WildEarth weekly highlights show

[Emily Wallington]

Hopefully most of you have read the most recent blog that Graham wrote regarding a new idea that we have had to create a weekly news show. WE think it is important for you guys to understand more about what goes on behind the scenes but also to give a round up of the best sightings of the week for those who have missed drives. Because of your fantastic creative ability in putting together videos WE thought it would be best if you guys post produced the weekly show yourselves. This means that all of our family members do something and the end result is a good team effort. Alex and the camera guys will provide the animal footage, Marco will provide the behind the scenes footage,Pieter and Marco will give the voice over and our extremely creative audience will put it all together to give us the final show. I think it will be amazing because all people vary in the creativity and therefore everyones show will be interpreted slightly differently. Although WE will choose our favourite and post it on the blog, all shows will be able to be viewed on this site and all will be worth watching. I can't wait. The first behind the scenes and presenter links show will be on Friday 30th May at 4pm - please give it ago, its in your nature!

[Emily Wallington]

Producer Guidelines for the weekly highlights show.

WE have a vision for how the final show should look and so I have put together some pointers to help you create. Please feel free to start a discussion regarding any of the points if you feel that they are wrong or you have some better ideas.

1. The weekly show will include sightings from the Friday evening drive all the way through until the following Friday when Marco and Pieter do their behind the scenes and links show. This show from Pieter and Marco will mark the end of the week.

2. Marco will present his show live, half an hour before the Friday afternoon drive. This week that will be 4pm. He will play out sequences from behind the scenes that he has recorded throughout the week. This footage can be recorded, captured,ripped or whatever you want to do with it and Marco's voice presenting will help link it all together. This should then feature in your show. It is up to you as to whether you put Marcos' footage all together in your show or you sprinkle it thoughout. I would personally mix it with animal sightings so you are always watching something new. Marco will tell you what happened on what day so maybe you can do it in chronological order. This I will leave up to you.

3. Pieter will present his links show live, straight after Marco has finished. As I mentioned before I will be sending Pieter a list of the best sightings and events from the week (as decided by us and you the viewers) on Thursday evening. On Friday after Marco has finished Pieter will take you into the bush and talk about the best weeks sightings. For example: "On Monday i had the most amazing elephant sighting. He was so close to the vehicle,i couldn't believe it. On Tuesday Mojo the mongoose was out again". This will just be Pieter talking to camera as hopefully you will already have the pictures from these sightings that you have recorded throughout the week. Therefore you can use the pictures of Pieter talking to camera or you can just record his voice and put it over the top of the relevant pictures. Its up to you. I would suggest doing a bit of both. We don't always need to see him, sometimes it is nice to use his voice as a voice over.

4. You do not have to use every sighting that Pieter mentions on his Friday show. In fact it is better not to as then everyone will produce something slightly different and they will be more interesting to watch. Pieter will give you a number of different sightings to choose from and then you can pick your favourites.

5. Timing for the show is difficult at this stage as it is our first one and we have nothing to go on. My instinct tells me 4-5 minutes and definitely no longer than 5 minutes. In my experience I have found that shorter, faster cut, pacier pieces of work are far more entertaining that long drawn out ones. My advice would be to put in the best parts of the sighting with a few sound bites fom the presenter and an introduction from Pieter. Once we have seen what the sighting is all about we don't really need to see much more than that. Remember it is a news show that just lets people know what has been seen on the drive. The same goes for the behind the scenes portion. Marco will give you more footage than you need and it is up to you to pick out your best bits.

6. I feel that music is very important. You do not have to have wall to wall music because sometimes it is nice to just hear the presenters voice but putting music in it somewhere is important. It makes it much more entertaining and gives it a faster pace.

7. Adding graphics, writing etc is all great just make sure that they don't get in the way of what we are watching. The writing should generally be at the bottom of the screen and the graphics should enhance the footage. Having said this I love the idea of you personalising your own show with something different, It kind of creates a brand, if you know what I mean.

Good luck.

[Lisa]

this is going to be so fun! For anyone interested I will be getting my vido capture and editing software this weekend and woudl love to get involved in this. ;) so pick me LOL.

cheers and good luck WE members. I have a feeling you are going to do a fantastic job with this.

[Aquila (Admin)]

Well, I failed miserably at attempting to do one of these videos. Dang it, there were just too many great sightings and even trimmed down... my video was a bit over 10 minutes long. LOL At least I have a nice time capsule of the weeks viewing. ;)