Final Green Screen Product

Here is the final green screen product for our news report. The background shows the BBC news logo and the picture of the Klinger factory when the factory was open.

For the green screen, our inspiration was the BBC news reports over the years. This was the picture for our inspiration. This was a news report within the 1980s and was a simple design used for their news report. This was perfect for us due to the simple design and we were able to edit this onto photoshop before merging it with the green screen footage.

News Backdrop Design

Our News Report follows the closing of the Klinger Factory in the 1970's. We create a News Report that not only looks genuine, but looks like it was broadcast in the 1970's.

Following Chloe's research into BBC News Reports from 40 years ago, I created a backdrop similar to one from the 1970's. 

Using IStudio Publisher, I created a simple backdrop which will be transferred onto a green screen in which our news reporter will speak in front of. I used a simple gradient orange background with a lighter shade at the bottom to represent any studio lighting that may have been used.

I then added an establishing image of the Klinger Factory in the left corner as would have been in the old News Reports and the old style 'BBC News' logo below.

The Final result can now be transferred onto the green screen with the news reporter and desk on it.

BBC news reports through the years

For our news reports, I wanted to see the different graphics that were used throughout the years. Yet once I started researching all these different backgrounds, I realised that using graphics is a relatively new concept used in newsrooms today. BBC news on the television did not start until 1954 and from here we look at the different backgrounds used and how it has evolved from a plain background to a big bold and informative graphic.

BBC news started in 1954, before it used to just be a newsreel and a continuity speaker. Then, many of the news stories were for "entertainment purposes" and not for serious information. Here on the left we can see one of the first live news reports where the background was of the world and with a microphone in the corner of the picture. This shows shows how plain and original news reports were when they first began. On the right we see another news report shown in the 1960s, it may of not evolved much from the 1950s but the background of this news report is of the other workers within the department and we still see this today in some BBC news reports.

In the early seventies, news reports changed to where more pictures were shown while all the news reports were described by the newsreader. We can see the background of the news report would just be of a plain colour with the logo of "BBC news" showing within the background, this was one of the first graphics used during a news report. As we plan to say the Klinger factory closed within the late 70s to early 80s, this would be the best type of news background to do for our trailer. This is quite easy as it is just one colour and then a graphic of BBC news.

In the 80s, we begin to see more graphics shown within the news report with the logo of "BBC news" embedded into the studio instead of a graphic. The studio was made up of horizontal lines which co-ordinated with the logo of BBC news then in the 80s (shown above). This also paved way for pictures shown alongside the news reporter while he was reporting his story. Before, montages of pictures were shown while the news reporter was speaking about the story. If pictures were not superimposed within the report, it would either zoom into the reporter or show the logo. This is useful if we did not want to show an image along the reporter and instead show a montage of pictures. Throughout the 80s, we see the backgrounds of news reports change in terms of colour (to see what was visually attractive) and other backgrounds (i.e. background of the newsroom) but not much change when it came to graphics used during the news report.

It wasn't until the 90s where we started to see full graphic news reports. In April 1993, we saw the start of the BBC's virtual news studio which meant the majority of the visual aspects in the news report was computer generated. Even the filming of the news report was done by a remote control from a gallery within the newsroom and this meant there was a lot of flexibility when it came to the backdrop and layout of the news report.

Today we see more of a studio compared to a fully computer generated studio. This means it has the flexibility in showing big stories on a giant graphic screen but also being able to demonstrate on this platform as well. There was also the removal of the graphic beside the newsreader to make way instead for edited news footages after the report has been said. Graphics shown within 24 hour news channels (shown in a post before) are different to these daily news bulletins as they are only giving out a summary of the days' news compared to 24 hours, 7 days a week constantly of news.    

Green Screen

For the beginning of our trailer, we wanted to put in a news report/montage of news reports in to talk about the background of the Klinger factory. For the news report to happen, we're using a green screen to give the effect of a professional news report with graphics in front of the news reader. We practiced with the green screen to find the best position of where to place the newsreader/where the camera should be. This took a while as we only wanted to see the head and shoulders of the news reader but we later then realised that this wouldn't really matter anyway because the news graphics would cover the bottom of the screen. Once we had the perfect position, we started to just use plain graphics i.e. a picture behind the newsreader to test the green screen - we realised that the newsreader should always keep still otherwise part of the green screen would show and this would not look very professional.

During the process, we learnt that a number of different things to make sure of/a number of processes we had to learn. These include:

Planning the studio set-up

• The green screen must be as flat and even as possible - if the green screen is creased in any way then it would damage the professionalism of the final product with the graphic(s) in the background where bits of green may pop up instead of the graphic.
• Never have anything in the background green or the person/people within the green screen where green, they will disappear into the background!
• We realised that we need to allow enough room to allow for any other equipment needed for the news report (this includes lighting, a table for the report etc.)

Editing the end product

Once we had finished filming the part of the news report, we had to use a technique called chroma keying. This is where we have to take out the whole of the green colour and once that has happened, we can place any picture possible behind the screen. You can either do this while filming but we decided it was better to create a chroma key during editing. The process goes as follows:

1) We placed the green screen footage on a layer in the timeline where we were editing.

2) We then placed a graphic image as the background on a layer below the green screen footage

3) We added a chroma key effect to the top layer (the original green screen footage)

4) After, we selected green as the colour to use in the key - this was really easy as an options button was very visible and this was at one click of a button.

5) The green in the screen had disappeared and the image that we decided to choose had appeared in the background.

Conventions of news reports

Nowadays, we seem to take news reports for granted. They are very informative and they try to be as concise as possible at the start when covering each story before then giving more detail to the more important story.

If the channel is a 24 hour channel i.e. BBC news or Sky News then they would tend to take advantage and would give as much detail as possible if the story is a breaking news story. To keep audiences which just switch to the television channel for only 2 minutes, you would find a still graphic of “breaking news” and a brief sentence of what happened and also moving graphics to maybe explain a little more about the story.

When we are going to film our news report, we are filming this in front of a green screen. This means we will have to look at a number of conventions of news reports. This includes:

1) How the picture of the story/news report graphics are framed & positioned, coloured and lit.

2) How many elements are on the screen together, if there are too many elements on the screen, the news report graphics will look overcrowded and not look professional. It may confuse the audience in terms of having too much news to show them and not informing them correctly.

3) If we are going to do a longer more detailed news report, a routine convention is the pan from an insignificant object to the real subject of the report e.g. you first see the sight of a flag before panning to see the reporter talking about the story.

4) Another convention is how the camera would zoom into the picture from a long-shot into a close up of the person in the story or the use of a hand-held camera to make the story feel more natural and real.

5) Editing is very important in terms of how quickly the shots are changed, what images are juxtaposed and even the montage of the edited sequence – very important when trying to get the meaning of the story across.

6) If we end up only showing pictures of the factory in the news report then the effectiveness of the voiceover within the montage is essential in getting the message across towards the audience but also make it sound natural and like a conventional narrative.

News Reports: Examples

Sometimes we take the news for granted. If it wasn't for the news, we wouldn't know of things right at this moment of time and the only way to find out of events is by word of mouth which would take much longer. Reporters and journalists work day in, day out to find the most important news possible.

There are dedicated news channels to show all the breaking news but also show all different types of news such as sport, entertainment and stocks.

Here is an example of a BBC breaking news report and the graphics they use to keep the audience informed quickly and concisely.

1)      When breaking news occurs, we tend to see a reporter at the scene reporting in more detail about the breaking news. This means we can get news quickly from the scene of the event to the newsroom and keeps the audience updated about the news event.

2)      Here we are shown the breaking news title and a short concise sentence about the main news of the event/happenings. We see the colours of the BBC news are used effectively with the colours red & white contrasting to show clearness and clarity. The red can also show a sense of urgency & importance.

3)      On the bottom shows the rolling graphic of news, in general it would show the main news stories of the day but when it becomes breaking news, the rolling graphic on the bottom shows a little more detail about the story but again still keeping it concise so then they keep the audience informed quickly and effectively.

• Another way to show a breaking news report is with the main news reporters telling the audience the news. They would be the first ones to report the "breaking news" and would have the first details of the report before handing over to another reporter who would tend to be at the venue giving more detail about the story (as shown in 1) in the BBC news report).
• These main newsreaders would also be the ones who would repeat the news every 5 - 10 minutes to show how important the news is.
• Here, Sky has a similar graphics layout to the BBC news with the breaking news graphics and the rolling graphics at the bottom - it shows that this is the quickest and most effective way to keep the audience informed.