WINOL Weeks 7 and 8

WINOL in week six proved to be a nightmare. What made it worse was that we all failed to perform in front of our guest editor, our biggest guest editor of the year, Sky's Rob Kirk.
There was confusion between the news team, sports was unusually disorganised and not one person from production was in until at least 11am on the Wednesday. Rob described the organisation and the running of the bulletin as a "shambles."
That night I sat round Hannah Keegan's, WINOL's very own features reporter and we discussed the day's events. We came to the conclusion that due to the lack of organisation within production and a lack of knowledge from the rest of WINOL in operating equipment in the studio and the gallery, we believed that a day just committed to production would be hugely beneficial to everybody interested. Would you believe it? Just 48 hours later, on the message board, WINOL's week seven had been cancelled in order to partake in a day full of production where everybody involved could understand the equipment and practice and perfect what we would learn.
We did 4 bulletins throughout the day which included changing and practicing roles including presenters, directors plus gallery and studio roles. My first role was to shadow Jon on the vision mixer which at first looked like just a load of confused old buttons jumbled up on a board, then when Jon explained its functions and the idea of doing it correctly at the right time on each screen I became pretty content with it. The second bulletin I took the reins and I became comfortable with the role with no hesitation. If anything it was something I enjoyed doing and I hope to come across again sometime in the near future because I felt confident with it and I felt like it was something I could do really well with even more practice. For the third bulletin we had to go on something else and even though the idea of presenting did appeal to me, I wanted to get to know the equipment in the gallery more so that my experience in there could prove beneficial to future bulletins.
Next I chose to shadow Joey on sound and this looked relatively simple to understand master making sure the audio levels were peaking between 4 and 6 for both presenters and VTs, and making sure that when recording the presenters were muted when VTs were rolling and VTs were muted when presenter or presenters were talking to avoid any errors. Joey seemed to have the hang of it, and in the fourth bulletin with help from Joey and Chanin I did what I thought was a relatively good job. It was a job that requires a lot of attention and understanding though. One lapse in concentration to result in a major mistake so the challenge to make it perfect on first go was always tough but it was a smoothly ran bulletin and for the third and fourth bulletins, I will give a lot of credit to Justina and Charlotte for their directing skills, who in their first tries both seemed calm, confident and organised in what they wanted done in the gallery and in the studio.
I enjoyed week seven. It was a change from the usual routine and I had learnt a huge amount, and it made me want to do well both on news and in the gallery for WINOL. I was intrigued to what I could learn next in there, and despite it being a long day, the decision to run a production day was a decision well made by Chris and Brian!

Week eight ensued and I was full of motivation for this week. We had yet another change in news editor. Due to Claire's plans to journey to Holland in the coming days, we needed a replacement nd who better than Joey Lipscombe. The news team's very own political correspondant was keen to get the team morale up, and get the team working hard to produce a strong bulletin. Despite not finding a story of concrete, the luck I needed came to me at 2pm on Monday. The Silver Hill Project - a £100m development scheme to rejuvinate part of Winchester's town centre. The principle scrutiny meetin was at 4pm on that afternoon and as the only member of the public, I became highly interested in the project. Having taken the names of particular councillors making noticeable contributions to the meeting, I returned home that evening and emailed the councillors I wanted to talk to. Fortunately for me, two of them replied, city council leader Kelsie Learney and Conservative councillor Stephen Godfrey.
I met Cllr Godfrey at midday before rushing to the Guildhallshortly after to meet Cllr Learney who took me on a tour of the proposed site for development and even handed me an information pack on the scheme itself. They were both massively keen on the scheme and felt it was huge for the future of Winchester. My only issue now was obtaining balance to my story, and after a day of filming interviews, GVs and making phone calls I had no balance by Tuesday evening. I chanced my arm in the hope one person would reply and at 11pm on Tuesday, labour politician Patrick Davies had contacted me and was keen to talk to me. An interview was agreed for the next day, and it gave me the perfect opportunity to test myself in filming, intervieweing, editing and exporting my package in a short amount of time ready for the bulletin.
I met Patrick and was back in the newsroom by 12pm, however due to unforeseen circumstances the bulletin had to be put back a couple of hours meaning I would not make the bulletin, even though I had met the original deadline of 2pm with time to spare.
One criticism I had of myself was that I didn't work quick enough. I spent too much time perfecting my filming and making sure I had enough on Tuesday, meaning that any opportunity to gain a balance on the same day or to even get all of the diting done that day was a no hoper. It's been a constant downfall of my work in this first term, and even though I can work quickly to meet the deadlines, I have to work quicker if I want to be competing for top story on the bulletin. It's a learning curve, but something I will learn from. As for Joey's first week in charge, he followed the same route as Claire in her first week; a supportive, encouraging role showing good faith in his team and he was well rewarded with good packages and stories.
My written article in as soon as and my package was completed and put on my own personal youtube channel, which I believe can become a very important peronsal portfolio for me in years to come. As for WINOL, it was another smoothly run bulletin, with a few standard hitches here and there, Mr Lipscombe started his first week in charge in impressive fashion.