WINOL - 27 October

This was another week I produced and everyone on the production team honed their skills. It has been a couple of weeks and they now know everything in the gallery so they are now practicing on what they prefer to do. This meant that there should not have been any production problems. However we did have a small technical problem with the VT machine.

The package by Uldduz had no strap. It was great that we found this and managed to get a new package in within time but it was not put on to the video output machine properly and was not checked after being put on. So... when it came to playing it in the bulletin it did not work. This panicked everyone and did mess up the bulletin slightly but this was sorted in post production and the story was completely pulled out.

I also forgot to put the ending sequence on to the video output and so when it came to the end of the show everyone was a little confused and we simply faded to black. Again, this was sorted in post production. I want to keep this is mind for next week and not have any problems that need sorting in post production as this would not happen on a real news bulletin.

Headlines were recorded really well this week and we all now understand the new way of doing it. I prefer this way too as it is more like the way the news is done on ITN or BBC.

We recorded an in-studio talk with the graphic wall idea with Louis O'Brian. Last week we did it with Julie about the police exclusive and this week was about courses in universities dropping. This takes time to do and does push back our schedule but the more we do these the more prepared we will be and the quicker we will be able to get them done. I think that when reporters are doing these boards they just think oh I need a script for the auto cue and a graphic for the wall but they actually need much more. Tapes, timings between the graphic and their script and at least three scripts for everyone in the gallery to follow with are also needed. This all pushes us back when we do not have these things done and ready for filming.

Everyone did really well this week and despite the hick up with the package we recovered and carried on. Well done George for directing for the first time and Justina for presenting in English for her first time.