Wednesday, September 03, 2008

BBC Front page - Videojournalism piece?


This in an interesting a piece on free running on the front page of the BBC home site, provided by Newsbeat - Young persons' ( Radio) news programme. Here's the link as a stand alone

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/newsbeat/newsid_7594000/7594511.stm.

It's all conducted on location; little scene change; the colour's flat ( DV resolution) no reporter V/O and by BBC standards the background sound is fighting the interview.

These aren't criticisms per se, but observations, given Newsbeat's audience and relative resources: relative to BBC News.

It's a fairly easy hit piece. Could you do any better?

I say that because the piece asked for a different visual creativity because:
  • of the Sport: Remember the Bourne scene through of Jason jumping through the window. No, no you don't have to put up a rig and get elaborate. Go buy a headcam for 200 dollars/ or smaller DVcam and let one of the jumpers become the defacto filmer to give you their perespective.
  • it's meant for a young person's programme. The BBC could really do with creating a more contemporary version of Reportage which I worked on in the 90s. Hint my diarys filling up!
  • It's a VJ piece, and it's not hard news.

Try not and ape TV
In essence this was a VJ piece cut for TV. meaning the TV stanzas have been maintained and the huge difference is that instead of a crew of three, one person ( cum assistant perhaps) has taking over.

Now truthfully I do not abs know whether this was shot by one person etc, but there are a number of clues that give that away.

Irrespective, enough info comes across in this almost 3 min feature, likely made by Newsbeat team, rather than BBC News.

And it's good to see a major broadcaster giving its prime estate over to 'experimental' pieces, particularly geared towards its younger audience.

That young chap's popularity will have reached a good slice of the the target audience - the power of online video huh!

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