The Beginning of a New Era for Wiltshire College
Returning to my local college I was shocked how even now with all the facilities and equipment needed, they still were not promoting news and events effectively to the students of the college. This then got me thinking how I could change this forever. I came up with a simple news style program designed to bring news to students made by students. I shared my idea with many peers on my TV and Film course which was highly received by the majority. So we began to consider how we could effectively present the idea to the principal of the four campus college. We knew we had to show professionalism, commitment and interesting content.
We started to consider a variety of options for our pilot episode to present to the principal. We knew our class was taking a trip to the Harry Potter Studios, there was a Christmas Fair looming, the catering department of the college were holding a Christmas Cake Decorating competition and the Student Union trip to Longleat was about to commence. The one major theme linking all four together was Christmas, so it was decided we had our content and that our pilot episode would be a Christmas themed episode. In groups of 3 we went out to capture the footage we needed while others began searching for royalty free music we could use, write scripts for the voice over and plan how the four segments would be edited together. Throughout the project I acted as the producer with my peers Zak Wilkins and Lily Heaume acting as my executive producers (the three of us pictured to the left). With all our footage gathered and ready to go, we put our peers Lewis Jefferies and Jordan Symonds in charge of editing to two of the segments while myself and Zak took charge of the other two. With the segments complete all that remained was putting background music to them and recording the narrative to accompany them. Myself and head script writer Kelly Turner volunteered to have our voices recorded and put with the footage. The first episode of SLSV was complete and ready to show to our principal.
SLSV - The Pilot Episode
The episode was present to the principal Amanda Burnside found the entire production impressive considering we had done it with limited resources and time. This made her give the project a complete green light for going into production and along with our campus's Student Liason Officer Donna Di Pietro protected the project from the college's marketing team that wanted to take it over after we had put in the hard work. This contributed to use recieving a new three room studio and extra equipment for our next academic year. However SLSV was missing something...an official opening sequence.
The Opening Sequence
|
Fortunately for the project we had a unit focusing on stop-motion animation. This made me consider what I could make for 30 seconds in stop-motion format leading me to eventually see the best option was an opening sequence. I started to list areas of my campus that were easily recognised such as the reception area, the library and the rear entrance to the college. I then began looking for equipment the majority of students require to act as my "characters" for the opening, and in my search I found five superhero themed highlighters which I decided would be the main characters. I took photographs of the areas and ripped the imaged into six pieces each. The pieces were then slowly brought into frame piece by piece with items such as rubbers, pencils and rulers flying between the gaps before they closed. To end each image the hero highlighters would sweep in removing the image ready for the next to come slowly into frame. The final sequence sees the hero highlighters flying through as a team before the title of the show forms at the end.
|
Into the second year of my course I achieved the title of Entertainments Officer for the Student Union allowing me to access more information and departments in the college. However we decided we wanted to take the show into a new direction for its first official episode. Using shows such as The One Show by BBC as inspiration we wanted to have a presenter and a panel consisting of members of the Student Union to bring the news to the students more directly. This had two benefits, firstly the students would know how to identify the Student Union members of campus and secondly it put a face to who was bring them the news. By doing this it gave a more relaxed atmosphere and made it clear this was made by students and not by a member of the college's staff.
SLSV - Episode 1 - Term 1 of 2015/2016
The Student Union presented the first episode to the principal once again, who found the new relaxed presenting style removed any corporate feel to the pilot episode. She also thought it was a clever way of promoting upcoming events and campaigns planned by the Student Union. With her approval of the new format we are now actively planning Episode Two - Term 2 2015/2016 and a final episode Episode Three - Term 3 2015/2016.
After a lot of hard work and dedication from all involved we have now created a news format to reach the students of our campus though our Key Messages which is sent out to all tutor groups every week.
After a lot of hard work and dedication from all involved we have now created a news format to reach the students of our campus though our Key Messages which is sent out to all tutor groups every week.