Television Work - Christmas Shopping Package

Here is our final Television work for our group. Apologies for the low quality.

Evaluation For Television Work - Christmas Shopping in Farnham

For our TV work, we were asked to create a one minute television package focusing on Christmas shopping in and around Farnham. For the package, we were given a range of aspects of television based journalistic techniques to apply to it, including interviews, a piece to camera (P2C), pictures, voiceovers and vox-pops. We were asked to film all the pieces ourselves, edit the final footage down to a one minute package and upload it to our blogs.

In our group, I believe that we incorporated all of these elements into our finished work reasonably well, and that our finished package is of a good standard. On the other hand, I think that we should have managed our time better, as the editing process of the work was delayed until close to the deadline, which will always affect its quality, and should have been avoided. The reason for this delay was that we had some early technical issues, with our original attempt at the work being imported from the camera in a very low resolution, which essentially forced us to start over, which was the only way to resolve the issue.

As a whole, our group worked well together, and we all gave a valid input into the work. My input for the assignment was the filming side, by providing the shots and filming the interviews. I think this worked well, as I am good at the technical side of broadcast journalism, but I feel that I struggle when in front of the camera, so in order to get the best from each member of the group, we chose aspects, which we were strong at. I also helped with the editing process.

Overall, I feel that I learned a lot from this assignment, as before we started I had no intention of choosing television when I had to specify, and after this, it made me think more about what I wanted to do. I think that because I thoroughly enjoyed the television aspect of this unit, I gave more of a focus to it, and this therefore made the work better, and gave a more relaxed attitude to the filming and editing processes, which is again essential as it makes it less stressful and would again improve the work.

Click here to see the finished work.

Evaluation For Radio Work - Vox-Pop

For our radio work, we were told to create a vox-pop, on the subject of the relevance of Remembrance Day in modern culture. The controversial subject would create very useful responses from interviewees, especially in Farnham, as the majority of people in the town seem to older, indicating that they would have a more insightful opinion on the topic, opposed to a younger person who may not.

In the group, I was mainly recording the interviews in the town, with the recording equipment we were given, and I also carried out one interview. Generally, I found the recording equipment easy to use, as it was just a case of pressing the record button and holding a microphone, and it was easy to set up and put away, which obviously helped the speed and efficiency of our work.

After we completed our recordings, I edited the complete file, using Adobe Audition 1.5, which I have used at various times before, in areas such as music production and radio editing. I find the program to be simple to use, which again benefitted the efficiency of the work.

I feel that the behind the scenes aspect of radio is the area which I would be best suited for, due to the fact that I enjoy editing sound, and I think my voice is not suited to radio. I think with work it could be eventually, but at them moment, I am not confident with my voice in a recorded environment.

I think that our group was very good, as we got all of the work done for this assignment well on time, and we all created, in my opinion, well edited versions of our work. We worked well as a team, especially in the recording element of the assignment, as we all took on different roles throughout, but no one was afraid to get involved. I think the only issue with our work was our interviewing techniques, as although we were not afraid to ask people questions, we may not have got the best information or quotes from them, which if this was achieved, may have largely improved the level of our work.

Despite this, I think every member of our group created a good vox-pop, and as there were no major issues or arguments, we worked well together and done pretty much as well as we could have done in the assignment.

Click here for the finished work.

Snooker Final - John Higgins vs Ding Junhui

The final was hotting up on Sunday night in Telford, with both players making both phenomenal and terrible shots, making for one of the closest final's in years.

For the most part, Ding had the better of the play, after only falling behind once in the match, but Higgins never let off, and never went more than two frames behind.

Eventually, Ding made the sprint to the finish and won the match 10-8, and always looked the favourite in this outstanding game, between one of snooker's greats, and one for the future.

Snooker???

Snooker is not a sport that is heavily featured on this blog (this is the first) but one that certainly deserves a mention. Anyway, Saturday saw the start of the UK Championship, held in Telford (not exactly Wembley or Wimbledon, but it does the job), and we're already into the second round. Today sees the second round matches of Ronnie O'Sullivan vs. Peter Ebdon, and Shaun Murphy vs. Ding Junhui.


You can view the current scores, or even watch the matches on the BBC Sport website.

Uni Work - Radio

Another week, another uni project. This time we're continuing with radio! We had to write news scripts for radio and record them, and here is the recording! It's pretty good but to be perfectly honest, I'm not good at it. See for yourself. I'm the second voice on the recording and it took a while to edit out the mistakes, voice breaks (yes voice breaks) and coughing. Enjoy!


Radio Work by mattmansfield

Oh yeah. If you want to download it for free (cos you're gonna wanna), click the down arrow on the player.

England Lead Series After Emphatic Win

England's One Day tour of South Africa has taken a major step forward, with an incredible bowling performance from James Anderson, giving England a 2-1 lead with one game to go.


England bowled South Africa out for 119, with 13 overs left to go. In reply, England got up to 121-3, with 19 overs remaining.


James Anderson finished with bowling figures of 5-23, his best ever in one day cricket, and a very economical spell from Tim Bresnan, who took 1 wicket from his 8 overs, going for only 15 runs.


There was also a good batting performance from the ever prolific Jonathan Trott, who scored an unbeaten 52, with Strauss and Morgan also contributing, with 32 and 28 not out respectively.


View Pictures from the match, and view the Scorecard by clicking on the links.

ATP Tennis Finals - Davydenko Destroys Del Potro

There was a big surprise for Tennis fans in London on Sunday, with the 8 best male tennis players in the world this year competing in a tournament to see who is the best of the best. and the winner was not who you might think.

With Murray, Djokovic and Nadal leaving the competition, held at the O2 arena, in the group stages, the competition was wide open. And the Semi final stage provided a shock too, with Roger Federer leaving the competition at the hands of Nikolay Davydenko, and Juan Martin Del Potro overcoming the challenge of French open finalist Robin Soderling.

This gave for an interesting final, with Davydenko, the world number 6, against Juan Martin Del Potro, the world number 5, and the match did not disappoint.

With some inspiring tennis from Davydenko, he won the first set 6-3, after totally outplaying Del Potro throughout. He carried this on to the second set, and after a late break, won it 6-4, taking the prestigious title, in just 80 minutes.

Del Potro, who came through a marathon match against Robin Soderling, eventually winning 6-7, 6-3, 7-6 the previous night, looked tired and definitely felt the fatigue from the night before. After the match, he said '(Davydenko) played unbelievable tennis, he beat me in a good way'.

This makes Davydenko the 'best of the best' in world tennis this year, and, on this performance, deservingly so.