How To: Co-ordinate NaSTA Entries: Difference between revisions

o For an example of where I failed to do this, check the Guides to York clips – “York is… your home for the next 3 or 4 years” – there’s clearly another music track playing as well as the one I used. We’d lost all the original footage so couldn’t fix this.

• Get a crack team together before the start of Spring term. Four people is a good size. Track down YSTV’s best editors, invest in a leather coat and eye patch, and spring upon them like this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyjwkav3h_0. Or send them a Facebook message.

• Have a meeting with this team early in term.  

o List out all the shows you have and plan a structural order that makes sense – such as Freshers being the first section.  

o Bunch shows together by genre (e.g. a section of Factual shows with one overriding song).  

o Cool ways to link sections are good (like my transition from elections coverage to Union).

o Also, decide how many seconds to allocate to each show. We gave 25 seconds to shows of a higher quality/quantity, going down to 10 seconds for shows that… weren’t like that. It doesn’t have to add up to exactly ten minutes, because timings are likely to change when editing has begun.

o Discuss what songs you’d like to include. Go for a mix of what’s ‘popular’ and actually good music. Don’t be afraid to stand up for your own tastes – I promised in my speech when running for HoP that I’d include the Rolling Stones, Bowie and Primal Scream in Best Broadcaster, and I stuck to my guns.

o Allocate sections to editors and give them a timeline of when to have a first draft of all their sections by. Write this all down in (another) spreadsheet. Here’s mine:

• SCREENSHOT

• Timetable when everything will be done by, and start early. You may hear horror stories from other stations or previous teams, but if you organise yourself, there is no need for any all-nighters. In the week leading up to the NaSTA deadlines, I was in YSTV every day, but the latest I left was half past midnight – and that included the Production Director and I having to re-edit several minutes of Best Broadcaster when the hard drive of a particular Student Activities Officer-elect died.

• Don’t stick rigidly to the amount of seconds allocated to each show – if a section feels like it needs to be a few seconds longer or shorter, let it be. Update this in the spreadsheet immediately so you can collate how long the finished showreel will probably be. Things can be adjusted in the final edit to make the whole showreel the right length, but at this point, concentrate on making each individual section as good as it can be.

• A show’s section of Best Broadcaster is NOT a collection of pretty shots randomly placed together. It is a narrative, a 20 second episode of that show with a beginning, middle, and end – and at least one sound bite for each. Thinking of it this way will undoubtedly improve how engaging your edit is. Take a couple of examples from the 2014 showreel:

o Fresh As:  

• Beginning: Opens with the presenters realising they’re on camera and welcoming the viewer. “Are we on?” … “And welcome to Fresh As”

• Middle: Showing off the show’s content and interviewees. “We’ve been joined by people, haven’t we, Liz?”

• End: Chris and Grace sum up the show’s focus on student activities (where’s that presenter now?) and wish viewers a good freshers’ week. “You can get involved in comedy, you can get involved in juggling. Whatever you want, do it. Enjoy university and enjoy the rest of your freshers’ week.”  

o Union:

• Beginning: Chloe Kennedy is introduced “Our brand new president, it’s Chloe Kennedy”

• Middle: The problems pile up for Chloe… “Just so you know, the editor of Vox will be here in a bit” “So, you’re a mug?”

• End: Chloe dejected, having had a disastrous first day. “Keep it up, Maggie”

• If you have a silly idea late in the game, it’s probably a very good idea, go for it. Starting the final section with Lloyd tied to a chair was a last-minute brainwave.

• Book out all of the edit computers for a weekend before the deadline and politely request that members of the station not editing for NaSTA avoid coming in unless it’s urgent for the duration of this weekend, allowing you and your team to concentrate.

o If NaSTA deadlines clash with YUSU elections, you may have to make some compromises. But make sure elections producers are aware of where you’re at and know not to get in your way.

• Aim to get a full draft of the showreel edited in good advance (two or three days before the deadline is ideal – for me it was the night before because of the hard drive incident), and then send it out to everyone you know can edit well and who hasn’t seen it yet for feedback. Fresh eyes are incredibly useful and make sure you have time to act upon their feedback.

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