So after disappointment from Tahidi High, I wanted to get something else to watch. My next option was NTV County Edition. basically, they air the 9 o'clock news from both the studio at the Nation Center and from a field location. The major difference is that they would include features from that town in the news that weekend. I found it quite interesting that they should decide to go all round the country county by county. This particular date was the 17th of October.
As usual the studio transmission was well done. There was good lighting and sound. The presenters used lappelle mics and the main shots were close ups. They however had a stand up before the news started as they were giving highlights.
The field transmission left a lot to be desired. First, the transition between the two was very slow. The presenter in studio would hand over to Allan Namu and Ann Kiguta and you would wait over 3seconds before they responded. this made it look clumsy. Secondly, there was a problem with a feature by Robert Nagila. Allan Namu gave the into and the clip was cued. However, the clip was distorted in color and temporal resolution. The words were faster than the visual feed. The people in the control room were slow in rectifying this.
There was also a problem in the sound control. When Allan Namu came back on air, he sounded as if he was off mic. The person controlling the character generator also made a mistake by assigning the wrong caption to a news story: he gave ' Tapping Clean Oil' to a story that had nothing to do with oil. Apparently, it was the caption of the next story as the story was about cookers that use a special form of vegetable oil.
However, not all was wrong. There was a good use if natural scenery by the field transmission team. they choose a good location that gave the ambiance of the great outdoors. This worked well for the feeling of being in Nyeri county. There were good and creative shots. When Allan Namu was doing a peice on Mungiki, there was a shot of a road and then he walked into camera range from the left. After giving his stand-up he walked out of camera range toward the right. In the next shot, he walked in from the left. This gave the illusion that one was traveling from one point to another.
The live field transmission had very good lighting. One could clearly see the presenters and the set without shadows falling on them. The lighting also created a good depth dimension. Allan Namu, Ann Kiguta and the set were very brightly lit and thus you could see them clearly.As one looked further behind them the concentration of lighting reduced gradually and thus the darker the objects got. This created a bright fore-ground, a moderately lit mid-ground and a very dark background. Another thing that was commendable was the variety of stories. They were able to get new and interesting pieces from around Nyeri for example the fashion crazed Grandy and the 10 Commandments as with "Thou shalt not commit adultery" highlighted in red. This was a nice break from the largely Nairobi centered political plate served by other stations.
Though this was a very good example of electronic news gathering, it only took place over weekends. Sadly, it would be difficult to get 10 episodes before deadline.So I had to abandon this local program for another. That one is Tusker Project Fame.
This is a very incisive critique. Thumbs up to 090018!
ReplyDeleteHow do you relate all that you have observed with what you've been reading or learning in class. Suppose you were the cinematographer or producer of this show, what would you have done differently and why?
Rosemary
09-0018
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to the studio transmission I would not change much. Though the shots are monotonous, its a news bulettin so its meant to be serious and formal. I read in Hillard that one ought to realise that during news they are in a fanilies living room so they should not be intrusive with exessive movement.
Since the change from Studio to field transmission is done via satelite, I would probably ask the one in charge of the technicnical team to find a way to speed up the transmission.To avoid errors such as the one during Robert Nagila's feature, i would insist that all features made before hand should be sent to studio. This would help because there would be ample time to preview the pieces and rectify problems if they are any. From the studio, the response to technical errors would be real time as those in the control room would instruct the studio presenter to immediately continue with other stories. They would not have to wait for the communication to be transmitted via a satelite to Allan Namu and Ann Kiguta on the field.
On the problem to do with the character generator, I belive that the production team should have previewed the features before going on air. One could also add the captions before hand at the video editing stage. This would avoid last minute mix-ups in the control room.
Apart from those, i would keep the show as is.
Point well taken.
ReplyDeleteRosemary