PIECES TO CAMERA
A Piece to Camera (PTC), also known as a Stand-Up, is one of the most important parts of a news story. Ideally, it’s a compelling mix of well-chosen words and strong visuals from a relevant location. The best PTCs are conversational yet authoritative, leading the viewer through the essential information of a news story. It shows the reporter in the middle of the story, at the heart of the action, and a TV audience connects with this personal touch.
ONLINE VIDEO & VIDEO BLOGGING
Every broadcast journalist today should be multi-skilled. They’re expected to blog online about their stories and record video for online platforms. But when you’re recording content for an online audience, is it different? Are there new considerations for the traditional TV broadcast journalist?
The answer is yes. But first, let’s try to understand why online content is now so important. A survey in the United States revealed that more than half its adult population use the internet to watch or download video and that news is the second most popular online genre after comedy.
HOW TO INTERVIEW FOR TELEVISION
Interviewing for television is different to print. You are still trying to gather factual information but the demands are not the same.
This is the view of one of our nation’s greatest TV interviewers, Michael Parkinson, in an article for the Telegraph:
“I think the real tip for interviewing is listening. And that’s the tough one. It’s easy doing a print interview, because you can be discursive, you can chat, you can ramble, and then you go back to your office and you shape it whichever way you want. It’s in your hands. You can’t do that with television, you’re stuck with what you’ve got. So you’ve got to actually think of it immediately as being a beginning, middle and an end, a story complete. That’s what you want from the person you’re talking to. But that also involves doing a lot of research, having it in your mind, but you must listen, because they might say something that you don’t expect.”
HOW TO FILM TELEVISION SEQUENCES
Television sequences are the sentences and paragraphs of visual storytelling. Alongside a tight script, they drive a narrative, informing and entertaining the viewer. In the same way that a script complements what’s seen onscreen, so a sequence illustrates the information in a voiceover. They work in partnership and shouldn’t be created in isolation from each other.
Once a student fully grasps the powerful combination of a strong sequence and an engaging script, they’re well on the way to a successful career in television broadcasting.
HOW TO FILM TV NEWS
RULE OF THIRDS & 180 DEGREE RULE
Now it’s time to talk about how to film for television. The basic principles of TV grammar that help you capture the images you need to tell your story.
As you will remember from Tutorial 2, the best TV news scripts complement the footage on screen. They work in partnership. And this also applies to scripts for other factual programme-making, including documentaries.
So when it comes to filming footage for your story, what are the important points to remember before going out with your camera?
mkellytv 