Evaluation - the Rise of Right-Wing in Nottingham
Updated: Feb 14
For our 6 week group project on investigative journalism we decided to do it about the rise of Right-Wing in Nottingham and how it affects the locals.
Our Intentions
To complete and make our project seem professionally made and organised, we set out to create a video piece, podcast and article which will be put into a magazine spread.
From the start we knew that our aim was to explore how, why and who affects the rise of right-wing in Nottingham. Given that few individuals express their opinions on specific political perspectives, we lacked a defined target audience. Additionally, we believe that regardless of age, occupation, or immigration status, everyone is entitled to voice their political opinions within the society they inhabit. The project's requirements include the creation of an article, a video piece, and a podcast that collectively support our concern, exploring the subject and arriving at a conclusion for the topic.
Analysis of the process
Research
The research part of this project wrapped up in the first few weeks, which allowed us to spend more time use all of our findings. Our main focus during the research was on incidents that taken
place in Nottingham, like the Void incident. Additionally, we didn’t just look into cases; we also explored information about individuals and their potential involvement in specific cases. For instance, before interviewing Ross, we discovered that he owns the Five Leaves Bookshop, a place that has faced several attacks from far-right individuals. Having a clear idea of who we were going to interview really helped us out. By the end, our primary source of researching was the interviews, which Eleanor, Millie and me participated in as interviewers. For our secondary source research we used statistics about hate crime on gov.uk.
Planning
We organized our projects on a weekly basis. Group meetings were held every single week to make sure that everyone was up to date with their work and potentially willing to help with other tasks. This approach helped us to remain on schedule and identify areas for improvement, as each group member would write in their diary what they completed and also reflect on the group’s shared efforts.
As for the interviews, we carefully planned every bit of it. From the greeting to the goodbye; we made sure that our goodbyes were polite and thoughtful. Additionally, we prepared specific questions for each interview. On the day of the interview, we came to the studio an hour beforehand to make sure that everything was in order and to finish up our interview plan one last time. I was not only tasked to come up with some questions for one of the interviews but also helped in setting up the cameras for both interviews.
When discussing our podcast, Eleanor and I were in a rush as this idea came to us quickly, and we did not have a lot of time to plan it thoroughly. However, after planning out the structure of the podcast and main questions, surprisingly, our interview went quite well for the first attempt.
Production
The first thing we tried to do in production was record a podcast. As I mentioned before, we rushed through it but were actually happy with how it turned out. We recorded our podcast in week 2 because we weren't sure how many people would actually get back to us (since we had already emailed a bunch of people, and almost all of them didn't reply). Since it was our first time recording a podcast, we were kind of off; a podcast should feel like a casual conversation with some Q&A mixed in, not like a formal interview, which is how we ended up sounding. But overall, Eleanor and I did an amazing job with it.
If speaking of other production tasks - interviews - we completed two of them. Eleanor and I took on the role of interviewers for one, while Millie handled the interviewing for another, (with Eleanor as 2nd interviewer). During the recording of the second interview, we really improved our skills, which made the camera switching much smoother and the sound quality improved as well.
We also recorded some B-roll, which was used as a background for our voiceovers in the final video. If talking of voiceovers, we have completed them on week 5 when I was already half way through the editing because we thought we didn't need them and we could use our interviews as a voiceover but I realised that we do need them while editing our final video.
Grace, Aisha and Lily tried to get some Vox-pops around train station area but the only thing they got was person saying 'I don't know' as no one else wanted to talk about politics on the street and especially being recorded, due to it being a very sensitive or even aggressive topic for some.
Post-Production
On this stage, I had a job to edit our podcast and final video. First thing which I completed was the podcast because I ended up find it easy to edit and entertaining. As for the video editing, it was a little harder due to facing some minor problems which caused a bit of trouble because i don't have enough of experience in editing using Adobe. I had to ask for help from people like John.
The problems which I faced while editing were things like, high exposure on clips which were filmed on iPhone, not being able to type in a lower-third (it still didn't let me type in one of our guest's name correctly but I could'nt do anything with it). But I did end up fixing them.
In video editing, I added all of our recordings: piece to camera, voiceovers, B-roll and interviews.
While I as working on editing aspect of our project, Drew was writing our article which then was sent to Eleanor, Millie and Grace to put it in a magazine spread which they were working on.
Grace ended up doing the front cover for our magazine spread, Millie and Eleanor did the main bits of it.
Strengths and Successes
During our project, we did have some arguments but they did not affect our work and we quickly sorted everything out. But overall, we had more ups than downs.
Everyone in our group was engaged in the project. Some people could've been more engaged than others but it was mostly based on ability to do something which they are good at.
If looking at things which went well, I would say that most of our work ended up going reallly well. Even though we did have some problems with switching cameras during our first interview, we then improved on it and didn't make the same mistake twice.
Even though not all of us in a group were originally friends, we ended up making 2 group chats to have communication as our strength (one was on Teams and the other one was on Snapchat).
Due to having easy access to each other, we were able to share our completed tasks faster and easier.
By having group chats, our communication skills improved within a group.
When we were adding final editing to our podcasts on the last week (week 6), we had a group meeting and discussed on who's podcast editing we should use for our final piece. At first, we decided to use Grace's. As my one was already finished, I offered Grace my help in editing her podcast as she was struggling. While I was helping her, we decided to use my podcast editing as our final one due to it being finished and ready to be uploaded on Spotify. I think we could call this a success, as we discussed this in a friendly like conversation with Grace and did not have anyone feeling left out; she was happy with us using my podcast as our final piece.
If talking of gaining new skills, durinf this projects I gained many. Main ones would be now knowing how to edit podcasts and videos. But also my communication skills improved not only because we had to communicate within our group but also because of the interviews which we did.
The feedback that I got was from my comment section on Youtube. I did get some hate comments but also I got a positive comment with a tip of improvement. But the hate comments did not make me feel sad, it only showed that our final video piece was a very big success as it opened a discussion in comments section.
Challenges and How we overcame them
High exposure on clips filmed on iPhone - At first, I thought there was an issue in colours on the clips, so I tried fixing the actual exposure of it but it just made the final picture look dull and unpleasant to look at. After asking John how to fix it, he told me that I had to follow these steps: right-click the clip in your project bin, select Modify > Interpret Footage, and under Colour Space Override, select Rec. 709 or Rec. 2020. After following these steps, I got rid of high exposure on certain clips.
Bad sound in some parts during the interview - When we were interviewing Ross from Five leaves Bookshop, I think I placed his microphone where he would constantly touch it when expressing his emotions through gestures. So, when editing the interview, I had to focus a lot on sound and try to cut out bits where he was touching mic to make it sound better.
Vox-pop - Even though we did not have to do the Vox-Pops, Grace, Aisha and Lily still tried. They faced many people whop did not want to speak to them due to the topic. But they overcame this problem with having one person actually being happy with them asking question. It's not a lot but still a success.
Podcast editing - During the editing, I had to cut out a lot of bits were me or Eleanor messed up our words.
Chris Tregenza - We invited him to be our guest for the 2nd interview. Chris was having a hard time replying to us and waited for ages for each reply. On the day on interview, Chris again did not reply to us until there was 2 hours left before the interview. Luckily, the interview went as planned.
Ross Bradshaw - He was our first guest for the interview. My jon during that interview was Floor Manager, which meant that I had to meet the guest and help him get ready for the interview. When I met with Ross at the reception, we now apparently needed a teacher to supervise us and without one, Ross was not allowed to go any further than reception. As we were not aware of that before it happened, I panicked and told Ross to wait at reception while I will go find a teacher. Then i ran off, while i was trying to find someone, some other teacher already taken Ross from reception and we had to find him now. But I'm glad that by the end, it didn't take us long to find him but it did stress me a lot.
What I've learned
During this project, I've discovered many skills, like:
New Technical Skills
I learned how to use Adobe apps when editing podcasts and final video piece. I gained a lot of skills in editing and how to make it sound and look nice. I could also say that due to the final video piece gaining attention from the public on Youtube that my editing skills not only made video look nice but also made it entertaining to watch. When editing (as I mentioned before) I faced some challenges, and by working them out I gained more skill in editing.
I've also learned how to film B-roll and have stabilised videos.
If talking of camera work, I also gained new skills in setting up cameras in the studio for the interview: set them to a good focus and make the picture clear with guest and interviewers looking in the middle of the screen.
New Creative Skills
I've learned how to come up with good questions for the interview, as my questions were used for our first interview.
When editing podcast, I picked out nice soundtracks to make it set the atmosphere but also it being nice to the ear (calm and relaxing music).
During filming B-roll, I was trying to find the best views for our B-roll, to make the B-roll videos look nice when added to the final video.
As I was editing final video, I used lower-thirds and made them red to reflect on our topic.
Professional Behaviours
I've learnt how to work in team where everyone have a different perspective and views on the project. We all had different roles but helped eachother in ways which we could, as we were all one big team and had to rely on eachother. I learnt that sometimes even if your role is only to engage in filming process (I was a Film director), you need to still help people who are not catching up with their work or simply dont know how to do certain part of their role. Even though we had Editor-in-Chief, she couldn't help us all as she had other things to do, so we helped each-other as much as we could. For example, I helped Grace with her podcast editing. But we also had to make sure everything was up to date, and I've learnt that even if you ask to do something multiple times nicely, even if you going to say it once with a bit of irritation, it will cause trouble within a group; so this made me learn that you should always remind or ask people in your group to complete their tasks in a nicest way possible to not cause any drama.
How the Final Product meets the Brief
Does it suit the target audience?
As I said before, we did not have specific target audience but in my opinion, our project made the topic being well presented to all audience. Sadly, but even through the comment section on my Youtube video I cannot tell which specific age group watched it.
Does it fulfil the purpose?
Yes, it brings awareness to rise of right wing and informs people who they are supporting (if they are on right-wing) and who is against them ( what they need to look out for).
Does it follow conventions of the genre?
It does follow it as an investigative journalism project because it shows variety of aspects of it like:
Fact-based reporting, objectivity, avoiding bias, and using evidence to expose corruption or wrongdoing.
Does it meet the client’s needs?
Yes. As it's interesting and shows loads of facts to backup our point.
Improvements for Next Time
What would you change?
First thing which I would change is the given roles, as many people in my group claimed to have one role but ended up not doing it and making other individuals to have more work to do. I understand that in future I will be working with many other people who are new to me, so to prevent this from happening again, I would ask for everyone to describe what they are best at and give out roles based on what they say.
Second thing which i would change is trying to have better communication. As in my group, we did have some minor incidents but they did impact our work, as it was hold back a bit due to people not listening of what they are asked to do.
What would you do earlier or differently?
As I said, I would ask Editor-in-Chief to talk to the group about what skills they have and what they are best on doing. It would then make everyone be more clear on what tasks they have as they know what they are doing from the start.
What skills do you want to develop further?
As i loved editing our podcast, i think the best thing for me will be developing my skills in editing sound. But also, I want to improve my writing skills as in terms of article, due to me not doing that part of the project.
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