Sunday, September 29, 2013

Story on College Fair

Topic-College Fair

Angle-The Colleges Visiting

Date- Tue, October 29, 6pm – 8pm

Very soon, we will be holding the college fair, which is a very important step in a students educational life.

(Questions to the organizer: How do you think kids will benefit from this fair? Why do you think it is good for students to go to college? What kinds of colleges will be at the fair?)

More than fifty 2-4 year colleges and universities will be attending said fair and anyone, even the public, can visit them.

(Questions to Principle: Why do you allow the outside public to visit the fair? For how long have you been holding the college fair? Any big name colleges visiting?)

With all of these opportunities, many students are excited to figure out what there future will hold.

(Questions for a couple students: Do you have college plans yet? Do you believe this college fair will help teens like you? What college are you going?)

All things considered, it looks like one great opportunity for the many lucky students who will be experiencing it. For Blaze Weekly, I'm Michael Mosser.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

9/24/13 News Story: Making of Harry Potter Studio Tour Visit

In the mystical universe of Harry Potter, the series from the mind of author J.K. Rowling, all the magic and wonder of the world can be found in a faraway castle that's only a train ride away. The only difference about the new "Making of Harry Potter" in London, England, is that you ride a bus and it takes you to a movie production studio. "The Making of Harry Potter" is a Warner Brothers studio tour that takes you through many of the real sets, costumes, and props from the iconic movies. Around 5000 people go to this enchanting exhibit everyday, so I decided to check it out on June 18th at around the end of the day. Right as you walk in, you are already greeted by the flying car from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. After a short wait and a quick preview of the gift shop, our tour group asked to proceed into a rather cramped room where they showed us the history of Harry Potter as a whole. We then proceeded into a more comfortable theatre room where a video of Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson greeted us standing in front of the doors to the Great Hall. When the curtain came up, those very same doors awaited us. The Great Hall was full of actual costumes of teachers in Hogwarts such as Dumbledore, Snape, and McGonagall. The next room was titled "The Big Room" and the name told no lies. It was an absolutely enormous room filled with enough sets and props to make you think that this was the only exhibit. From Dumbledore's office, to the wall offices of the Ministry of Magic, and even the Potions Classroom. There was even a place where you could have your video taken on  green screen flying a broom! It also included enough prop and costumes to make any Harry Potter collector faint on the scene! After leaving the enormous room, we found ourselves at an outdoor portion and were told we could disband from the group and do what we want. I went and bought myself some fabulous Butter beer, which was so worth £1.95 ($3.12). I found myself in front of the famous night bus and Privet Drive. I continued into the next room which was the creatures and effects. There were many fascinating things like molded action doubles of the actors/actresses, a life size Aragog puppet (if you don't know, that would be Hagrid's giant spider and it scared the heck out of me), and even a fully animated Buckbeak.  After a walk through the real Diagon Alley, we reached the next room which was full of all the original designs and art that was created way back in the beginning of the franchise. But, out of all of the rooms, the most unexpected of them all was the 1:24 scale model of Hogwarts crafted by over 50 different artists. It was a massive and amazing piece of art and it made me really want to pick up those books and watch those movies a million more times just to appreciate all the hard work that went into it. However, the real mystery is how I managed to spend £75 ($120) on Harry Potter merchandise. This is Michael Mosser reporting for Burnsville TV.

Monday, September 23, 2013

10 Steps to Writing a Story – Broadcast Journalism

1. Find a Topic.
- Relates to your audience based on the criteria of newsworthiness
- Prominence
- Heartwarming Story
2. Find an angle.
- Narrow Down Story
- One part of the topic
- Football > Training
3. Collect Data.
- How
- What
- Where/When
4. Conduct the Interviews.
- Interview Three People
- Ask them Three Questions
- Ask three experts on your angle
5. Shoot your reporter stand-up.
- Appears in the middle of the story
-Gives a transition piece
-Should stay relevant with your story.
6. Organize your Soundbites.
- Ask open ended questions
- No yes/no questions
- Piece of audio that can stand by itself
7. Write the transitions in your story.
- Your voice is the transition
- Strong and Simple words
- Write everything around the interviews
8. Write the introduction and conclusion of your story.
- Write the middle first
- Save your best soundbites at the end
- Write a powerful beginning and end

- Use a tagline (Ex. Reporting for _______, I am ______ ______)
9. Write the anchor ins and outs (if necessary).
- Anchors must connect to those who write the story
- No repetition
- Easy to understand
10. Collect B-Roll to add to your story (throughout steps 4-9)
- Video Clips
- Match Voice-Overs
- Interviews

*Steps 4-8 in your story are called the A-Roll.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Note-taking on Camera Techniques

INTERVIEWING:
• What seven items should you bring with you when you are shooting an interview? 
(Clocks Tick Tock Making Heads Pound Loudly)
Camera
Tape
Tripod
Microphones, heard not seen.
Headphones
Power source
Light Source

• Shooting into a light source = 
Shooting into the light source causes a SILHOUETTE or a poorly lit shot...
Button to adjust =


• Where do you want your light source? 
Behind your camera only.

• On what object should you focus the camera?
The nose of the subject

• No tripod=
A bad shot.

• Date and Time=
It's put on the tape permanently. Do NOT have this for a serious production.

• What's the difference between SP/EP?
SP= Standard Play on a tape
EP= Extended Play on a tape (High Quality)
• Camera shoots in ________________.
• Pre-Roll-
2-3 seconds before you start an interview to edit out later so you do not accidentally cut the beginning of a persons speech.

• Post-Roll-
2-3 seconds after you finish an interview to edit out later so you do not accidentally cut out the end of persons speech.

CAMERA SHOTS:

***BACKGROUND: 
Should be DYNAMIC = Depth, not plain. Interviewee is at least 6-8 feet from the wall. The Interviewee is the shot, not a random background item.
• 1 Shot=
Middle of the chest, bottom of the screen through the armpits, room between the top of the talents head and the top of the screen.
• 1 Shot with graphic=
On the outside shoulder, a graphic goes to their shoulder
• 2 Shot=
Try to avoid, but if required, zoom in on speaker. If both are speaking, keep both in.
• CU-
Keep all details while zooming in
• MS-
Upper Torso With Headroom
• LS-
Farther away, cut bottom off at knees. Headroom still needed but not too much.
• ECU-
Extreme Close-Up
• Rule of thirds-
Imaginary lines are drawn dividing the image into thirds both horizontally and vertically. Forms nine equal rectangles.

CAMERA MOVEMENTS:
• Tilt-
Moving the camera up/down

• Pan-
Moving the camera left/right

• Zoom-
Changing the focal length

• Dolly-
Physically moving the camera on wheels.
LIGHTS
• Key-
Light coming from the side to light up the talent.

• Fill-
Covers the shadows from the key light.

• Back-
Light coming from behind the camera to separate the talent from the background.

MICROPHONES:
• Unidirectional- A heart shaped mic that only picks up sound from one direction.
• Omnidirectional- The microphones that pick up sound in all directions.
• Cardiod- Another Word for Unidirectional
• Lav/Lapel Microphone- A cardiod microphone that you can clip on to your talent.
• Boom Microphone- A unidirectional mic attached to a pole.

Friday, September 6, 2013

News Notes

Define “Broadcast Journalism” in 1-3 sentences. 
Journalism is the telling of events that are newsworthy.

Broadcasting is showing something on TV, the internet, and radio.
Broadcast Journalism, therefore, is the telling of events that are newsworthy on the TV, the internet, and radio.

List and describe the six criteria of newsworthiness. 

TITLE DESCRIPTION EXAMPLE
Proximity, Area around you, Burnsville News

2. Timeliness, News is current, Sports Scores and Weather

3.  Unusualness, things that don't happen very often, Huge Hurricane


4. Prominence, famous people, TMZ

5. Significance, impact-wise, Presidential Election

6. Human Interest, Feel-good story, Baby Animal at Zoo




What are the differences between print journalism and broadcast journalism?
1. Print goes into more detail due to it's length

2. Broadcast is more current

3. You have control over what you want to read in Print


How is the Internet impacting broadcast journalism?

You can access the internet at any time, it's instant, it has both Broadcast and Print Journalism on it, and it can be portable.