Welcome Back!
Hello and welcome back to my blog and the beginning of my second year at university! Now that the summer break is officially over its time to knuckle back down to begin this year's challenges and projects.
So the beginning of this year consists of a different layout compared to the first. Instead of focusing on just one project, we have been assigned to complete two projects at once. These two projects are 'digital news production' and 'fictional adaptation'.
So what exactly are these two projects about? Below I will explore what exactly the project consists of and giving a brief into explaining what they are.
Digital News Production
Digital news - what is it? Judging from its name, you can gain an idea that this project will be exploring the way factual and important media is portrayed for us to see via news reports. It consists of combining and showing us these conventionally 'important' issues of the day to our eyes, where its relevance like wise to other media platforms is dependant on its genre and what certain audiences want to see. For example, those who prefer to seek 'sport' news would watch Sky Sports news, whereas others who wish to seek global or national latest news would watch BBC or ITV news.
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| Alaska reporter Charlo Greene - maybe not a good example of a news reporter as she swears and quits her job on air! |
So after understanding what digital news is, our project's main aims are to SHOW news - not just explain what is happening, but using a visual approach by showing what actually is being told. This in a way is vital as you need a critical understanding of what digital news, as well as applying creativity and style - not forgetting understanding the technical side of it as well.
Moving on, our project consists of working in a small group (3 or 4 people) where we have to create our own original online news channel. We have to create and produce content for this channel and has to be on a known channel, such as Youtube or Vimeo. Below are some key points on what this channel must include:
- An original title sequence: This must fit our channel's unique identity - something which is branded
and has its own style.
- The project consists of creating a news package between 2 to 2 and a half minutes long
- A 'live' report: on location recorded live to fit into the specified duration (can include pre-shot)
- Backed up by written explanations and analysis (shown on my blog)
Continuing on from the written explanations, we have also been assigned to write a critical essay of at least 1500 words. This essay is based on a comparison of two main evening news programmes (such as BBC or Sky) which have happened on the same day. This will evaluate the conventional differences and similarities between the programmes - to help to show my understanding of news conventions.
This project lasts around 12 weeks to complete. Im quite excited to begin this project! It should be interesting to create and develop our own news channel and more importantly trying to make it stand out more than all the others. I feel quite confident as well knowing that I have experienced filming actuality and generally casting and inviting people to work with me (i.e. finding a reporter).
Fiction Adaptation
To me my initial reactions for this project seem a bit more scarce than digital news production. However, straight away you can gain that these two projects are very different in terms of its content. This assessment instead explores direction fictional skills into moving image - a basic formula for creating television drama. This project therefore is all about showing what we see and understand about fictional content, and the way we show and develop this.
Likewise to the digital news assessment, this too consists of a portfolio and essay construction (70% portfolio, 30% essay). The essay is based on the exploration of three different essay questions, which are:
„1) Discuss the view that "with a successful adaptation, the original work is transformed into something new and different, although retaining many traces of what it was formerly" with reference to at least one text adapted for broadcast on television.„
2) To what extent is it true that "Adaptations of classic texts enable contemporary audiences to re-visit the past; as such they can be situated within the broader context of postmodern appropriations of history" ? Examine with reference to at least one text adapted for broadcast on television.„
3) In adapting a novel the adaptor inevitably infringes the integrity of the original text – discuss with reference to at least one text adapted for broadcast on television.
On the larger side, the portfolio consists of a short film (between 3-5 minutes) focusing on a selected poem written by a World War 1 poet. Each of our films will be titled 'TBC' and act as an episode. We HAVE to keep the words from the poem and our main task is to SHOW what we think the poem is trying to portray. Additionally we are allowed to add dialogue to our work to help dramatise it however this needs to be confirmed.
Of course, we are allowed to interpret this in our own style and theme i.e. what genre. The words also have to used as a voice over or narrated by a character within the poem.
This project too is around 12 weeks long which makes it seem more challenging and difficult as we have to complete two projects at once!
All in all, this should be very challenging yet interesting to explore. At school I studied english literature which should hopefully give me an edge for the fiction adaptation as I have studied a range of different poets and poems. I feel quite confident with both of the projects but it will be tense to keep on track with two projects at the same time! I will begin to post my initial thoughts and ideas soon after we begin to explore more in depth about the projects.
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