1) Have needs/expectations been met for this client brief and target audience?
For this unit, "Scriptwriting for Media Products", we have been tasked with creating a five minute TV news broadcast script for the news section on the Sheffield Live TV programme 'The Games Corner' (week commencing Monday 9th March for broadcast later on in the same week). As part of our group, Alex and Will researched topical gaming news items during the week we were assigned, I wrote up this research and Danielle amended the format and layout of our script. We submitted our completed script to Sheffield Live TV and we gained client feedback in order to make amendments to our script so that it is ready for broadcast. Vicky Kilby is one of the presenters of 'The Games Corner'. We gained feedback from this industry professional in order to improve our script.
The Games Corner will be broadcasted pre-watershed during the day time and will therefore have an audience between the ages of fifteen and thirty. This is because typically the demographic who play games the most are school, college and University students as they are most interested in gaming and have the most free time to dedicate to gaming. We have thought about the target audiences age in our script when we mention a variety of different games with different PEGI ratings such as "Disney Infinity 3.0" with a PEGI age rating of 7+ in contrast to "Project Cars" which has a PEGI rating of 3+. This is so that at least one of the games mentioned will be age appropriate for the audience member. Stereotypically, it is assumed that more males spend time gaming than females, although according to the graphic below the gender split is becoming more equal with the 2015 gaming gender ratio in the US being 56% males to 44% females.The gender of The Games Corner target demographic has been considered in the script where we mention gaming technology such as the "Sony Morpheus Virtual Reality Helmet" as this is an entirely gender neutral product that will appeal to everyone regardless of gender. Also, the target audience of The Games Corner will be from Sheffield as the show will be broadcasted on the Sheffield Live! television station which exists to serve the local community. We considered this in our script when we mention the Sheffield gaming company "Sumo Digital" in order to provide relevant local gaming news.
The Games Corner will be broadcasted pre-watershed during the day time and will therefore have an audience between the ages of fifteen and thirty. This is because typically the demographic who play games the most are school, college and University students as they are most interested in gaming and have the most free time to dedicate to gaming. We have thought about the target audiences age in our script when we mention a variety of different games with different PEGI ratings such as "Disney Infinity 3.0" with a PEGI age rating of 7+ in contrast to "Project Cars" which has a PEGI rating of 3+. This is so that at least one of the games mentioned will be age appropriate for the audience member. Stereotypically, it is assumed that more males spend time gaming than females, although according to the graphic below the gender split is becoming more equal with the 2015 gaming gender ratio in the US being 56% males to 44% females.The gender of The Games Corner target demographic has been considered in the script where we mention gaming technology such as the "Sony Morpheus Virtual Reality Helmet" as this is an entirely gender neutral product that will appeal to everyone regardless of gender. Also, the target audience of The Games Corner will be from Sheffield as the show will be broadcasted on the Sheffield Live! television station which exists to serve the local community. We considered this in our script when we mention the Sheffield gaming company "Sumo Digital" in order to provide relevant local gaming news.
2) What were the clients likes and dislikes?
As part of her feedback, Vicky explained that our script was very focused on the technology side of gaming news and we needed to have more rounded content that also featured news about new gaming releases. Most of the news items we featured contained technology, including "Sony's new Morpheus Virtual Reality Helmet" and "Playstation Vue". She detailed another weakness of our script which was a lack of local gaming news in the content. Additionally, Vicky mentioned that our script could be more entertaining and interesting.
It is important that these weakness were highlighted so that we could improve the script to make it more appropriate for the target audience of The Games Corner. This includes making the script more entertaining by adopting an informal, conversational style and making it more interesting by adding in varied content that covers all corners of gaming. Also, it is important that we include local gaming news, such as a new release by Sumo Digital or Team Cooper, because The Games Corner will be broadcasted through Sheffield Live! TV, which is a community television station that exists to serve the local community.
3) What are the relevant changes that need to be made to the script?
Therefore, in recap, the elements of the script that need improving are:
4) Is the content of the product correct?
Based on the content and layout, I believe that our script meets the needs of a news script because:
5) Does it meet legal and ethical requirements?
Our script complies with Ofcom broadcasting codes because it does not contain any of the following: inappropriate content for children under eighteen, unfair bias, copyright infringement or liable. Instead, our script is appropriate for pre-watershed scheduling.
We must ensure that the content featured on our show is appropriate for children under the age of eighteen as The Games Corner will be broadcasted pre-watershed. The regulator Ofcom has specific guidelines regarding the protection of under eighteens, including rules strongly opposing any "material that might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of people under eighteen". When featuring games with a PEGI rating of 18, we must endeavour not to show any unsuitable gameplay footage or make reference to any inappropriate content in the game.
Our script will be appropriate for pre-watershed scheduling because it the content is appropriate for a daytime audience. According to the industry regulator Ofcom, the purpose of the watershed is 'Protecting children from harmful material on TV and radio is one of Ofcom's most important duties'. Ofcom describes unsuitable material to 'include everything from sexual content to violence, graphic or distressing imagery and swearing'. Our television programme, 'The Games Corner', will be suitable for pre-watershed scheduling because it will not contain any of this unsuitable content.
In regards to bias, opinions are allowed in the script to a certain degree because we will essentially be promoting and advertising the games. To avoid bias becoming an issue however, in our script we have tried to show a balance between the opposing positive and negative opinions in order to not appear one-sided or only providing one side of an argument. Also, due to the remit of the show being broadcasted on the Sheffield Live! television station, bias is allowed because we aren't being employed or funded by the gaming companies of the games we are reviewing and featuring.
When using music, graphics and gameplay footage we must first gain permission from the owners of the content in order to legally use them in our show. This is important so that we do not infringe any copyright laws. Alternatively, regarding music, we could completely avoid any possibility of copyright infringement if we instead source our music from a license free site such as Creative Commons or we could create our own original music for the show.
We will make sure that the information we broadcast is not false or libel by taking it from reliable sources such as the website IGN. It is important that we reference all of our sources in case there is an issue with the information because then it can be traced back to the original publisher and so we will avoid any problems.
As part of her feedback, Vicky explained that our script was very focused on the technology side of gaming news and we needed to have more rounded content that also featured news about new gaming releases. Most of the news items we featured contained technology, including "Sony's new Morpheus Virtual Reality Helmet" and "Playstation Vue". She detailed another weakness of our script which was a lack of local gaming news in the content. Additionally, Vicky mentioned that our script could be more entertaining and interesting.
It is important that these weakness were highlighted so that we could improve the script to make it more appropriate for the target audience of The Games Corner. This includes making the script more entertaining by adopting an informal, conversational style and making it more interesting by adding in varied content that covers all corners of gaming. Also, it is important that we include local gaming news, such as a new release by Sumo Digital or Team Cooper, because The Games Corner will be broadcasted through Sheffield Live! TV, which is a community television station that exists to serve the local community.
3) What are the relevant changes that need to be made to the script?
Therefore, in recap, the elements of the script that need improving are:
- Less technology focused content and more interesting general gaming news items.
- More features on the local Sheffield gaming industry.
- Less formal speech and more interesting, informal dialogue.
4) Is the content of the product correct?
Based on the content and layout, I believe that our script meets the needs of a news script because:
- It is written in a formal style, similar to the example news script I previously analysed. However, due to the fact that the purpose of The Games Corner is to entertain in addition to inform, we are going to adapt the language in the script to make it more informal and conversational to suit the target audience. This still allows our revised version of the script to meet the needs of a typical news script as it has a different purpose.
- The house style of our script follows stylistic conventions of a typical news script because it is written in the 'Courier' font and has a size of 12.
- Our script contains several layout conventions including intro information such as SFX and GFX at the top right hand side of the first page. Also in the content is transition information on the right of the page in between the dialogue to indicate which visuals will be appearing on screen.
- Just like the example script, our news script is written in a formal style and therefore its mode of address is teacher to pupil. However, when we have amended our script to make the dialogue more informal, the mode of address will change to peer to peer.
- In contrast to the example script, in our news script we missed off some shooting script conventions including camera directions, angles and transitions and location description/time of day in our intro information. We will ensure to include these conventions in the revised version of our script.
5) Does it meet legal and ethical requirements?
Our script complies with Ofcom broadcasting codes because it does not contain any of the following: inappropriate content for children under eighteen, unfair bias, copyright infringement or liable. Instead, our script is appropriate for pre-watershed scheduling.
We must ensure that the content featured on our show is appropriate for children under the age of eighteen as The Games Corner will be broadcasted pre-watershed. The regulator Ofcom has specific guidelines regarding the protection of under eighteens, including rules strongly opposing any "material that might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of people under eighteen". When featuring games with a PEGI rating of 18, we must endeavour not to show any unsuitable gameplay footage or make reference to any inappropriate content in the game.
Our script will be appropriate for pre-watershed scheduling because it the content is appropriate for a daytime audience. According to the industry regulator Ofcom, the purpose of the watershed is 'Protecting children from harmful material on TV and radio is one of Ofcom's most important duties'. Ofcom describes unsuitable material to 'include everything from sexual content to violence, graphic or distressing imagery and swearing'. Our television programme, 'The Games Corner', will be suitable for pre-watershed scheduling because it will not contain any of this unsuitable content.
In regards to bias, opinions are allowed in the script to a certain degree because we will essentially be promoting and advertising the games. To avoid bias becoming an issue however, in our script we have tried to show a balance between the opposing positive and negative opinions in order to not appear one-sided or only providing one side of an argument. Also, due to the remit of the show being broadcasted on the Sheffield Live! television station, bias is allowed because we aren't being employed or funded by the gaming companies of the games we are reviewing and featuring.
When using music, graphics and gameplay footage we must first gain permission from the owners of the content in order to legally use them in our show. This is important so that we do not infringe any copyright laws. Alternatively, regarding music, we could completely avoid any possibility of copyright infringement if we instead source our music from a license free site such as Creative Commons or we could create our own original music for the show.
We will make sure that the information we broadcast is not false or libel by taking it from reliable sources such as the website IGN. It is important that we reference all of our sources in case there is an issue with the information because then it can be traced back to the original publisher and so we will avoid any problems.
