Digital News: Student Night Out Story Progress

Moving on from my previous post about this story, my group and I got together again to go over any plans and ideas which we had.

Although our decisions aren't made yet, it is likely that we are going to need permission to film at a night club if we are going to base a story on student nightlife. Therefore, each of us decided to get in contact with three local clubs: Mojos, Wonderland, and Source Bar.

We got in contact with them via Facebook as we thought it would be easier to get in contact. I emailed Mojos as I know a promoter who works there, Kate contacted Source Bar as she knows the owner there, and Sam contacted Wonderland.

Below is what we each emailed the nightclubs:

Mojos Nightclub

Hey Liam,

I'm currently at my second year at UCA studying television production, and one of the projects i have to do is a news report project. We are focusing our news channel on students and are aiming to do a news report showing the best student nights around Medway/Kent. I was wondering whether we could get an interview from you as well as having permission to film in the club for a short time? We were interested in interviewing you about the whole Frat Friday idea or even filming for one of your Halloween nights, we haven't quite decided yet. But let me know if you would be interested about this and we can give you more information, would help me and my group for our uni project and would help to promote Mojos as well! Let me know what you think.

Many thanks, Sam.

Source Bar

I'm currently studying in my 2nd year at UCA (based in Maidstone Studios) I often go to Source Bar and have gone to many of it's student nights even when it was previously Twisted.
For a recent project at uni we are doing a news report on the best students nights in Kent, with your permission we would like to film possibly half an hour of footage and be in the club approx an hour overall. The other clubs we are hoping to be involve include Tap 'n' Tin in Chatham, Mojo's in Rochester and possibly Wonderland.

Wonderland Nightclub

Hey,

I'm currently studying in my 2nd year at UCA (based in Maidstone Studios) I often go to Wonderland and have gone to many of it's student nights in the past with friends.
For a recent project at uni we are doing a news report on the best students nights in Kent, with your permission we would like to film possibly half an hour of footage and be in the club approx an hour overall. The other clubs we are hoping to involve include Tap 'n' Tin in Chatham and Mojo's in Rochester.

thanks, Sam.

Story Changes

Instead of creating a problematic story (as we were going to say how clubbing could effect your education, etc), we've decided to make this story's purpose purely just for entertainment gratifications. This is mainly because of our target audience: students don't want to watch the news to hear that they should 'stop clubbing' as it could effect their education, etc. Nobody wants to hear something which gives a message telling you to stop something you do for fun!

Therefore instead we want to make the story more comedic and beneficial just for students. Something which they can easily relate to and could even be factual however casual: i.e. watching something which could give them a few tips.

We wanted to focus the story on an issue which all students face - money. This helps to make the story seem more interesting as it is dramatic - the story aims to try and resolve a problem which all students face, making it seem much more relatable and relevant.

Below are some ideas which we came up with as a group:

How to survive a night with a £'x' budget

We discussed on creating a story on an issue which all students face - money. This helps to make the story seem more interesting as it is dramatic - the story aims to try and resolve a problem which all students face, making it seem much more relatable and relevant.

Nonetheless, this survival guide instantly helps to gain some students attention. Everyone would want to learn on the best tips on how to spend little money on a night out. This could include the cheapest pre drinks, drinks at a club, and even the cheapest takeaway after the night out.

In terms of the drink, we could provide information on the average price of a drink and how alcoholic it is, which will allow the students to see which drinks could be the most cheapest yet most alcoholic. We could even create a pros and cons list of each drink (in brief) - anything which may work to try and reinforce this idea of a strict budget on a night out.

5 People on a Night Out

Maybe not your average drunk student...

If you've experienced the nightlife almost anywhere, you will begin to notice stereotypes of people emerging. The always drunk person, the person on the pull, the couple who argue, the person who throws up, and so on. So we thought we could make a good story out of this. We could possibly follow a group of students as they go out for a night and then see whether they fit into these stereotypes.

This would be quite difficult to do however if it worked it could be a really entertaining and relevant story for basically every students.

How to Survive a hangover

This story is more relatable to all young people and generally anyone who has suffered a hangover. We could research the rumoured foods which have been proven to get rid of hangovers, or even try and research types of drink which simply don't give you a hangover.

This could be rather interesting as we could also do an experiment on a number of students, and then see how they feel in the morning. Of course there are some problems with doing this as some people generally may not get hangovers, or someone whom gets them a lot. It is also quite difficult to define what a hangover is, as some people may have different interpretations about them.


Nonetheless, we aim to do the same sort of style which we are doing for our other story. We don't want to look like we are waffling about information, instead we want to keep this entertaining and show what we are trying to do.