On a crisp morning in early November I visited Fulham FC's training facility, Mostpur Park. In what was a routine Friday morning press conference for Sky's Jamie Weir, it was far from normal from my perspective. After a week working at Sky studios in West London, this was the culmination of the multiple experiences I had gained in the 9 days prior.
Upon arrival at the training ground we set up cameras to record a piece to camera discussing the permutations the up-coming weekend would have on Fulham's poor start to the season. At this point I discussed what skills you needed to have to deliver an informative, and fluent piece to camera in this scenario. He explained that having clear 'reference points' or 'headings' memorised stand you in good stead to talk naturally to the camera, with as little natural pauses or filler as possible. Observing the way Jamie reported to the camera with such a conversational tone was something I would later bring forward to my converged newsdays unit.
Then we took a tour around the facilities and training pitches, seeing members of Fulham's first team squad including Ryan Sessegnon and André Schürrle. Next on the agenda was a pre-presser with Mr. Jokanovic. Jamie explained this was a technique used consistently by large sports broadcasters in order to increase interest proceeding press conference, also pointing out that covering press conferences in broadcast media is largely different to that in print. Jamie, almost theatrically, set up the pre-presser so Slavisa would walk through and he would 'bump' into him and have a conversation, making the sequence seem as natural as possible.
The over-arching point that Jamie made was the importance of soundbites from his perspective. The nature of Sky means that they are constantly 'teasing' clips, both on the news channel and online. He made me aware that even more important than reporting everything that Jokanovic said, was getting 2 or 3 'solid' soundbites.
Another thing that I failed to realise before this day was the attention on location of shots. Alongside his cameraman, they frequently discussed the camera position and background in some detail. Gaining an understanding to how highly broadcasters value this was fascinating.
The morning went quickly, however when I got back to Sky central, seeing it all come together on screen was satisfying. Having worked behind the desk in production and online departments for a couple of days each, to then see how the different desks manipulated and used different parts of the footage gave me a better understanding of the whole process. For example, social media used snappy quotes whereas online it was presented in a full package.
Jamie gave me a lot of insightful tips about the industry, it was educational quizzing him on his path towards becoming the established reporter that he is today. The experience was thoroughly enjoyable, I felt I could see how the journalistic skills that I had learned could be applied in a practical situation.
Comments