………. 9

INTRODUCTION

We live in an digital age, “the present time, when most information is in a digital form [..]” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2016). This analysis will critically explore the genre of news by examining both established news corporation content and the digital news channel Student Yak, and the episode “Let´s Go Viral”. It will do this by looking at the different elements that can be found in news such as concept and brand development, audience, platforms, presentation, storytelling and development. The report will discuss in what way research from these elements has contributed to influence, as well as to develop the idea and production of Student Yak. Additionally it will thoroughly look at and examine the reasoning behind the decisions made in relation to the production.

CONCEPT / BRAND DEVELOPMENT

“If news is to be worthwhile, it should accord to something we value” (Chapman, 2009: 59) which as a brand was something we took into deep consideration while creating our concept. While developing the brand of Student Yak we knew, as students ourselves, that we had to develop a concept that we would value and believe would be worthwhile our time, in order to know that our target audience would be interested. “Student Yak aims to find entertaining news and views from all corners of the internet, and bring it to [..]” students (student yak, 2016) We wanted our potential audience to be engaged in and with the content, as well as to be able to relate to and feel connected to the channel and each other, as an audience. In order to achieve these goals, we decided to incorporate humor and a lightness to our news, as well as we had to find out how our content could be categorized in order to interest and capture the audience´s attention. After doing research I found that our channel uses the ‘News as Infotainment’ method to convey its content. This is a “type of media which provides a combination of information and entertainment” (Demers, 2009), that makes it easier for younger audiences to find the news channel relatable, useful and fun.

In the constantly evolving media and news circus of the digital age we live in today, a channel´s branding is crucial for its reputation, recognition factor, affiliation and furthermore its credibility in order to as Chapman states “underpin their reliability and impartiality” (Chapman, 2009: 219). One of the digital brands that contributed to inspire to some of the choices made for Student Yak, is The successful LadBible (fig. 1). This channel has a very minimalistic logo design and aesthetically pleasing colour palette consisting of the colours white and black that contributes to convey the brand´s name in a clear and precise way and strengthen the credibility of the brand. Influenced by The LadBible´s simple colours, our digital news channel Student Yak uses a colour palette consisting of three colours – white, orange and purple (Fig. 2). Whereas the colour white represents purity, simplicity and has a positive connotation. Orange highlights, catch attention as well as produce energy that contributes to mental activity and which makes the colour highly accepted amongst young people. Purple represents ambition, independence and creativity. The two colours, orange and purple, was carefully selected as they are complimentary colours (Fig. 3) and combined the darker shade of purple evoke and can cause frustration, while the bright shade of orange engages the audience mentally and affects the audience of young people subconsciously to engage and get involved with the content, news cases and themes brought up on the channel.

Fig. 1 Ladbible Logo (2015)

Fig. 2 Student Yak Logo (2016)

Fig 3. Complementary colour palette (2016)

Fig. 4 Student Yak Logo / Banner design (2016)

The overall style and design of Student Yak is created and developed to be suitable for a young audience, it is not supposed to be a formal news show, in contrast to traditional television news channels such as BBC or ITV, known for their simplicity in colours used to gain trustworthiness. – Student Yak´s simplicity but boldness in colour choices with wild pattern to engage a young audience, whereas it is a more relaxed genre of television in a new era of the digital age.

AUDIENCE RESEARCH

The Television broadcast show and online YouTube channel “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” has been of big importance to our content development, production value as well as storytelling style. In particular the two-episode series, published in April and May this year 2016 called “Topical Waffle” – “Topical Waffle is a web show news squish that covers everything [..] Politics, Sports, Movies, TV” (YouTube, 2016). Whereas it has a humorous take on presenting news, adding visual effects as well as having a well planned sound design to add on to and emphasise the content and its ridiculousness. The target age group for this television show would estimated to be between 16-50 years old. However, when it comes to Student Yak, although it was decided during the creation of the channel and brand that the target age group for our production was 18-30 year olds. The content created and channel design that was carried out, resulted in being rather more suitable for a younger audience, 15-20 year olds, as of the logo design, webpage and way the script and humour was presented on screen. Looking at Jimmy Fallon´s YouTube channel with 12,6 million subscribers it is clear that it can be stated that young people in this age range do pay attention to news and engage with it, as long as it is offered to them through the right platforms and the topics are interesting and relevant. A general look into the YouTube world on some of the biggest YouTubers, such as Zoella (11,3 mill subs, YouTube, 2016), PewDiePie (50,5 mill subs, YouTube, 2016) and nigahiga (18,8 mill subs, YouTube, 2016) reveals by looking at their amount of subscribers, views and comments that a young audience, such as students, like to engage in topics brought up by public personalities – whereas they talk about news the audience have requested or that the YouTubers know the audience will like. Which confirms that students desire and want news content, but perhaps not in a typical and traditional standardized news program kind of way, potentially rather customized with the viewer in mind. As well as they have a saying in what is brought up, and in that way they contribute to set the news agenda.

With Student Yak as our news brand, the way we went about to create our content was by choosing our own stories and setting the news agenda by taking in to consideration our own interests, demands, needs and looking at the topics we feel is not talked about enough or maybe not even mentioned at all yet and bring these into focus. However even though we as a news channel are entitled to set the agenda for our own production, we wanted to step into the new way of creating news agenda, by including the audience in the decision making of what is important to them. To get to know what they want to see, we set up a Twitter account, a Facebook account, YouTube Channel and a website. As we wanted to connect with, as well as to create a sense of unity and relationship with the viewers, encouraging them to get involved, share stories and contribute to shape what is important to them, to us and to others.

PLATFORM RESEARCH

“The vast majority (90%) of 16-24 year olds own[..]” (Ofcom, 2015) a smartphone as of today, whereas this with super fast 3 and 4G allows for content to be available to the user, at any time they wish to access it. This has become a game changer when it comes to the television industry and broadcasters in general, as a lot of them gradually as a result of the continuously evolving technology develops, have had to start to adapt their content to fit on social media platforms. To do is crucial as in order to connect with their audiences, and . Our TV viewing habits are changing – “Most 16-24 year olds are watching on-demand and catch up programmes on computers and smartphones rather than on a TV connected to a set-top box.” (Ofcom, 2015) which tells us that the way in which the audience is now able to customize their own television viewing will have a large impact on how we not only consume but will have to create content. However, “[..]despite the growth in online viewing, TV still reaches the overwhelming majority of people. Over 90% (92%) watch TV each week, down slightly from 93% in 2013.” (Ofcom, 2015) Which confirms that Television will still be around, but that mainly the form of how and on which platform we consume it from might change completely with time.

Through the research conducted it was found that in order to reach the target group, students, the channel would have to adapt and truly pay attention to the branding, platforms and in what way entertainment would affect the interest from the students. Due to the fact of a constantly evolving and educated audience, all used to the typical structures and styles of news reporting the element of entertainment is key.

With YouTube as one of the main platforms for Student Yak, there is clearly an advantage as YouTube has “[..]over one billion views each day, and over 300 hours of video uploaded every minute.” (YouTube, 2016) Being able to reach out to audiences all around the world at the same time, and as our production is presented in English, we are able to connect to a much broader audience in contrast to if we only had the website in UK, or the production was presented in a different language, like for example German. It would only reached a limited number of audience and been restricted to a smaller audience even though the platform is the same. YouTube has become somewhat a global phenomena compared to the start in 2005, now “with 95% of the global internet population watching worldwide in 76 different languages” (YouTube, 2016) resulting “With over one billion views each day.” (YouTube, 2016) It has in other words become more and more important to interact with the audience on a completely different level compared to early on in the television industry, not only is the platform changing, content and interest areas – but the audiences are constantly getting experienced, demanding and intelligent. It takes more to impress, and the expectations are higher as the audience are no longer baffled by films such as “La Sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumière” (“Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory”) at an industrial meeting in Paris in March 1895; [..]considered to be the very first motion picture.” (History, 2014)

The negative side and aspect to the different social media platforms now available, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Vine, YouTube etc. In the sense that “It lowers the motivational level of the people, especially of the teenagers and students. They mainly rely on technology and the internet instead of learning the practical knowledge and expertise of the everyday life.” (Techbead, 2015) And when it comes to the industry “it is also more costly to keep up with the ever-changing technology and may require the creation of new strategists who can think and create digital.” (Smallbuisness, Chron, 2016)

PRESENTATION

When it comes to news, despite platform no matter where it is broadcast from or published to, the way it is presented is massively crucial for several reasons, such as credibility, engaging the audience and when first captured the attention of the audience – being able to keep them there, in their seats in their very own homes. How the news is presented is also important as to getting the points and information across to the audience. Location wise TV News are most often filmed inside studios, either with in real life set design, virtually created studios when working with green screen or a combination of the two.

“if there are no pictures, ... there is no story” (Chapman, 2009: 98), therefore with Student Yak we wanted to make sure that with the use of graphics on screen, along with picture and video referencing it would contribute to tell the story in a better way. Compared to if we were to only have our presenter in front of camera, without anything happening and engaging the audience. In association with the internet, we have something called meta element. The meta element provides information about the web page and can be used by search engines to help categorise the page correctly. They are tags that are used in HTML as well as XHTML documents to provide structured metadata. How the metadata is set up has an effect to how the rules on search engines read them and rank the different websites. Meta elements in film and television production, means that the characters step out of the action and addresses the audience directly. Just like the internet uses metadata to step out and detect using the tags to see what is most popular amongst websites, as well as to rank them. One of the important things with this, is that the presenter is stepping out of the action and directly, as well as actively addressing the audience. Additionally, as a brand, we will use our web page to collect important information from the audience. In the form that they will give us feedback and we will be in direct contact with them collect "metadata" on what it is that they care about and want to see the content of.

SCRIPTING AND STORYTELLING

With the vast coverage of viral videos online and the internet content relevant to Student Yak, channelled and broadcast out to a younger audience, students, there was challenges on how to stay original and stand out amongst all other online content available. Therefore we decided to look at what we find interesting and engaging that gets brought to us through social media everyday. Viral videos, “A viral video is any clip of animation or film that is spread rapidly through online sharing.” (Techopedia, 2016) Which resulted in wanting to find out “How to go Viral”, for instance “television has always had commercials, but social media and the Internet have changed the way they’re presented. For instance, companies are always trying to come up with commercials that’ll turn into viral videos on YouTube.” (Social Media Explorer, 2014) We therefore decided to look into this, and try to go viral ourselves, as there is a constant demand or desire for fun and ridiculous viral content.

We explored reporting style on other big channels such as Late night starring Jimmy Fallon, BBC, CNN, ITV and NRK (Norwegian broadcasting) as to how we in the best, and most engaging way possible could present our news for the set target audience. We ended up gathering inspiration from all of the different channels, and combined with the theory gained through the unit we set up a structure as to the news genre requirements consisting of an introduction, package – a step by step guide to how to go viral, interview with a YouTuber relevant to our topic and platform, live-piece where we tried to go viral ourselves live with a water bottle challenge, pieces to camera – meta, GFX and conclusion combined with a round up and informational ending. We chose to have two presenters, one main presenter and one co-presenter for the live piece, it was an important decision we made to use students as presenters as well as the contestants in the water bottle flip challenge were students, as we felt this best represents and conveys our content out to the audience in a believable and trustworthy way.

However one of the few aspects from the production that slowed down pace and lowered engagement and interest, was the set up interview with local YouTuber, Kaite Joslin. The interview set up was rather standardized, with set questions not following up on “in the moment” answers leaving the chat between presenter and interview object more formal and uptight than sought for. It may also not have been paid good enough attention to the interview as a whole, and instead have created the interview in the sense of it being a necessity to fulfil the criteria of being a news channel. Not reflecting on how the interview set up at least could have been more engaging, revolutionary or fun. Affecting the overall fast pace, and snappy edit of the rest of the episode, in a negative way. However there waere steps taken in post production in order to weigh up for this. Suitable fast paced music was added as well as, on screen pop-up images accompanied with interesting sound design. Nevertheless, thanks to the massive amount of research into viral videos and how people becomes internet sensations over night, as part of the assembly of the script, reflects and portrays the channels credibility, value and quality.

CRITICAL REFLECTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

The positive results of the channel production is due to inspiration from and research into other student channels or content, as well as looking at generic news channels and deciding what to, and what to not take on board for the Student Yak Channel development has been key for its success and final result in production value.As the audiences are getting more sophisticated in the sense of themselves controlling what to watch when, and wherever they want. In relation to that, Student Yak does fit into the criteria of digital news channels, and programs. Adapting to the changing media circus basing itself out from platforms reachable and popular for the target audience. Additionally Student Yak being a new take on news by the use of humour, and relevant topics for students, it does make use of concept, branding, audience, platform, presentation and structure contribute to set the agenda for students, as well as having a contemporary take on the news genre itself. By being broadcasted on digital platforms, and conveying news stories important and interesting with the audience in mind and and also considered as new media. It does not use the exact standardized traditional television news, but manages to contain a somewhat similar structure and fulfils the criteria of a digital news channel.

ILLUSTRATIONS LIST

Fig 1. Ladbible Logo (2015) [Logo] At: https://www.facebook.com/LADbible/photos/a.199099086803956.50560.199098633470668/2876158332431338/?type=1&theater (Accessed on 30.11.2016)

Fig 2. Student Yak Logo (2016) [Screenshot] At: http://studentyak.wixsite.com/studentyak (Accessed on 02.12.2016)

Fig 3. Complementary colour palette (2016) [Image] At: http://thenextweb.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/04/compound.jpg (Accessed on 03.12.2016)

Fig 4. Student Yak Logo / Banner design [Screenshot] At: http://studentyak.wixsite.com/studentyak (Accessed on 02.12.2016)

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