Broadcast Journalism / News Segments
Welcome to the Jet Stream News Team! This page will teach you the basics of how to produce a high quality news broadcast. Use this page as a checklist to make sure you incorporate the mandatory requirements of a high quality news broadcast.
First watch Jet Stream episodes, Jet Stream Special Reports, or other news shows you enjoy in order to get ideas and creative inspiration. Your news segment can be modeled after those or it can be a totally different format as long as you get approval first.
First watch Jet Stream episodes, Jet Stream Special Reports, or other news shows you enjoy in order to get ideas and creative inspiration. Your news segment can be modeled after those or it can be a totally different format as long as you get approval first.
Pre-Production - Brainstorming and initial research:
- Make your segment about something you can film entirely at school during class time so you don't have homework
- Consider highlighting one of the following:
- Introduce a special person
- School club
- Sport
- Student group
- Recent or future field trip
- Social phenomena
- Local story or business
- A story that incorporates elementary and middle schoolers
- Focus on a specific topic you find interesting
- If you choose to make an advertisement, PSA, or promotional video instead of a traditional news segment, you must get special approval, and you will use different guidelines on a different page of this site instead of the information below
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Pre-Production - Further research & interview planning:
- Once you finalize ideas for a segment, fill out a Pitch Sheet to get approval and move forward.
- Then you begin researching using a Broadcast Journalism Outline.
- Research the topic before you write questions and get interviews.
- Write open-ended interview questions. Don’t write questions with yes or no answers.
- Surprisingly it only takes a few questions. You don't need to write that many. Open-ended questions get long answers!
- Mandatory final question: "Is there anything else you would like to say that we didn't ask you? / Give us your final words."
- You must represent our diverse student population and interview many ages, nationalities, staff, and both boys and girls.
- Plan excellent filming locations - must have depth to background and no plain white walls.
- Perfect lighting when you plan filming locations. Use natural light.
- You must schedule interviews in advance. Don't surprise attack people and shove a mic in their face.
- Talk to the people you will interview (interviewees) before the interview and tell them the questions you will ask.
- Practice with your interviewees. Bond with them. Make them feel comfortable.
- Must take a clipboard with Broadcast Journalism Outline and Filming Strategies & Checklists when you leave to film.
- Write down the interviewee’s names and titles so you don't have to scramble to find them in post-production.
Production - Camera Operator:
- Follow the Rule of Thirds to frame the shot.
- Interviewee looks at interviewer, not camera, but camera sees both eyes.
- Mid Shot of interviewee. Don't cut head off.
- Barely film any of the interviewer's body at all and head at all. It's okay to cut off head and not show any face.
- Background has depth and no plain white walls.
- Background relevant to content of interview.
- Bright light or natural light. Camera in focus.
- Use pressure to press and continuously hold mic cord firmly into mic jack during all filming.
- Hit record, wait 2-3 seconds to start the interview. Keep the camera rolling for 2-3 extra seconds at the end.
- Review the footage and make sure the video and audio are perfect before you leave the filming location.
- Turn the microphone on and do a mic-check test.
- Place microphone in front of face, below the chin.
- Stand very close to the interviewee.
- Bend your arm while holding mic. No stiff-arm.
- Hold the mic with the right hand if filming over right shoulder, and vice versa for left.
- Keep microphone held still and steady while filming or it picks up background noise.
- Get the interviewee to rephrase the question in the answers they give. Then it's not necessary to show questions on the screen or to hear the interviewer ask the questions.
- Don't think about the next question you will ask. Just take your time and truly listen to them. Stay in the moment.
- Focus on their answers and improvise follow-up questions.
- Make it a conversation, not an interview.
- Silence is okay! Give them plenty of extra time to answer your questions. Be extra patient while waiting for answers.
- Let them re-do any mistakes. Start over and do many takes until you all feel comfortable with how it went.
Production - B-roll:
- Research and make a list of the types of extra clips you will film that help tell the story - to be used as B-roll.
- B-roll must match the content of the interviews.
- Listen to your interviews, list and then film the things they just spoke about.
- Ask your interviewees what else you could possibly film. They'll give you new ideas you never thought of.
- Follow around your interviewees and film them in their natural settings.
- Use tripods, sliders, dollies, and all the fun equipment we have.
- Shoot the same shot over and over but from multiple angles.
- Shoot many more shots than you need. They should be short, but shoot a lot of them. During editing it's common to run out of good footage.
- Remember - anything that catches your eye will catch the viewers eye.
- Take risks. Be an artist with your camera.
- Shoot 10 seconds before, and after, the action. The action itself can be short, but shoot before and after and you can cut out the unnecessary footage later. This will make editing much easier.
- Keep in mind the Rule of Thirds, not only for framing interviews, but for framing B-Roll and WALLDO angles.
- Film all B-roll cinematography and WALLDO Angles:
- Tilt Shot
- Panning
- Close-Up & Extreme Close-Up
- Rack Focus
- Wide Shot
- Angled
- Low
- Linking
- Deep
- Opposite
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Production - Anchor, host, and voice-over training:
Speaking to the camera as an anchor, hosting a segment, or providing a voiceover is a thrill. You are a main representative of our media program and our entire school. Speaking with perfect pronunciation, enunciation, and with confidence are keys for successful speaking. Learn how to train your voice and build confidence in your speaking skills with this tutorial.
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Post-Production - Editing:
Post-Production - Mandatory Final Draft Requirements:
- At the end of each day, store the footage on a laptop. Label your footage. Then begin editing:
- Must have some sort of intro. Here are some possible ideas:
- Maybe some scenes of what the interviewees are talking about (B-roll), not the actual people being interviewed.
- Montage of the different interviews. Show a teaser (quick preview clips) of the people that will be interviewed.
- Host / interviewer with a special greeting (use the teleprompter).
- Some interesting graphics with text and music.
- Consider writing and recording a narration.
- Background music:
- Make sure it is instrumental and royalty free.
- Use keyframes and adjust volume levels to perfectly hear interviews.
- Music will be quiet during interviews but can be loud when we don’t need to hear the interviews (intro, outro, during cutaways, etc).
- Don't always necessarily need background music. You can use natural sounds from B-roll instead.
- Insert B-roll:
- When you edit chunks of the interview out, cover up the “hiccups” with B-roll "band-aids"
- Don’t just show the whole, long interview in one boring clip. Show other clips along with the interviews, on top of the interviews: B-roll.
- Use some natural sounds from B-roll recordings, not just background music.
- Review your interviews and figure out the right formula for a smooth flow.
- Possible flow: Question 1 with answers from interviewee 1, then interviewee 2, and end with interviewee 3. Then Question 2 with answers from interviewee 1, then interviewee 2, and end with interviewee 3, and so on.
- Find the correct rhythm to entertain the audience with a story that has a true beginning, middle, and an ending with closure.
- Must have some sort of outro:
- Best B-roll footage with natural sound.
- A special message from the host.
- A final word from the interviewee(s).
- A famous quote.
- Something funny, cute, or crazy that happened while filming.
Post-Production - Mandatory Final Draft Requirements:
- Create a clever title for your news segment.
- Follow capitalization rules for title.
- Title displayed at beginning of segment.
- Provide a teaser image to the director and anchors/hosts of your news show (PIP).
- Clever title embedded into teaser image.
- Intro (follow suggestions above).
- Keep it short, 2-3 minutes is the ideal length.
- Wide variety of B-roll (follow suggestions above).
- Stand-alone B-roll
- B-roll over interviews.
- Royalty free, instrumental only background music.
- Background music levels are high when there is no other audio.
- Low when people speak (use keyframes)
- Minimum of 1 host, reporter, narrator, or interviewer.
- Captions for all people the first time they appear on screen.
- List names and titles in captions.
- Voiceover for non-English content (translations).
- Consistent font and text throughout.
- Outro (follow suggestions above).
- Perfect audio levels.
- If there are photos: high quality and Ken Burns effect is used.
- Add the "Fade to Color" transition to beginning and end of segment in FCPX.
Watch the following examples to help guide and inspire you:
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