1. James Buckmaster
News Program Evaluation
Visuals: I would award myself a merit level for my visuals because throughout the video from start to
finish I have a constant quality level in my framing, shots and camera movement. My shot types are
varied; mostly in cutaways, for example: 1:34 minutes into the
news report I have a cutaway of the forensics team working on the
ditch of where the body was found in the middle of my shot whilst
interview with the first attending officer. Having this compared to a
close up cutaway of the team stirring a white paste after I had said
“the forensics team discovered the body” showed the diversity in
the footage we had shot and that the forensics team wasn’t just standing around doing nothing; it
showed that both us and they were busy, professional and knew what they were doing when it came
down to business. One negative about my visuals would have to be the ‘proper framing’ part of the
visuals when it came down to shooting the s scene studio with Ollie as our anchor. We left a big
unneeded gap on top of our anchors head where nothing is going on and it shows that the camera is at a
slight tilt from the blinds position.
Audio: I would also award myself a merit level for my audio as throughout my video the audio is clear
from the presenters and the interviewees, voice projection is at a high standard plus hand gestures are
also used and the audio volume is generally balanced throughout. Music is used at the start of the news
report just before the anchor footage when the logo is being shown for an intro. The music is not over
the top, its volume is balanced with the rest of the audio and it’s a bold jingle so it catches the
audience’s attention straight away. All narration was recorded on a microphone and the video camera
audio, this means we have 2 different clips of audio so we can listen through them and pick the best
ones, insert them into final cut and make them all the same volume for a balanced sounding news
report. Most levels were the same and they fitted together easily, the clips that didn’t we had to change
the levels to match the rest of the video. A definite achievement with
my audio is creating distinction level ambient sound whilst my voice
over was playing, the sound was a siren and it fitted nicely in the clip
because I was talking about the police at the same time. The only
negative about my audio is that the audio volume is not continually
balanced throughout the video, when the anchor switches over to me
my voice seems quieter than his.
Graphics: Although I prefer graphics to be simple and neat and me making my logo and effects around
that personal preference, I would still give myself a merit level. My
logo looks simple and professional like the ‘Apple’ logo for example,
it is a circle cut out of the long road logo and I made it more
transparent so it’ll look like a proper watermark. A positive to having
a logo as simple as this means that I can perfect it and make it a
better quality, unlike logo’s that have more quantity than quality in
them. My intro that involves my logo is simple as well and although I

2. James Buckmaster
like it being simple and effective I think this is a negative to my work as there’s not a lot going for it.
Another positive is that it was easy to fix in with the intro jingle so my intro is all in time.
Transitions and Pacing: I would give myself a merit because my transitions had good pace and timing to
them and I used transitions at the right times, e.g. when an interview was in play I used a transition for a
cutaway so the audience doesn’t get to bored of one shot. A negative about my transitions is that they
are simple fade in and out ones, my transitions also consist of going from one clip to another with no
effects or anything but these are only used when it suits the clips being used. The transitions set the
pace for my video as they keep the video at a high quality and they reveal more clips about the story
and emphasize the action through keeping the clips new and interesting.
Program Effectiveness: One of the main goals we set out to achieve quality over quantity. By quality I
mean have a shorter, to the point video with a decent amount of high quality clips instead a load of clips
of both high and low quality so we have to have a longer, lower quality news report. The video ended up
near enough how we expected it too but then again nothings perfect; the audio and video we shot had
good variety in it, the graphics did the job nicely and the transitions set the pace for the video and it
worked well to create an above average informing news report.