In the News
I’ll keep these pages up for a while as there are some useful resources for me on them. Any future resources will be on the Creative iMedia pages.
> In the News Level 2 SPB
- the exam board pages
A news report in six parts needs to be produced.
Some key points to remember are:
- your report needs a story unique to you
- each of the six parts needs to be created separately
- the report has to be 3-4 minutes long in the end
- designs and development diaries are really important - and need detail (see the Storyboards page and the Copyright Free Images page)
- use copyright free resources where possible
- style is important but acting ability isn't
And try and be really creative and produce something that looks super cool. Honestly.
Example design sketch for an opening sequence
Example assets table - this uses a 3 column approach. There are lots of other ways to do this.
Example of feedback on a screenshot - this is a good way to keep a record of feedback from a named test buddy. I could extend this to show how I'd improved my work. This is the sort of thing that gains marks in multiple areas of the markscheme.
Story Ideas
The story has to be about youth achievement in some way. Make sure you have a clear achievement in there. Some possibilities might include:
- winning an award (student of the year on their hairdressing course, a bravery award from the police, the top player award in a hockey tournament)
- raising money for charity (and possibly being recognised by the charity)
- getting a book published, artwork or photo displayed or music played on the radio
- being selected to play something for their region or country
- being chosen to travel somewhere to do something special
- getting recognised somehow for doing something for other people or being a volunteer
The achievement can be anything so long as it's clearly an achievement of some kind, is sensible and you can film something about it. You don't need to film the achievement itself of course - but you do need to be able to film people talking about it.
Example proposal document - as an idea for the sorts of things to include, especially in the components section
Structure of the Headline Story
A really boring headline story which loses lots of marks would be filmed with just one person talking to a camera.
A more interesting structure is to build in a number of different shots in the film. These could include action shots (probably with a voiceover), shots of a reporter talking to the camera and interview shots.
So, one possible structure might be:
- shot of reporter introducing the story (10-15 seconds)
- action shot with voiceover with reporter adding detail to the story (20-25 seconds)
- interview with the young person (30 seconds) - this could include shots of the reporter asking questions as well
- still images with voiceover - either more questions or the reporter describing the reaction to the achievement in the community (15 seconds)
- interview with somebody else (headteacher, charity organiser, best friend etc..) about how proud they are (20 seconds)
- shot of reporter wrapping up the story and handing back to the studio (10-15 seconds)
This would give me a headline story nearly 2 minutes long, which is probably about right. It might end up being a bit longer, which is OK - but you need to get it long enough to get up to the 3-4 minute length for the whole thing.
Of course, you don't have to do it this way. You might prefer to put the stills at the start or have several interviews or might not be able to use an action sequence at all. That's OK - this is only a possible structure!
There are lots of good resources on the BBC News Report website. A good starting point is a Filming Masterclass which talks about lots of interesting shots you could include.
I produced some simple storyboard designs to show my structure. You can look at them here. I annotated them to show what I intended to do but would want to add detail about why I wanted to do that I think. This is only a rough idea but I found it helpful to plan my story this way.
Outline storyboard for headline story - part one
Outline storyboard for headline story - part two
Whole Report Structure
Getting to at least 3 minutes might be a bit tricky. Here's an idea of overall structure and timings.
- Opening animation - 20-30 seconds
- Welcome sequence - 10-15 seconds ("Good evening and welcome to the news. Our main story tonight is... And now over to our reporter Edna standing in a field somewhere in deepest Norfolk...)
- Headline story - 90-120 seconds (aim for 2 minutes)
- Continuity sequence - 5-10 seconds (introduces the weather)
- Weather report - 30 seconds
- Closing sequence - 20 seconds
I'm sure there are other structures you could use. These are just an idea.