Digital News - Scripting workshop with Zoe Sale

Zoe Sale is a professional filmmaker and journalist and has worked in current affairs and factual programming for 12 years. She has worked for the BBC, ITV, ITN, C4, C5 and National Geographic. She has a very successful career.  

 We had a workshop with Zoe on how to write a Digital News script from an article. I worked with Sammi and we were given an article on the RSPCA's call for help with feral cats in London. We had to take into consideration the date of the piece written and then research the piece to find the most up to date information to ensure that our news piece is as accurate as possible. 

We started by researching the definition of 'feral' so that we could get a clearer understanding of what the RSPCA is asking in the article. Feral means; abandoned, once domestic, terrified of human contact and they tends to hiss out in fright. 

 The main points of the article said that 
- The RSPCA doesn't have the capacity or resources to take in stray and feral cats. 
- They ask the public to decide whether the cat is feral or a stray and the way to tell the difference is whether the cat approaches you or not. Feral cats are much more aggressive than strays. 
- Feral cats were being re-homed in the midlands to work on farms in 2014 but this is clearly still an ongoing problem. 
- RSPCA are now appealing to Londoner's to provide shelter for the feral cats in their gardens and sheds to provide them shelter and food.

 From our further research, the organisation Feral Cat Welfare, are no longer taking cats in as they no longer have the room to house them or the funds to keep them. 

 We noticed stories where people had attempted to keep the cats safe and phoned the RSPCA but were told that the RSPCA were not interested. They gave them advice on how to care for the cats and earn their trust but would not come out to help. 

 One home owner had to purchase an animal pen and contain the feral cat to feed it and help the cat earn their new owner's trust. We found out that in the UK alone, there are 9 million strays and 1.5 million feral cats. No wonder the RSPCA are struggling, however by ignoring the problem, the problem will not go away. 

 We then had to think about who we would interview. We decided on talking to 
- A RSPCA correspondent who can justify why they are appealing to the public to help and why they are not doing anything to help.
- Someone who has attempted to re-home a feral cat and how they dealt with it and their opinions of the re-homing process and the support they did or didn't receive. 

 Once we established this we were able to then begin scripting how the story would be told, telling the relevant information. We found it incredibly tricky to make the toppling short and informative as we could make it. It took us many attempts to finally get the right top line for the story. 

 We then had to work out how to lead the story forward as a package and decide on what order to put the separate interviews in. This was also quite challenging as at the start we struggled to decide which interview was the most important to lead on the stories. 

 Here is our script:



I feel that now I have a better understanding of how to create a script after Zoe's help with what should and shouldn't go into a news piece. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Studio Production: Scripting for As Live and VT Productions

Image
A script for an As Live and VT Production, the scripts are very different to that of a film. Below is a guide of how to create a script for an As Live Production.  Layout of an As Live Script There should be two columns: - Left= Shot numbers, camera numbers and shot description. - Right= script, stage instructions, Sound Effects and Graphics.  There are cut lines placed at the end of the word or action at which the cut is to take place.  This allows the vision mixer to the cut the show together with ease.  Adding shots to the script means you need to create a sub shot. For example, Shot 10 would become Shot 10a.  The Camera Operators need to know that you have made a change to the script so that they can add this onto their camera card and be completely aware of what they are doing.  These camera card are provided so that they are fully aware of what it is they need to do for their shots and when to do s...
Read more

Fiction Adaptation: "Being British" by Deanna Rodger

Image
I have chosen to adapt the poem " Being British " by Deanna Rodger.  From my understanding of the poem, it is about the challenges she has faced regarding interracial stereotyping and the struggle to be accepted as a British Citizen of natural birth.  Deanna is a spoken word poet and an international performer. She has had achievements such as being awarded " Elle's " UK " 30 inspirational women under 30 " as well as The Female Lead 's " 20intheir20s " and Cosmopolitan's  " No.1 trailblazing woman ".  She is also a well known poetry grand slam champion and does in fact host her own poetry competitions such as; Chill Pill  and Come Rhyme with me.  Deanna lends out her poetry for educational purposes and evidence of this is seen on her website: https://deannarodger.co.uk/deanna-biography/ I have chosen to adapt "Being British " because I think it will give me a challenge to create a realistic drama out of Dea...
Read more

Production: Producer's Role During Post-Production Research

As I am the Producer for Young & Famous and I am not editing the project, I understand that the Producer takes a step back from the post-production phase.  I have researched into what the Producer's role is throughout this stage as I was unsure if what I was doing was enough.  According to the Creative Skill set; a Producer's role throughout Post - Production is to keep in regular contact with the Director and editor, but to let them harness the footage and create the film.  As the Producer, this is their time to deal with all the finances of the film such as paying actors, marketing and liaising with the distribution companies to sell or exhibit the film and confirming edit or sound changes.  As we are not going to be distributing Young & Famous to big companies to sell, I focused on paying all of the actors their expenses and regularly coming into the edit suit for review meetings with Simon and Andrea.  I...
Read more