Land Documentary and Analysis

The original plan for our project was to base it on William Cobbett and Rural Rides. This meant that we would do all of our filming in Hampshire, both the countryside and the towns, juxtaposing together. We also filmed in Salisbury too as Cobbett spoke about this town. We planned a sunrise so as the sun was rising and time was moving on we would have less of the countryside and more and more of the towns. Please refer to Appendix A to see our entire running order for the documentary.

We agreed that we needed a historian to talk about Cobbett and pull the documentary together. Richard Ingrams wrote a biography about the poet entitled, ‘The Life and Adventures of William Cobbett’. He would have been able to give the documentary much more knowledge and a famous name. We were not able to get him, through many different communications so we decided to try and find a historian on campus. We did feel that our documentary just needed someone to talk about Cobbett and not necessarily be well known. Dr Jean Morrin agreed to be filmed and said that she knew quite a bit about the poet.

Her interview went really well but when we started editing we realised that there was a grain on her voice that we could not rectify. As we were short on time before showing our rushes we decided to keep it in but re-do it later. Having her in the rushes just showed what she looked like and the knowledge of Cobbett that she had.

We picked some of our best shots for our rushes but I found that our shots of the towns, such as Southampton and Winchester just were not as nice or as well filmed as the ones of the countryside. We had a lot of problems with some having lots of the public in that were recognisable and even though this was an art documentary we were still aware of showing peoples identity.

After we showed our rushes I felt a lot more confident in our project. We were told to scrap the interview with Dr Morrin, there were sound problems, and she waffled a lot. We needed succinct sound bites to be used throughout our documentary and not told a story. We were also told to cut out most of the city shots, to get rid of William Cobbett completely and to make it all about the poem; The Mask of Anarchy by Percy Bysshe Shelley and the music, Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

This worked out well for us because we had Professor Anthony Dean recorded reading the entire poem all ready. His voice was very clear and he put emotions in to the poem at the correct parts.

We started again placing every best shot we had as well as filming in the fields on the outskirts of Winchester. We felt we needed some more simple shots of the countryside and more colour. We started with the pictures instead of the music or the poem. We are always told write to the pictures but in this case, the best parts of our documentary were the poem and the music and we needed to lay them down first; however we did not realise this until Professor Chris Horrie pointed it out to us. They were our strongest points and so they needed to come first.

We cut up the music to stings, themes, pattering and the bed of the music. Second, we chose the best stanzas of the poem, the ones with the most emotion and drama. We laid these down and put a sting after every stanza Professor Dean spoke. Then we put in the bed and mixed the two together. Lastly we put in some themes and some pattering in places we thought were too quiet. Once we had done this everything else flowed so smoothly and I think we now have a much better documentary.

To explain the poem we had an English student, Hollie Ward record a script we wrote for her. The script is in Appendix B. We did not use everything; just some parts we thought were necessary and tied her parts in with the music and Professor Dean. Originally we were going to have stanza’s, 10,11,12,39,40,41 and 91 but when we changed our focus we changed the stanzas too. However our script for Hollie still made sense so we did not have to re-film her. Lastly, we laid the pictures in, making sure for some of them that when there was a sting the picture changed.

We were advised to cut the sunrise out at the beginning as it was not telling a story but as a group we decided to keep it in. It was no longer the beginning of a story but starting our documentary and the poem. It was really beautiful and went with the music amazingly well. I decided that our pictures juxtaposed with the poem and what was scripted for Hollie. Both were about riots, starvation, deportation and feudalism, put against a backdrop of beautiful pictures and music. This is why I thought that the sunrise should stay.

I think that our documentary started to look better as soon as we focused on the music and poem. We understood them both and knew exactly what we wanted to do with it. When we were trying to focus on William Cobbett we were always a little confused and I did not know how to show it though pictures. Our plan was hazy and not very artistic, it was very plain and I do not think it would hold anyone’s attention for five minutes.

Since our focus changed the documentary started to look better and better. I found the locations for filming and think that these locations worked well for both the documentaries we did but they really stand out in our final documentary with The Mask of Anarchy and Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis.

Magazine Spread Analysis

My first magazine spread is a confessional about throat cancer. I decided to do this because a confessional is very structured and I had an acquaintance that had had cancer. I did now know until I interviewed John Atkinson that he had had cancer three times but it made the article even better.

Whilst interviewing Mr Atkinson I had questions prepared and I tried to make a timeline as he told his story. This helped immensely when writing the article. I took notes and recorded him whilst he spoke; I then loosely transcribed the interview and combined it with my notes. 

As it was a confessional I tried to get him to remember how he felt during his experiences. I noticed that he seemed very reluctant to try and remember his feelings and at one point I found I had pushed him too far and he needed a break. At this point I did get the feeling that the article, if written right, would show emotions to the reader too. 

When writing the article I kept the main, distinct features of a confessional in mind. That it should be written in first person, should have a general beginning, have drama throughout and that it should end on a high and have the whole story wrapped up in the last sentence. Following this structure meant that I was sticking to the confessional criteria throughout the article. 

Once I had the article I started to put the spread together in Fireworks, I wanted this to look like a confessional in a type of ‘real life’ magazine. To do this whilst making the spread I looked over magazines such as, ‘Pick me Up’, ‘Closer’ and the confessional spreads in ‘Cosmopolitan’. They all stuck to a simple spread of just a couple of pictures, a headline and then columns for the story . 

Some of the magazines had dramatic lines picked out of the story and placed in bold on the page and I decided to do this too. Mr Atkinson had a difficult and shocking experience during his time with cancer and I thought it may help to pull the reader in with the headline, “My Triple Cancer Hell, but I’m still winning!” and bold quotes such as, “a steel plate, staples and stitches held my jaw in place. 

I kept it on a white background to accentuate the words and keep the attention on the article and the pictures of Mr Atkinson. It was quite hard to put the article in columns and keep the columns a certain size, without it all looking squashed and a little boring. I think I managed it well and I do think that this spread could easily be found in a magazine like, ‘Real Life’. 

My second magazine spread is part review/part general feature. I wanted to write something about Rome. It would mean that this spread would draw the reader in with the pictures and the look of the spread as opposed to the story itself. I visited Rome last summer so I was able to use my own pictures, which meant no copyright. 

In class we had no focused on the structure of a general feature so I tried to find my structure in other magazines that I thought my spread would appear in. To get ideas of travel features I looked through Tattler, Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire. In Tattler I found that their spread and introduction was about the Caribbean Islands but they then went in to detail in to each Island and separated them with little lines. I thought that this would be perfect for my travel article. 

I picked four main areas to focus on based on my best pictures. They were Pompeii, The Vatican, Rome itself and the Trevi fountain. As with news I thought that it would be best to write to my best pictures as this would be what pulled the reader in. 

I laid them out in the same way as the spread in Tattler looked and then wrote my article for each section. I did not want to write in first person saying, “I did this,” and “you have to try that.” I wrote in third person giving facts and examples. This meant that the reader would learn about Rome, what there was to do there and how to do it without getting an opinion from the writer. 

This spread would be found in a lifestyle magazine for people that could afford to go on holiday and would look in the magazine for things to do whilst on holiday. I found this spread a lot harder to do than my first with Mr Atkinson as there was not much structure and it was mostly based on the spread itself than the article.

I do not think that both these spreads would be in the same magazine, they are tailored to two different types of magazine reader. The first is more of a real life magazine whilst my second spread is more for a glossy magazine with readers that have money to spend on luxury items.

Please find both my magazine spreads in the previous two spreads.

Magazine Spread - My triple cancer hell, 'but I'm still winnng!'

John's story is very sad and for a few years death was at his door but he is fighting fit now and ready to take on anything.


Please click on the picture to see the spread in full.

Magazine Spread - City Escape: Roma!

Please click on the picture above to see it in a larger format. If you need any additional information about Rome I have another blog about it in December 2011.


Tell me what you think about my first Magaxine Spread.

Katy Perry Profile

Christian, bi-curios Katy Perry is divorcing comedian husband Russell Brand. After the year long marriage comes to an we take a look at where Katy's been and what the future may hold.

Failed folk singer, Katy Hudson shot to fame after throwing off her christian image and proclaiming she 'kissed a girl.' A change of name, a fourth recording contact and a multi million selling album, One of the Boys, meant she had finally made it in the career; she dropped out of high school for.

Taking her mothers maiden name Katy Perry started receiving attention from the press with her christian childhood contrasting with the bi-curious singer she was becoming. Tabloids commented on how ashamed her religious parents were that she was 'promoting a sin'. Mary and Keith have since said how proud they are of their middle child and that forgiveness is part of the bible.

After never being allowed to have MTV or VH1 on in the house, she is now a singer that dominates them with top ten hits such as California Gurls, Fireworks and E.T. Her world tour in 2011, California Dreams, ran for just shy of 1 year and earned her nearly 50 million dollars. There were acts in Europe and America with a candy land theme; based on her duet with Snoop Dog on California Girls.

She admitted herself to Perez Hilton that being married and on tour for such a long time was hard on her marriage with Russell Brand but that they made time for each other. One month before tour was due to end Brand filed for divorce after only a year of marriage, citing that they had irreconcilable differences. With albums to promote, singing, tours and some acting thrown in, single Katy will have plenty to keep her busy.

Jacquie noted: There would be no 'we take a look at' and I need a stronger pay off line (last sentence).

To find Russell Brands Profile on being ditched have a look on Becky's blog.

Picture from Flickr

Fireworks Dog

I am now in my final year of University and I am learning about magazine journalism. This is the career I always thought I would enjoy and on this course I am finding that I do love it as much as Broadcast Journalism. We learnt last week about Fireworks and creating spreads. This is what I will have to do for my final assessment but this week I had a play around and you can find what the outcome is above.

The thought bubble reads: "He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave."

Both these pictures I picked up from Google Images so they are copyrighted. As were not publishing it or making any money from it this will be OK. For my actual magazine spreads the pictures will need to be from Creative Commons or taken myself.

Week Two at The Daily Echo

Week two of working at the Daily Echo. It is not as tiring now, I know everyone's names - just about - and it kind of feels homely.

On Monday I wrote up quite a few press releases. Some were small, some lengthy but I think I am getting better at news writing now. I did 150 words on Chortle's student comedian awards. 150 words about a man that got fined £75 for letting all four of his greyhounds foul the pavement. A very small piece on The Eastleigh Ramblers meeting place and times. I also re-worked my male childcare lecturer article from the Monday before for features instead. It just needed a few more words and a little re-organising of the paragraphs. Lastly, I wrote a small article on The Hamble Point Boat Show in April. Mostly a promotional piece about what you can expect there, when it is etc. Julian Robinson, the Eastleugh reporter, also showed me how to write and put together an article from a press release. It was really helpful and showed me what I need to improve on.

I have discovered that everyone has short hand. There are notepads everywhere with little shorthand scrawlings on them. Just taking a phone message, it is taken in short hand. I managed to get 30 words a minute in my first year of university but now all that I can remember is what 'the' is. I have all the books at home and I think that even if I am not 100 percent on becoming a reporter, shorthand will still be useful. During my interview with Barbra, last Friday I found I could not write quick enough and did not have many quotes that I could put in the article word for word.

Tuesday, I went to the Magistrates court with Sian Davies for a case about a man not keeping his dog under control. It was scheduled for 10.30am but when we got there it was delayed. We went in to another court room and watched to see if there were any other stories we could get whilst waiting for the dog case. I found it really interesting. It felt like a soap opera. The amount of people coming in, one after the other, I was surprised to see. I think I was quite naiive about the amount of crime in Southampton. After a while, the dog case still was not being heard so we went back to the newsroom.

As I had some afternoon free from work I decided to research tv listings. I need the SKY television listings for the Monday 27th August 1990 for my FYP. After exhausting the Internet it dawned on me that the Echo keep an archive of all their past newspapers. It was a long shot but I asked about any magazines they had kept. It turns out that after ITV Meridian moved from Northam they gave all their TV Times magazines to the Echo. No one had seen them since they had been put in to the filing cabinet except me. I was optimistic that out of all magazines the TV Times would be the one to have the SKY listings that I needed. Alas, the only channels they catered for was ITV and Channel 4. Not even the BBC. At a last attempt I asked to see the newspaper itself for August 1990. As it is a local and it does not do TV listings now I did think I was slightly wasting my time but it had to be checked in order for it to be ruled out. Since the 80's they had been putting the paper on to film. I checked the dates and found that not only did the paper have TV listings, it had listings for SKY too. I printed them out and was able to find what I needed for my FYP.

Wednesday was a busy day and I now know that a reporter should not wear heels. I started by doing the 60 second headlines, which I am really enjoying. I then did a phone interview and arranged a photographer to meet with Debbie Beale. She has been collecting animal necesities for a local rescue centre. I then typed up the article and sent it in.

I then went out with Patrick Knox, a news reporter on a couple of his stories. The first was that there was going to be 10 million gallons of water drained from a reservoir on Southampton Common. This would be news worthy because recently people in Southampton have had water meters installed. Meaning that they are paying for the amount of water being used in their household. After walking around the common trying to find the reservoir we gave up. It was a story that needed pictures and we were not able to get any. This was not an easy feat in heels and mud either.

We then went on to interview, David Reynolds. He had recently built a scale model of the Titanic out of matchsticks. I found this interview really interesting and thought it was amazing with what he could do with matchsticks. He had an entire room with amazing models of ships. David was also a Guiness World Record holder for the most matchsticks used, when building a scale model of an oil rig. Patrick had to do a written story as well as a video. Again, short hand definitely comes in handy.

Lastly there had been a tip off that there were rats around a broken gate in a river in Southampton. A river that recently had people canoeing and rowing on it that had caught viles disease. This disease can kill and comes from rat urine. Due to the gate being broken there had been a lot of rubbish and waste build up. I thought it was a lot but apparently it had been cleaned and so we needed to come back in a weeks time to see a lot more waste and rats, to make the story more concrete.

Thursday was amazing! Easily the best day of the week and probably one of the highs for reporters that are more commonly used to finding rats than celebrities. Arron Hendy, another news reporter took me out to No Limits in Southampton. It is a charity that helps get young people off of the street and in to homes and jobs. This is where Matt Cardle was going to be, signing autographs and taking pictures with the young adults there to promote Sports Relief. We were allowed to film and interview him for 15 minutes as well as vox pop the people that use the No Limits service and the manager Liz Carter. Again, due to convergence I filmed all the interviews whilst Arron wrote them and asked the questions for a written piece.

When we were finished there and I had stopped drooling over Matt we moved on to the job centre. Arron has an article in the paper every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday about people that are looking for a job, entitled, 'Give Me a Chance'. Here we stopped four people for the column and asked them about what jobs they are looking for, how often they look, their education history and how long they have been out of work.

When we were back at the office we edited all of our footage an put it in to a two minute video. At the Daily Echo they use Avid whereas I use Final Cut Pro so this was something else new for me to learn. It did look a lot simpler than Final Cut but it did not look like you could do as much with it. We had problems with sound too which took a while to sort out. Whilst we watied for that to be fixed Arron wrote up the article which appeared in the paper on page 2 on Friday 20th January. Along with Patricks article about matchstick man, David Reynolds on page 3. You can find the matt cardle video here http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/video/

Wow was I tired by Friday. I tried to get in touch with a local woman that is planning to run in the London Marathon in April in aid of the British Heart Foundation. I emailed, phoned and left a message for her but as she is a midwife I think that she was a little too busy.

Week One at The Daily Echo

My first week at the Daily Echo went really well. The team of reporters is a lot smaller than expected and it is painfully quiet but I am starting to see what they all mean about them being a family that work together. I was surprised to see that it is still a very male dominated world with just male editors and only four female reporters out of a team of 10. There is even only one lady on sports.

My first day was spent researching the Olympics and localising it by seeing what events were happening in Southampton. Unfortunately, after a day of chasing up councillors I was told that they were not going to reveal any list of events until they were all confirmed. Thus meaning that my story was dead until the council revealed the details; which may take a couple of weeks.

Due to being on a broadcast course I am not shy around cameras and so was intrigued when I was asked to present their feature, 60 second headlines. They do this every morning and it is a simple package of a reporter reading the headlines of the day whilst the stories are on the screen. I believe we could have done something like this at WINOL, simply read the headlines of the day. This may have allowed to have a larger audience as we would have something fresh on the website every day. You can view the headlines I presented here:

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/video/1375651746001/?ref=vidshare

I also wrote a 250 word article about a new male childcare professor. The story came from a press release and was very simple but after doing broadcast journalism for the last two years I think I could have used a refresher in news writing. I finished and sent it in but I have a feeling that it may not be used or saved for a slow news day as it is all ready dated by three months.

Day two and I was all ready feeling more relaxed. Ian Murray, the editor and chief of the newspaper had a talk with me and the other work experience students that I actually felt was really empowering. He spoke of how he got in to Journalism, what he does, the history of the paper and the troublesome times that the paper is in.

After meeting with Ian I had a small meeting with Andy Bissell, the features editor and the managing editor when Gordon is not in. He was really nice and spoke about his career and what we hope to do when we graduate. He also gave myself and Rosie, the other person on work experience, two jobs to do. The first was for a magazine, Hampshire Bride. There was a column in the last issue on the prices of different parts of the wedding, done by a survey company. This year no one could find an up-to-date survey so my job was to find prices for each item. Such as tiaras, rings, honeymoons, the dress, shoes etc and to get a price for on a budget, average and luxury. Needless to say, I had a lot of fun with the luxury price range. This also took a lot longer than I first expected and I had a couple of days to finish it up.

On my third day, was the second task Andy set us. There is a new theory test coming out at the end of the month with 100 questions on it. These questions are harder and there are more than there are now; only 50. We went to West Quay and got ten people to answer ten questions on the new test. We had to have six diverse people to complete it, along with a picture, a comment, their age, name and where they come from. We then chose the six best people and wrote up their captions. For example they sounded like, 'Domonique Jenkins, 21 of Southampton was at the top with 9 out of 10. She said: "I never thought I would do so well, I took my theory test with only 35 questions".' This was to accompany an article about the actual test itself.

Thursday was my finishing of the bridal research. I put in a lot of information and what to do if you were on a budget; how to save more money. I also contacted Dilys Gartside of Cyclewise to ask her to write two articles on cycling. The paper was doing a, 'new year, new you' piece and wanted top ten tips to get in to cycling and the benefits of it as an exercise.

The last day of the week was a welcome relief. I thought that I worked hard during the week and then worked hard at the weekend too with university and working at IKEA; but I have never been so tired. A 5 day week is a lot harder than I thought.

I read the headlines again, and knowing what to expect and what the finished article would look like I think I did a lot better. Please find this one above. I also sent Dilys's articles in to be subbed and put in to the paper on the following Tuesday. Friday was my first interview of the week too. Rosie and I were sent to Fitness First in Shirley to interview a man that had drastically changed his lifestyle and lost a lot of weight. We also went to interview a lady about colonic irrigation. My interviewee was Barbra Perry, a colonic hydrologist. She explained colonic irrigation, the lifestyle, the different foods and what should be eaten with what and - no - I did not try it our for myself. Barbra says that it is very comfortable and not painful at all but I do not think that I will be giving that a go. I wrote up the article and sent it in to Andy. Sadly the interview did not make the paper as the interview was last minute and there was no room for it. However, you may find it on here in a week or so.

Overall, a really good first week. I have all ready learnt so much and seen how different a newspaper is to broadcast journalism. After studying broadcast for three years now I wanted to see what the written world was like. It is a lot quieter and instead of people running around panicking at 3pm, everyone looks very calm. News happens throughout the day and I have seen first hand that what the editor wants, the editor gets and I actually find it really interesting. I thought that I only wanted to work in broadcast but I can see myself working for a paper now too. I think I need as many options open as possible in the current economic climate.

A Guide to ... Rome

Roma! The capital of Italy, and the city with the BEST ice cream, (or gelato) I have ever tasted. Yes, the very first shop you should visit is straight to the corner shop for a tasty treat. Well, apart from the gelato there is still plenty to see and do. I stayed in Rome for four nights and five days. They were jam packed but what else is there to do whilst you are on holiday... sleep? I think not.

Of course there are the normal sights to see that every tourist must see as well as the ice cream. In my opinion the very best sight to see is the Trevi Fountain. It is without a doubt the most perfect place in the entire world. Even when it is crowded with hundreds of people it is still very serene and quiet. If you follow the path from Termini Central, I will show you what you will find along your way to The Vatican. It is a perfect tourist route that wont make the walk feel too long. I did it in 40 degree heat so I know you can.

Your first stop along my route is The Trevi Fountain, but it is a hard spot to find. We found only one sign to it down a tiny back alley. Before I went to Rome I had seen the Trevi Fountain in many films and shows and had always assumed that it was a large fountain in a large square. This assumption meant I was looking out for a large open area. Be warned the Trevi Fountain is a very magnificent fountain in a very small back alley. When looking for it, make sure you go under the road, through the huge tunnel and then turn left.

After Fontana di Trevi you will come across the Pantheon. This is a huge basilica with a dome that baffles architects today. The structure stands very tall but the walls support the huge dome above easily, which should not happen. The dome should collapse because the walls are not big enough but it is still standing. If you go inside you will notice that the design in the dome has also been copied to one of the domes in the Vatican.

After the Pantheon is Piazza Navona. It is a large piazza with three large fountains. These fountains are gorgeous and I suggest visiting early in the morning so you can see the whole piazza in all its glory. After about 11am it gets very busy, mostly people selling art. If you start my trip at about 9.30am you should reach everything along my path without too many tourists there.

Next up is The Vatican. This place is huge! Seriously, much larger than I expected. To give you an idea, there are numbers and words written across the top of the Vatican and each one is 8 feet high. This is a theme in Rome, everything is ten times bigger than you think it will be. Especially standing right up next to it. I was not sure if I would like the Vatican because I am not sure what I really believe in and I know that the Catholics have a very checkered past as well as present. I went with two friends who both had a lot of opinions on the Vatican and Catholics but when we got there it was not too overly in your face about religion. It was mostly about art, the Romans and the Popes.

Thankfully, we were approached by someone that was selling tours to groups of English tourists. It was 40 euros each for The Vatican, The Sistine Chapel and the The Vatican Art Museum. I highly recommend this as it worth every penny. Other guided tours are not, I will mention which ones later. 25,000 people a day visit the Vatican so this gives you an idea of just how busy it is. There were queues everywhere. This alarmed us slightly as we really did not want to be out in the heat for hours. This was our first bonus to having the guided tour, no queues, at all. We were first given a history of the Vatican and the Popes, I found this really interesting but we had to listen though headphones that were annoying. You get to used to them and they are must so you can hear the guide when it is busy.

Once we were on our way we started with the art museum. I expected art that I had never heard of before but there were statues, art and tapestry's everywhere that I had definitely heard of and that all had interesting stories behind. Michelangelo is the most prominent name in the Vatican. This is because he painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling and wall as well as doing many sculptures for the Pope. Apart from the Sistine Chapel the most interesting story is behind a sculpture called The Laocoon.

As soon as you enter the museum you will see a full sculpture of the Laocoon and notice the way in which the priests arm is. It is shot out, holding a disc of some kind. This is not the real sculpture. This is an imitation with the arm on. When the sculpture was originally found the arm was missing. The Pope asked Michelangelo to make a new sculpture with the arm in the correct position. Michelangelo felt he could not do the sculpture justice so asked all his assistants to draw a picture of how they thought the arm should be. There were hundreds of drawings. The drawing that averaged the most was with the arm shot out, almost saluting; so this is what was made. A few years later the rest of the arm was found. It turned out that the arm was bending backwards, behind Laocoon's head. The one and only artist to draw the correct sculpture was Michelangelo. He understood the human body, the muscles, the bones so well that he was the only one to study and draw the correct arm in the correct position.

These tours tell you as much as possible about the art on show, I do not study art and I enjoyed everything I was being told about. This may be too much for some people but you can always leave the tour at any point. As I said, I went in August and the whole of Rome was very busy, especially the Vatican. We were going round the museum about midday and it was almost intolerable. There were no windows open because of the nature and age of the art and there were easily about 600-700 people in each room. This made in unbearable at time but what kept me going was that at the end of all this was the Sistine Chapel. I have always been interested in the Chapel and the painting on the ceiling and of the Last Judgement. I have also seen many photos of it but nothing compares to the real thing. If you see only one thing in Rome, make sure it is the Sistine Chapel.

Michelangelo never classed himself as a painter, he was a sculptor. This meant that the painting was even harder for him. The next point that made it harder still was the fact that he was painting a fresco. This is when you paint with and on to plaster. It has to be wet when you are painting and if it goes dry before you finish you have to start again. The last painful point was the Michelangelo painted standing up tilting his head backwards to the ceiling. He never laid down on the scaffolding which people normally assume. His first part of the ceiling he did was Noah's Ark with PEOPLE going in to the Ark two-by-two not animals. This first panel took him one month to paint, the last panel took him one day. He took a six month break after 28 months work and finished the ceiling in four years. There were a lot of set backs and the work itself was not your typical fresco. He had to make the people he painted look 'normal' but on a vaulted curved ceiling. Not only did he paint the panels for the depicition of Genesis but he also painted prophets, shields and the pendentives to name a few.

You may think that after reading my blog you do not need to visit the museum or learn any of the art history but you really do have to see it all for yourself, in person and I have only touched on some of the history, barely even scratched the surface. This finishes your tour to the Vatican as we have reached the end. Do not re-trace your footsteps home because getting lost in Rome means you will discover something new and beautiful. There is literally something to be photographed down every street.

The Coliseum is a must see. You will be surprised constantly how close everything is to each other. It is a short walk away from our hotel and literally down a little side street. This is another place for you to expect queues. To give you an idea, the queue literally went three quarters around the outside of the coliseum; this is a large queue. We again had people approach us to give us a tour and because of the length of the queue we took them up on their offer of 30 euros. This was including student discount so if you have a student card take it with you because they do offer discounts in some places. After our amazing Vatican tour we thought that the Coliseum tour would be just as good if not better. We were severely disappointed. The ticket to get in to the Coliseum is only five euros, I advise get there early and queue. This is much better than paying more and being time constricted. The tour was for about 20 minutes in the Coliseum, we then had 20 minutes to explore before we had to meet the tour group outside. You probably do not need much more than 20 minutes to explore but I would say about 30/40 minutes would be good. As I have said the Coliseum is huge and it has such a deep and long history that you want as much time as you can have to explore it.

The tour continued across the road to The Roman Forum. This was included in the tour and we did start it but the heat was too much. Anyone that has done a module in Romans at school will all ready know pretty much everything they talk about during the tour. I would not recommend this but again there is a queue before you go in and our tour did skip the queue. It is a very pretty place but not worth the 35 euros and shortened time in the Coliseum.

Lastly, Pompeii. This day trip was 60 euros and completely worth it. You can get more expensive day trips that stop at Naples but from what I have heard about it, it is not normally worth it. We got to the coach station, which was very close to the Central Terminal for trains, and very close to our hotel, only about a ten minute walk. The coach trip is about three hours but it really felt a lot shorter. They have one stop half way though too. We had a tour guide on the bus who told us about Pompeii and meeting times etc. She did not carry on with us in Pompeii though.

Again, once in Pompeii we had, yet another queue. This one was not as long as the others but took longer time wise. We got half way through before we were offered another special trip. I think it was about 10 euros plus our entry ticket and we skipped the queue and had a tour guide for Pompeii. This is a tour I would definitely suggest. Pompeii is huge, much larger than just a couple of rocks in the ground. Our guide was really nice and although he walked fast he did make sure we were all OK and spoke to us in the shade. He also answered all of our questions and made sure people were out of the way for our pictures. Once we finished the tour we were able to look around by ourselves. There is a bookshop and a restaurant here too. Just outside are little stalls selling tourist souvenirs so these may be a cheap way of getting something from Pompeii.

If you can afford it and are in Rome for long enough I would really recommend going to Pompeii. We pre-booked so we knew we definitely had a trip and the payment was done; it did not take anything from our spending money.

I stayed in Hotel Ariston for four nights in the first week of August for £300. This was a nice, modern hotel in perfectly situated part of Rome. It was close to the trains, and had plenty of places to eat around it; cheap, middle of the road and for the more expensive taste. There were cheaper hotels but this was the cheapest four-star we could find. Definitely take a map too, they had some in our lobby which really came in handy. Have fun and remember to explore, do not stick to the main roads, you will find something beautiful.

A Guide To... Putting an image on to the Vision Mixer

As I said in my last blog, we had a problem with all of our green screens being deleted in some way. In this blog I will tell you how to put an image on to the SD card for the Vision Mixer and I also have the pctures of our backgrounds on here so you can take them from here whenever you need to. Lastly, we now have no backrground for WINOL Life so a new one will have to be made if you carry on with it next year. You may want to make a new background for everything so that they all link. These are not perfect, especially the WINOL bulletin background as that is only a captured image but it was OK for our last bulletin as we had no time to make anything else.

"So, my only idea for making sure that we had a background for the following day would be to look though all our tapes of WINOL to find a spot where there was no-one being filmed and just an empty room with our background. It took five tapes but I finally found a tiny spot, about three seconds long that had no-one and nothing in. I captured this, grabbed it, then saved it to the desktop.

To get the picture on to the SD card you have to open it in photoshop. You then have to change the image size to 720x576 pixels. You then need to save this as 24 bit.bit map or 24 BMP. Put in the SD card and move the background in to the file marked, 'images' and you're done. When it is put into the vision mixer it should download properly. My next blog will have the Sportsweek and WINOL backgrounds in for any future use, best to back everything up."

Hope that is OK. Here are the pictures of the backgrounds for WINOL and Sportsweek but please keep in mind you may not be able to drag them straight on to the SD card, you may have to go through the above process. Also there is no photoshop on the computers in Tab9 but there are in the MMC if you can nab a computer.

WINOL - 7 December

Au revoir my beloved WINOL. My very last show and it was much more emotional than I first thought. For the last 11 weeks I have been counting down the shows as things have gone wrong every week and I was not enjoying WINOL as much as I used to. I expected to just feel relief when I finished and we packed up the studio but it does feel a bit like the end to an era. I have been on production for WINOL for the last three semesters and I have learnt so much. I know every part of the gallery and the studio and I really do hope that this will not be the last time I am in a studio.

The show went well, Dan directed, I was on the sound board, George vision mixed and Justina was on autocue. I think it is quite ironic that I was on the sound board and enjoying it when only three weeks ago I dreaded it. The show went so smoothly, everyone was relaxed, happy and calm. The packages were great, and the presenters did really well too. It felt bittersweet because we were all tired and just waiting for the end but on the other hand I felt quite sad that it was all finished. My three semesters have flown buy, it feels like only yesterday that I was working with third years before me on their last WINOL. The only advice I can give to anyone working on WINOL is; enjoy every minute. From the complete lows to the ecstatic highs, enjoy everything because it will all be gone in the blink of an eye.

The only problem we had this week was that our green screen was no longer on the SD card and ALL of our work had been deleted from the computer in the studio. When I say ALL I mean absolutely everything, even the routes and backgrounds to the files were deleted. Suspiciously Media still had all of their work on the computer though, and in fact had more work; plastering the entire desktop. I worked on getting back the green screens whilst Jack focused on putting the beginning sequence together.

Luckily on the Tuesday I found all of our music for the opening sequence in ten second parts which helped Jack as he then only had to find the video of the opening sequence and put the two together. I remembered that Chris had saved the Sportsweek background on Flickr so after trolling it for a while I found the background. The WINOL news bulletin background was completely lost though. I realise that this is partly our fault as we should have backed everything up but I do not think it entered any of our minds for a moment that we may loose all of our work.

So, my only idea for making sure that we had a background for the following day would be to look though all our tapes of WINOL to find a spot where there was no-one being filmed and just an empty room with our background. It took five tapes but I finally found a tiny spot, about three seconds long that had no-one and nothing in. I captured this, grabbed it, then saved it to the desktop.

To get the picture on to the SD card you have to open it in photoshop. You then have to change the image size to 720x576 pixels. You then need to save this as 24 bit.bit map or 24 BMP. Put in the SD card and move the background in to the file marked, 'images' and you're done. When it is put into the vision mixer it should download properly. My next blog will have the Sportsweek and WINOL backgrounds in for any future use, best to back everything up.

That was my feat for this week. Getting our green screens back and having them working in time for our bulletin at three.

Please find above my very last WINOL Bulletin show. Enjoy.

I wish good luck to everyone that is carrying on with WINOL or just starting. I hope I have guides that are relevant for you on my blog. Such as my OB Kit and Tricaster post and my next one with the green screens in. Best of Luck.

WINOL Strike Special

This week has been a lot of hard work preparing for the strikes. I am happy to say that it was all worth it and we all pulled together an amazing four hour show. I had my reservations about not doing in the studio and going to the Unite the union offices. My gut feeling was that we have a studio that we all know how to work and will only have a very few technical problems; if we do there is always Dave or Corin there to help us. I also thought that the day was going to be hard enough without moving it to another location and taking all the equipment there.

The reasons for which it was moved were: it was easier access for guests, no picket lines to cross, it was a better backdrop for the audience than just a green screen and we were in the heart of the action being in the middle of Southampton.

After visiting and starting to set up on the Tuesday I soon started to feel excited about what we were going to attempt to do. The offices looked great, and had a real old air about them. We had the desk in front of the window where you could see The Avenue behind and the room was plenty big enough for everyone to fit in and work. Rehearsals did not start off as we had liked but within an hour we had been rehearsing and nothing had gone wrong. The hour literally flew by. My role was to work as the director for packages and adverts, worked on the vision mixer, sound and VT's but this was extremely hard with the Tricaster because you could only do everything via a mouse and a keyboard. Jack fixed the vision mixing problem by finding the correct wire for the vision mixing desk and plugging that in but it was still too much work for one person so on the day Katie Rowles and I worked together.

After the rehearsals I felt much better about the strikes on the Wednesday. We still had a few problems to work out but it did start to look like we were going to be able to pull it off.

We started more rehearsals at 10.30 on the 30th. They started out all right but the Internet connections in the room were not as good as they could have been and a problem that we should have fixed the day before. We had guests arrive at about 11am so we were not rehearsing for long before we had to start being professional and working as if it was a live broadcast.

Once the interview had finished we were left with about 10 minutes to prepare ourselves before going live. The interview was no scheduled and I think it left a lot of people worrying and panicking about not having a proper rehearsal and time to breathe. This may have been one of the reasons that in the first hour we were broadcasting on ustream with very little to no sound. The ustream was also behind out filming by about four minutes. The problems with the microphones meant that we had to shut everything off and practically start again. This was not a good start but once this problem was fixed we did not have any others that day.

Working on the vision mixer. the only problem was the lack of cameras and the fact the once we started broadcasting we could not shut the program off. This meant that when we got more packages in on the memory sticks, we had to keep the sticks until we had aired the package otherwise it would go offline. We also only had three memory sticks that were programmed with the Tricaster so we had to alternate with these.

Katie and I also found a way of writing straps and putting them on the live cameras as we were rolling. This was a large feat for us because this enabled us to put names up as well as naming the different areas of the studio. For example when the guests came on we had the strap, "WINOL Live Debate", this made it look even more professional.

The reporters did an amazing job with all of their packages and if we did not have as many as we did all ready save and in the bank we would have had a lot less content and the beginning few hours of the show would have been really boring and hard to get through. Towards the end of our broadcast we started to get some really great content of the strikes, however, the strikes had also started to calm down and in some places they had gone home.

Our Skypes did not work as well as we had planned, or as we had rehearsed. We had one from London Metropolitan, which had to be cancelled half way through and a couple from Liverpool which worked really well but that was it.

Louis O'Brien did really well with getting in the guests that he did. We had Seb Miell, a student, some union members and some councillors. It was really well rounded and we got some great answers from them about the strikes. Jake Gable was great at interviewing them as was Hana Keegan and Cara Laithwaite at presenting. They had all really got a firm knowledge in a lot of the points of the strikes. This was a necessity but they managed to pull it off really well and left myself and the viewer understanding what was going on during the day.

As we streamed to ustream we do not currently have the full show for upload. You can watch above the OB's though, so enjoy.

Law Revision

In this blog I will give the key themes in all of our sessions so far. This should be helpful for revision on our law test for the 1st December.

Court Reporting

The main difference between them is whether they are criminal or civil. The diagram to the left is the hierarchy of the courts and how they correspond to each other.

Criminal courts deal with cases of murder, theft, fraud etc and this where the cases are bought to be heard in front of the state, the DPP. (Director of Public Prosecutions) Since 2008 Keir Stammer QC has been the DPP of England and Wales.

Civil law covers divorces and consumer, agricultural and employment laws, etc. The Court of Appeal where criminal and civil law converge.

The courts are different between England and Wales (being one system) and Scotland. Scotland have a lot of different laws. They are able to vote on most of our laws but England and Wales have no say on any of their laws which makes it very one sided and also does not help England and Wales vey much. The only court that covers England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland is the Supreme Court which is at the very top of the chain.

Prejudice and Contempt of Court

Being prejudice means, writing an article that may not be in the defendants favour and giving the readers an opinion. They have to have a fair trial and and being prejudice in an article is when anything mentioned contaminates the trial or the defendant.

Contempt of court is what happens when you actually are prejudice in your article. Contempt of court can allow a person to go free from the crime they may have committed as they will not be given a free trial. The person who wrote and published the article could then face jail themselves.

When a case becomes ACTIVE legally, is as soon as an arrest has been made. As soon as this happens you can be in contempt of court. You can also be in contempt of court if any of the following have been done. When the police make an arrest, when an arrest warrant has been issued, a summons has been issued by a magistrate and of course, when the person has been charged with the crime.

Before the trial begins you may report on any of the following seven points.

* Names, ages, addresses and occupation of the defendant,

* Charges faced or a close summary,

* Name of the court and Magistrates names,

* Names of the solicitors or barristers present,

* Any arrangement of bail,

* Date and place to where the case is adjourned, and,

* Whether any legal aid was operated.

However, if the trial has anything to do with anyone under the age of 18 they are given anonimity. This means that by no reason are they to be found out. They have to have complete anonimity and this may then mean that there are some points that you can not report on. Anonimity is only ever taken away if they voluntarily talk to the press themselves and most of the time accompany it with a picture.

The key stages of the trial are:

* The prosecution opening,

* Key prosecution witnesses,

* Defence opening,

* Key defence witnesses,

* Judges summing up,

* Jury sent out, deliberation and the verdict,

* The sentencing.
If you attend the prosecution opening you must then attend the defence opening. Whether you decide to report on it or not, you must attend both.

A Magistrate is a civil officer who lays out the law. They administer sentences and only deal with criminal law. Civil cases will not make it up this far in the chain of the courts.

The categories of offence are, indictable only, which is a possible sentence of five years plus. Either-way can go to Crown or Magistrates court. Summary, stays with the Magistrates court. The powers of the Magistrates are 6 months jail, fines up to £5000, suspended sentences, conditional charge, community orders or ASBO's.

A community order is where the defendant is forced to serve their punishment in the community. They are not sent to prison but if they do not meet their conditions they may then go to jail and be punished there.

A conditional discharge is when the defendant is not punished but they have to comply with some conditions. If these conditions are met the discharge will become absolute where the defendant can walk free. Even if they have been proven guilty they may not be punished if they meet their conditions.

A suspended sentence is when the defendant would have been given their sentencing but when the Magistrate suspends it they are on probation. On this probationary period if they do not break the law the Magistrate will throw out the sentence.

Libel and Defamation

You can commit libel if you do any of the following:

1. Defamation

2. Identification

3. Publication Defamation is when you write an article that defames someone or a company.

Defaming someone means you have damaged their reputation. To be accused of defaming someone it has to be proven. You can also be accused of defamation through slander.

Identification, this is when a particular person is named. This can be an accidental problem through jigsaw identification. This is when you tell the story with all the facts but you explain enough that the reader can understand who it is. Jigsaw identification can be done accidentally so when writing a script telling facts about the defendant you have to be careful you don't explain too much.

Publication is when the article/programme is viewed by more than one person. When published on the Internet each load of the page is another publication.For each of these ways of defamation there are ways in which to defend yourself against it. You only need one of these defences but the more you have the more covered you are.

Justification is when what you have said is true and you can prove it. You need to be able to prove this though. This is one reason you should always keep all your rushes and notes. Especially if your notes are in short hand. This makes your evidence more believable.

Comment is your second defence against defamation. This is when it is the writers opinion. This has to be shown as definite opinion however. Many newspapers have a header at the top of the page saying comment or opinion. Sometimes guest editors also fall in to this category, especially in magazines where they get many celebrities to write a page of opinion on other celebrities, styles, fashion etc. Qualified privilege is when what you have written has been said in court. If you are going to report something defamatory and plan on using qualified privilege as your defence you must report fast, accurately and fair. The offended person does not have to show that they have been harmed but do have to show that they have suffered.

Common Law Qualified Privilege is a form of the above but it does not have to be said in court. This can be used is the following conditions have been met. The public need to hear about it, this is something that you do not need to prove. It has to be without any malice at all. The article itself and EVERYTHING you have ever written before. You should never write with malice anyway but if you have any article with malice in, you can not use common law qualified privilege. Again, everything must be fast, accurate and fair; and, for good measure there must be reasonable suspicion.

Malice and Qualified Privilege

Malice can expressed or implied. Either way is bad for journalism. No article you write should ever have malice in it. Unless you write comment pieces you should never have your own opinion in your articles anyway. When implying malice you are again, putting your own opinion in the piece which should not be done. To have common law qualified privilege you must show no malice and have no malice in any piece you have ever written/produced.

The Reynolds Defence

This is a list put together by Lord Nicholls that journalists must adhere to if they want to use the defence when publishing defamatory material. Bearing in mind that the piece in question is of public interest and is responsible journalism.

This defence came about when the Sunday Times was sued by Albert Reynolds; the former head of the Irish government. He sued because he believed that the story had deliberately and dishonestly misled the country's parliament.

In the defence of the Sunday Times they said that they were keeping within article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and that in public interest in political issues and the conduct of elected politicians should be protected by qualified privilege.

The Sunday Times lost but the following defence was put together to allow future publications to publish defamatory articles in the name of public interest.

1. The allegation must be true and the seriousness of the allegation.
2. The extent to which the information is a matter of public concern.
3. The source of the information. No one with previous anger against the accused or are being paid for the story.
4. All the steps that you've taken to verify the information. This must be recorded information.
5. The status of the information. If it is all ready subject to an investigation this must be respected.
6. The urgency of the matter. Can not be old news.
7. Approach the claimant for comment.
8. Whether the article contained the gist of the claimants side of the story.
9. The tone of the article. The newspaper can raise queries and investigations.
10. The circumstances of the publication, including timing.

This has been criticised as being too narrow by judges in the House of Lords.

Copyright

Copyright covers everything from music to film, from the performers to pictures and everything in-between. Copyright covers the object or person as soon as it is published. Showing a film you have made to a friend is not subject to copyright but once you have published it to the internet or put it on to a DVD for viewing this is then copyrighted. A DVD is subject to copyright for 50 years after it has been published and a book is out of copyright 70 years after the author dies.

Fair Dealing

This is when you are allowed to use a small amount of footage from a film, music video, game etc for free. As long as you credit the company and the person you are allowed to use this. Just make sure it is only a few seconds and no longer. A great example of fair dealing is in Ewan and Grahams game piece where they are reviewing games and have a small amount of footage from the games in the review.

Confidentiality and Privacy

Privacy is linked to Articles eight and ten of the Human Rights Convention. Article eight is that everyone has the right to a private lifer and Article ten is freedom of speech.Confidentiality is linked to the Official Secrets Act 1989. It is a criminal offence to disclose official information without lawful persmission.The PCC's definition of Public Interest includes, but is not confined to the following:* Detecting or exposing crime of serious impropriety.

* Protecting public health and safety.

* Preventing the public from being misled by an action or statement of an individual or organisation. This is the defence we will rely on most.With confidentiality you are allowed to keep secrets as long as they are not against the publics interest. A doctor, employee, lawyer etc can commit a breach of confidence if they discuss a secret with a third person. This is third party breach of confidence, when you are told a secret that was between two people. It is fine to publish this secret but you have to talk to the person the secret is about and inform them of the fact that you are going to publish it. If you do not inform them before it is published they will be able to sue you. A secret is only confidential when all the following points have been ticked. If any one of them are missing it is not confidential.

* The quality of the confidence, this can not be a rumour.

* If the secret was provided in circumstances imposing obligation. For example, a normal reasonable person would think it would be kept secret.

* No permission to pass on the information given.

* Detriment is likely to be caused to the person who gave the information.

Privacy

Article 8 states: 'Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.'Privacy mainly affects magazines and tabloids as they are more based on celebrity and their private lives.You must have consent when filming someone or taking their picture.

There are two types of consent.

* Explicit consent - The person has signed a contract. Or a release document. This will be useful if you think that the person may sue you at a later date; as you will have written proof of their consent.

* Implicit consent - They are looking in to the camera so they know that they are being filmed. You can also ask them to consent on the camera too as this would be good evidence of their consent if you were to be sued.

The case for privacy is Princess Caroline of Monaco. She campaigned for injunctions to stop the paparazzi from continuously filming her in every day life.After initially failing in court she then won on her second appeal for privacy. The ECHR ruling was that there is no legitimate public interest in knowing the whereabouts and behaviour of individuals generally, despite their fame or being in public. A legitimate expectation of protection of ones private life is to be extended to the criteria for assessment. A fair balance is to be struck between the right to privacy and the freedom of the press.

FOI Requests

Anybody is able to make an FOI request to any public authority. Only the UK security and intelligence agencies are exempt from having to give information through an FOI request. Every other company has to give you information. When filling out a request you have to be very specific otherwise they can refuse and will ask you to narrow your search. This could go on for months. The authority has 20 days to get the information to you or has to send you a reason as to why they can not get it to you within the 20 days. Your search not being specific enough would qualify as to why they can not send it to you within the 20 days; maybe there is too much. An FOI request is also free unless getting the information costs more than £600. Or if it is more than £450 for local councils.