Project Overview

Competition Category

The category we chose to participate in for the competition is Business and Community Organizations.

Description of Our Community

Hsinpintao CATV is one of sub-companies of Kbro Inc., located at No. 768, Sec. 2, Chungshan Rd., Huatan Township, Changhua County , and is about 5-10 minutes drive from our school, Pinghe Elementary School. The service areas cover 408.45 square kilometers including Changhua City, Huatan, Dachun, Hsioushuei, Puyan, Fusing, Lugang, Hsiansi, Shengang, Hemei and Fenyuan. The number of subscribers is 201515. Therefore, it is indeed a local broadcasting corporation.

Our Project Topic

Local News Broadcast by Hsinpintao CATV

Overview

The goal of our project is to know our local broadcasting corporation, Hsinpintao CATV, in depth. Besides equipments, we look into program production and broadcast, as well as news interviews, to get a first-hand experience. Moreover, we also make our own TV news preprogram, Dove NEWS, on a school basis. Not only the program is anchored by students, but also the interviews and reports are done by students too. Hopefully, we will get to understand news broadcast and Hsinpintao CATV better.

Our Internet environment

Our school has three well-equipped computer labs with one hundred and five computers in total. Plus, there is one computer in each classroom at least. The network in school is part of Taiwan Academic Network (TaNet), and internet access is available in each classroom. Besides, the wireless coverage is around seventy-five percent of the campus. While discussing the project at school, we can search information and print data online and we would also collect data and make process report through the access to broadband.

The difficulties we encounter and overcome

Timeusing vacations and after school time

With the help of Mr. Liu, the manager of Hsinpintao CATV, we got chances to visit the company and experience program shooting. We even managed to go along with news reporters to look at their interviews and video shooting. However, these activities can take us a lot of time and we, full-time students, are not able to find time for such interesting and useful fieldtrips. Therefore, we had a really compact schedule for these interesting activities during our summer vacation. On school days, we make our own news program, Dove NEWS, and take turns to anchor and do interviews. Dove NEWS team has 10 members from different classes, and sometimes also had problem for finding a common time to discuss and to exchange information. Therefore, we formed a private club on Facebook for online group interaction and communication, including exchanging drafts and information, setting up schedules, and writing reflections and feedback. That is, we work online on school days and get together on holidays.

Poor interviews skillsimulate practice

In order to know more about what a news anchor does, we planned an interview with Ms. K.Y. Lin. We members were very excited about this face –to –face encounter because we usually only get to see her on TV. We definitely wanted the interview to go on perfectly, so we brainstormed, discussed and carefully structured our questions, and decided that all members took turns to conduct the interview. We role-played and practiced asking questions over and making assumptions of what might happen in the interview. All these simulations gave us a good chance to reflect on our work in depth and to practice how to interact with people.

Bad sound recording deviceusing higher quality substitut

In the beginning, we used portable microphones and video camera to recording our interviews. Since the interviews took place in different settings, indoor or outdoors, along with the varied topics, the sound recording quality was not satisfying. The sound volumes were not stable either. The poor sound quality really had bad influence on our broadcasting. After a few discussions, we decided to use digital voice recorder while video shooting. With some post production to match the sound and video, the results were greatly improved in terms of its sound quality.

improving the lightingDark studio

We used school's media classroom for video shooting. However, the equipments were old and the lights were out of order. When viewing our first interview video clip, we found it was way too dark in the room. So we moved to a different classroom and brought in our own emergency lights from home for a second try. But it was still too dark. And that's why the video quality of Dove News Episode 1 was not satisfying. Fortunately, principal and teachers noticed the problem and helped to repair and renew the lights in the media classroom. Now we have a great studio for video shooting. We really thank the principal and the teachers for their great help.

Too nervous to forget our linesreciting repeatedly and using posters and caption machine

During the video shooting, the spot light, the camera and all our Our Members' attention focused on the anchorperson. Even with plenty of practice, the anchorperson kept making mistakes, mostly forgot what to say, due to nervousness and lack of experience. Therefore, it took a lot of time to do a video shooting. In order to boost the anchorpersons' self-confidence and help them to speak more fluently, some parents and Our Members made posters and held them up behind the camera. After Ep.3, the school added a caption machine to the studio. And that really has helped a lot.

Source：Dove NEWS

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