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Tonight’s question

Tonight’s question. TV news story packages typically range from 45 seconds to as many as _____ minutes. A) 2 B) 3 C) 4 D) 5 Leave your answer in the comment section of the class website. Don’t forget your first and last name. No name, no extra credit, no record of you being here.

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Tonight’s question

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  1. Tonight’s question • TV news story packages typically range from 45 seconds to as many as _____ minutes. A) 2 B) 3 C) 4 D) 5 Leave your answer in the comment section of the class website. Don’t forget your first and last name. No name, no extra credit, no record of you being here.

  2. TV Scripting CMAT 131 Prof. Jeremy Cox

  3. Tonight’s agenda • Go over the optional redo for the radio assignment • Talk about formatting a television news package script • Practice on a pre-packaged story with raw footage • Discuss the media critique of a television newscast, due a week from today

  4. Mea culpa • I wasn’t as clear as I should have been about what I was looking for with the radio rewriting assignment • I’d hate to lose a whole assignment because of that • So, I propose allowing you all to do what we call a “write-thru,” rewriting a story based on new information • Here’s what I should have the first time around....

  5. Optional rewrite guidelines • Write in the past tense. • DO NOT editorialize. • DO NOT begin stories with the name of a person whom your audience likely does not know. (i.e. Barry Landau.) Instead, refer to him generally in the lead, as a “document collector” or “once-vaunted presidential historian” or something. No, I do not mind if you steal these. • The sentence before a sound bite should say more than, “John Doe had this to say.” Try: “John Doe, head of the postal union, is worried about the proposal’s impact on health benefits.” A warning: Be careful not to restate what’s already in the sound bite, though.

  6. Optional rewrite guidelines • In virtually all cases, use “said.” Avoid “believed,” “felt,” “commented,” “averred,” “declared,” “noted,” “explained,” etc. Keep it simple. • Facts count. Double-check spellings, titles of organizations. (“House of Representatives,” not “House of Republicans”) • The stories come from different days of the week. But for our purposes, let’s assume they all happened “today.” • ANNCR should only include the words from the sound bite and not your words like “said” or the speaker’s name. • Rewrites due Tuesday at very start of class. Printed out, double-spaced, stapled or paper-clipped.

  7. Formatting a TV news script • First, open up Word. • Find the drop-down menu Table and create a 2- column table with lots of rows. Let’s say 150. We just want to make sure we have enough. We can delete the extras later. If asked for how wide the columns should be, make it the length of the word. • In the top left corner, type “Video.” On the right, “Audio.”

  8. Terminology (for left-hand side) • SOT = Sound on tape. Used whenever you are using sound captured in the field, even interviews. • VO = Voice over. This is where you, as the reporter, would be reading your script • OC = Orange County On Camera. Used when you, as the reporter, are doing a stand-up in front of the camera • TRT = Total running time. Got a stopwatch? Use this only on SOT segments to indicate how long it runs.

  9. Types of broadcast leadshttp://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Announcing/Writing_Broadcast_News • Summary lead: "A small girl escaped injury today when she met a wolf in the woods north of town.” • Teaser lead: ”Things almost got out of hand in the woods today.” • "Staccato lead: "A girl...a wolf...and a lucky escape.” • Startling fact: “15 young women went missing in the woods last year ... and one little girl almost joined them today.”

  10. About the assignment • Write a 15-second intro for the anchor about the story. (Left column should say “Anchor on camera.”) It should use one of the types of leads from the previous slide. • Then, maybe one more sentence, and .... • Have the anchor “toss” to the reporter with something like, “With more, we turn to our correspondent, [your full name here].”

  11. Particulars • This happened “today.” • Write it in past tense. • Pictures must match the words. • Do it this way: Voiceover, SOT, voiceover, SOT, voiceover, SOT, on camera for the conclusion • Should be at least 1:15 (160-word minimum for the spoken words alone) and no more than 3:00 (no more than 390 words spoken) • Don’t forget a concluding sentence that ties everything together. • For the end, during your stand-up, write, “For CMAT 131 News, this is [your full name here] reporting.”

  12. Let’s try it!

  13. Due next Thursday • Critique of a television news show. • Must be scripted. Local 30-minute newscast or 30-minute network news. Networks like FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS, ESPN (SportsCenter) are fine. • DO NOT choose 24-hour news networks; there’s no beginning or end. No daytime talk shows or morning shows. No news magazines (“60 minutes,” “Frontline,” “Dateline”) or parody shows (“Daily Show”) • Consider answering: What kinds of leads were used? Was the writing understandable on first pass? Did the pictures match the words? How strong was the writing (active verbs, concise, etc.)? • Minimum 500 words. See syllabus for formatting guidelines.

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