NEWS ANCHORS

When it comes to news anchors of the recent years and how they have changed since the ones of the past it becomes a big topic on its own. In simple terms when someone watches the news of recent years, especially in American news, the anchors are not only there to provide the news but to also try and entertain the viewers as well. In the past it was about being formal and getting the news across as effectively as possible. In the next few paragraphs I am going to explain the past and the present in news anchors.

Bill O'reilly A Fox News Anchor

In the past when it came to getting the information to the public it was mostly done with rough paper cutouts and slides for the public to read and the anchor to explain. The emphasis on the facts was much much higher as that's what they created the news specifically for. Due to how the news was on a tight schedule to get the news across it was often a lot more blunt and to the point, giving the viewers all the necessary information and not much else so they can get as much as possible in the time they had. They couldn't waste money following a case like they do now,like vultures, so they focus on what they have and giving it as best as they can with the rudimentary tools they had.


One News Anchor that has stood out in recent years over in America is Bill O'reilly. He himself is a very imposing man to look at and in an interview with the son of a 9/11 victim showed something that was very dark. He Proceeded to badger the poor Jeremy Glick to try and distort his words against him. He seems to have taken it upon himself to try and make Jeremy seem unpatriotic and thus ensue that he is then seen as a bad person in the eyes of the public. Its horrible to see something like this as Jeremy has a right to say whatever he wants but he has that taken away from him in this interview.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IwIRNM5noY Uploaded on May 9, 2007 )
This is what has become of the news over in America and I hope it stays there personally as it has no place in modern news in my opinion.

In recent years the News has become a little warped in the way it is giving the information itself. The News anchors have started to become a form of celebrity themselves and have started to take over the News themselves as the star and not the actual News. That is not only how the news has changed in the recent decades. As technology became  more and more affordable and easy to use the News animators learnt how to create things digitally and create things not seen before to try and emphasize something else which can make us distracted by the actual points. Its a sad thing when the News becomes as fake as the animations they use but that's where its heading, especially over in America where Fox News can alter information to get their way in the world.

Scratch Video

When it comes to describing a scratch video its very simple. Found footage and found sound. What i mean by that is to take something that isn't yours but use it to create a video about a particular topic by mixing it with other footage and maybe a speech taken from another video. There are really endless opportunities on how to make a scratch video for either comedic ways or to prove a point.

One scratch video that is known by many people on Youtube is "The Bloody Apprentice" where the creator Casseteboy takes many of the Apprentice boardroom scenes and mashes them together to create a video that mixes and matches sentences and speeches to alter their meaning. "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3LLUQo1Ga0    25th March 2014" Much in the style of the Duvet Brothers and their videos.

Space Is The Place

When it came to the location of our choice, which was the Plymouth marina, what made an impression was how clean and cultured the area seemed compared to some of the other places around Plymouth. To me that is what gave the video the impression that Plymouth is a place for the upper middle class and rich when in reality its a very close mixture of the lot. Its mostly outweighed in my opinion by lower class and lower middle class but the marina is something that would say otherwise.

The shots that we recorded that day did seem to be very dark and dreary because of the weather that particular day. As much as I wanted the weather to be bright and sunny it just wasn't. None the less the shots that we recorded still seem to show how nice Plymouth can be. I think that's just the place showing itself off without the need for the sunny weather.

When it came to shooting the shots of the marina the main concern for us while we recorded it was to try and show it off in as good a light as possible. Many shots were often static showing off its natural beauty while some were panning shots to display what people bring to the marina. Boats, mostly boats. Even then the boats being a key thing for the marina it helped show off the area in a nice light.

One of my personal favorite shots was the bike leaning against the railings that I think really shows off how trusting some people in the area are. I never noted weather the bike was chained up or not but it showed a trust you wouldn't find anywhere else in Plymouth. Only in the marina can you find people sitting outside of a cafe, bar or restaurant drinking and feel comfortable to leave a bike unattended. Of course this is only my interpretation but there are many ways to look at it. I think the marina is a place in the city that is sometimes forgotten when compared to the whole city and understandably so.

When it came to the soundscape we had to be creative. There was a bit of construction work that day which left it sounding pretty naff if I can say so. The idea to put in a quiet music track i think is what saved it from sounding like a construction site. We where able to keep a few parts of natural wild track by changing its volume so only the parts that sounded good stood out. We had to choose a song that felt like it could advertise the place really well and fit in naturally with the wildtrack while disguising the rough noises.

Links to My Videos.

Space Is The Place
In this montage of footage taken around Plymouth we tried to Document some of Plymouth's nicest parts and display them as best as we could. But this being the South West we had to compete with some very frequent rain showers and in general some grey and moody weather that didn't help in the video one bit. But In general the footage fits nicely together as a unit and does show Plymouth off in a nice but gloomy light.
https://vimeo.com/88066200

Graham and His Hat
This was the work that we were set to do individually about a picture that we were given. This I believe was to show us how easy it is to create a story from nothing more then a picture and claim it as real. The task itself was incredibly simple, Take a picture, create a story, record that story as the person in the picture and then overlay that on a video.
https://vimeo.com/88243591

Scratch Videos
The concept behind this video task was to create a video out of found footage from websites and mash them into out own video explaining either a topic or showing something happening. When it came to choosing a topic I decided I would do a comparison of Rugby to Football based on how players react to the impacts of tackles. While I can say I favored the rugby side when looking back the video it does show very clearly the differences of the players between Football and Rugby in a montage video that's funny and cringe-worthy.
https://vimeo.com/89898685

Wet Wok News
The task set for this video was to choose a certain topic that we would deem somewhat news worthy and then go and film a news story about it following a specific guideline of shots to make it seem as close to a real news report as possible.
https://vimeo.com/89899740

Make Something Dull Cool
The Take Something Everyday and Make it Interesting Project was a particularly hard task. The object that I had chosen seemed to have no real world value, no special reason of being made and in general had nothing about it other. Making it so hard to actually make something factual so I opted to create a mockumentary for it because it had not interesting history to it.
https://vimeo.com/90007739

Its All About The Presentation
When set this task we were told to create a fake interview and then edit it to get rid of the "waffling" and show only the good parts while including some Noddy shots to break down the footage. We created two different videos, one with everything left in and another with it cut down to the best parts without umms and ahhhs.
https://vimeo.com/87660758
https://vimeo.com/87660716

HOW ‘REAL’ IS DOCUMENTARY?

For me, my initial thought to whether documentary is real is that it is real. A documentary is a documentation of something that has happened or is happening. That's what I see it in my own eyes. I mean of course Mockmentarys have even a small sense of reality to it to make it seem real but do either remain as something of comedic use. There are Fly on the Wall Documentaries like "Benefit Street" that do follow a group of people in an attempt to show others who are outside of that situation the lives that those people live.

(http://debater.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Benefit-Street.jpg)

The main factor in deciding if something is real or not is to look at how its shot, what they are explaining/showing and what purpose they are attempting to achieve. "Benefit Street" for example aims to show the life of a group of people who are currently living on a street that is primarily inhabited  by people on benefits from the Government. The idea ,I think, of this documentary was to show people the lives of those on benefits in an attempt to highlight issues that are normally swept under the rug when it comes to politics and elections. Its an educational thing for everyone that hasn't had the experience of being on benefits or knowing anyone who is. Its a particularly touchy subject that is very controversial in politics of recent years and it caused quite the stir.
"Despite provoking hundreds of complaints and being slammed as “poverty porn”, Benefits Street has been a huge ratings hit for Channel 4 and has got the whole nation talking about an issue that is so thorny, you can end up arguing with yourself about it."
(http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-previews/what-time-benefits-streetbenefits-britain-3155637#ixzz2wy4hDVAa 25th March 2014)



One of my favorite Mocumentarys is a Fly on the Wall comedy "Modern Family". Its one of the most popular shows still running of its type. The comedy behind it is based of what the writers know happens in day to day life for dysfunction but functioning family's.  The way the show is shot is in form of a documentary style like that of the Big Brother show with interviews with the characters. The show does seem to break the forth wall at time with characters directly looking at the camera gives that the sense they are looking to the cameraman.  When you watch a normal Documentary you listen and you watch as a story is told to you about something happening either now,soon or in the past. This is what makes this show so good is that the documentation seems entirely real with the characters but also completely made up but factual at the same time.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b0/Modern-Familytigtlecard.jpg)

John Grierson was the very first person to "coin" the term Documentary to a factual film or video in a review. When he decided to come up with the name he also wrote "The First Principles Of Documentary" which is a study into how documentaries are documentaries. John Grierson is featured here because of the term he created "Creative Treatment Of Actuality". Its a brilliant statement that means so much in such a short sentance. What he is saying is that no matter how true the things you use are how you document them is of your own creation and thus it can never really be 100% factual.

“Life in another's shoes”

A Documentary Explaining and Showing Why Gamers of Recent Years have Started to Become Attached to Characters in Games.

Research and Ifluences

Influence
Factual Documentary's are just the general type that has influenced the style of the Documentary  but as for its topic I was influenced by a YouTube documentary called “XP: The Life of a Video Game Addict” that focused on someone who had become addicted to gaming. Our style will be fairly similar to this documentary and will mix found footage with a talker who will try to explain attachment to characters between clips. 

Research
When looking online for information on the emotional attachment to game characters I came across a research paper that goes very into how and why some people end up growing attached to characters in games. (http://ndbowman.info/documents/CharacterAttachment.pdf) They conclude that a few of the reasons are linked to "Four distinct components: Identification/friendship, suspension of disbelief, control and responsibility." so I asked on my questionnaire for people to write their reasons for caring for some characters. For the next question I asked if a their reasons matched the few I listed.

 For the question "Have you ever felt emotionally.."  Below I have chosen an example of a good answer. 

Below linked is the percentages for the question "What Emotions Do You Feel When A Character You Care For Dies"

Here are the statistics for the 14 answers we received on the question "Do any of these match your description of why you are attached to them?"