CMT3331 New Media
Mohamed Parpia M00315628
CW2 Reflective Report For 60 Seconds News Flash
While contemplating at various news channels and watching videos of 60 seconds news
flash on YouTube, I started to closely observe the videos to see what was common
between them and to identify what elements in the video makes an effective piece of
news to display to the audience. Seeing as I only had 60 seconds to work with, it set me a
challenge to create a news flash that informed the audience on a particular piece of news
in a small amount of time. At the same time, I wanted to grab the audience’s eye and keep
them interested at all times during the 60 seconds.
By observing the different news programs, I came across a few that were presented in an
informal way. These programs were usually based on health and fashion. This gave me a
starting point to decide weather I wanted to present the piece of news in a formal or an
informal way to the audience. It also gave me the chance to come up with ideas of what
piece of news I wanted to get across to the audience. One of my main aims was to create
a piece of news that hasn’t existed before and to leave the audience wanting to know
more about it. This led me to think about the two things I had great interest for: coffee
and perfume.
During my time working at The Fragrance Shop as a part time job, I came across many
customers who brought forward the idea of having a perfume that smells of fresh coffee.
This always made me wonder; what if Costa coffee brand launched there own coffee
perfume? What would coffee lovers think about this idea? With this thought in my mind,
it led me to use this imaginative idea in creating a 60 seconds news flash to portray to the
audience how this news would be told to the world if this idea were ever to come true.
Due to the fact that I only had 60 seconds to work with, it was essential that the script was
effective and that it put forward enough information to the audience about this new
launch in the small time given.
Once the script was ready and complete, it was read aloud many times by a friend to
make sure that it sounded effective. During this process I also made notes of keywords
from the script that assisted me in deciding the props that I would need for this news
flash. Some of the main keywords that I picked out from the script were: Costa, coffee,
fragrance, Facebook and fans.
Using the notes I made during the observation of the different news channels and the
keywords I generated from the script, I started to storyboard the different scenes. Using
the keywords generated and my creativity skills, I decided the props and the few shots I
would take to interest the audience about this new launch.
With every new perfume launch, it is necessary for the audience to see the appearance of
the perfume bottle. In order to fulfill this requirement, I looked through a selection of
different perfume bottles that I had and chose one that would best suite the coffee theme.
This was then recorded from different angles to aware the audience on the appearance of
the bottle. I realized that the shot looked very dull and plain and didn’t seem attractive
enough to market the new perfume. After a few minutes of contemplation, I realized that
it was important to display the perfume brand in the video shot. In order to make this
possible, I used a Costa coffee cup and placed it behind the perfume bottle itself. Using
my creativity skills, I decided to sprinkle a few coffee beans around the bottle and the cup
to attract the audience and give it that coffee feeling. I believe that it also aided in
advertising the product; leaving the audience wanting to know more about how this
perfume actually smells. I used my camera skills to capture a reasonable shot of the
perfume bottle and the Costa logo on the cup. Using the lens, I manually set the focus on
the logo first and then the perfume bottle, blurring the background slightly.
CMT3331 New Media
Mohamed Parpia M00315628
Whilst watching this small clip of the perfume bottle, I realized that it was not enough to
just display the perfume bottle for a long duration on the screen and that it would bore the
audience. When I looked at a selection of other news flashes, I tried to observe the
technique they used to display their video footage. I noticed that they used many different
scenes that lasted only a few seconds each. This same technique was used and many other
video shots were recorded to keep the audience interested at all times. A clip of espresso
dripping into a shot glass was recorded using my Nespresso machine. By doing this, I
wanted to create that temptation for the coffee lovers to seek more knowledge about this
coffee scent fragrance. I also recorded a small clip at the Costa café to try and build that
environment of people buying coffee and shopping for the fragrance. All these clips
lasted a few seconds to adapt the same technique used by most news flash videos and to
keep the audience interested at all times by displaying small clips throughout the news
flash.
Like most news flashes, it is essential to have a presenter who presents the news. Due to
the fact that females usually show greater passion towards fragrances and beauty, I
decided to choose a female presenter. I believe that this would make it comfortable for
most of the audience to listen to. My aim was to display this news flash in an informal
way; making it much more interesting and not like the typical boring news channels you
get presented in the news studio. In order to accomplish this, the room was set in a way
that would give the audience a home feeling and the dressing of the presenter was kept
casual yet slightly smart. By setting this sort of environment, I wanted to build a
connection between the presenter and the audience so that the audience feel that the
presenter is directly and casually talking to them as a friend.
At the first stages of recording the presenter, I realized that the quality of the sound
recorded from the SLR camera was very poor. To improve the sound quality I used the
iPhone 5 sound recorder and dubbed it over the video using Adobe Premiere Pro; where
all the clips were edited and combined together.
Seeing as the news flash was based around fragrances, I wanted to create a splash screen
that adapted to the topics discussed. This was quite a challenge for me as the target
audience was both genders. I had to choose the right colors, font and theme to target both
genders and avoid making it too feminine. I also wanted to depict a luxury feel and give it
a sophisticated look. After playing about with a variety of colors, I decided to base my
theme around the maroon color. I believe that this color suited both genders and gave the
news flash a rich and luxurious theme. The logo was kept simple making it easy to
remember by the audience. I noticed that the color white for the logo went well with the
maroon and gave it a contrast without straining the viewer’s eyes. I made a decision to
use this color throughout the video by setting the logo and most of the fonts color in the
lower third to white. I was happy with the two colors I chose for the theme as they gave
the news flash a simple yet stylish look overall.
When I combined the splash screen, the logo and the lower third with my recorded clips, I
noticed that the colors did not match together and that the contrast and the colors needed
to be changed in the video clips. Using the ‘Looks Builder’ plug-in for Adobe Premiere
Pro, I toggled with the colors and lighting settings to create a vibrant feel and to match
the theme of the news flash. I was happy with this change and I saw a major difference in
the color and quality of the clip. The use of blue gave the video a fresh and vibrant feel,
which is what I had planned it to be like. Overall, I was happy with the final outcome and
how all the colors blended together and the effectiveness of the news flash itself. I also
believe that I succeeded in accomplishing my main aim of giving the news flash an
overall sophisticated look that targets both genders.
During this process of creating the news flash, there is so much that I have learnt,
especially developing great skill in Adobe After Effects. This task set me a great
challenge of creating interest in the audience with the help of multimedia tools to depict a
CMT3331 New Media
Mohamed Parpia M00315628
particular piece of news. By striving to achieve this, I learnt that using a variety of clips
that last a short duration each; builds interest in the audience and makes the over clip
much more effective. I also learnt that colors play an important part in multimedia and
that they should go well and contrast with each other to create a theme that makes it
memorable for the audience to remember.