The News is a Joke: Week 7 Reflection

The News is a Joke: Week 8 Reflection

The News is a Joke: Week 10 Reflection

The News is a Joke: Week 11 Reflection

The class time was spent this week doing a final run-through of the script, correcting any grammatical and logical errors. We made sure that Aaron could read through the edited script without any issues. Later, we also spent time completing the safety checklist for Friday. I noted down some final changes to the graphics and EVS footage that will have to be added or replaced on Friday.

On Friday, our group rehearsed first. We had a different desk this time, it came with a lighting strip, the colour of which can be adjusted. We came up with the idea to change the lighting colour in relation to our gag of singing the national anthem. To do this, the lighting manager, as well as an assistant, must coordinate the timing to alter the colour. Additionally, we decided that we should have an announcer introducing and hyping up the audience before the show began. This meant that we had another mic in the control room for James to use, the audio was then sent to the floor so the audience could hear him.

When the time came for the taping, we noticed an issue with the lighting. The lights were not shining onto Aaron’s face properly, resulting in shadows whenever he leaned forwards. We paused the taping after an EVS played and started from the beginning when the lighting was fixed.

Insufficient lighting on the host’s face

The announcement made on our second take had a mistake, therefore, we would have to edit together the two take we have in total. The lighting during the national anthem segment was done well, by overlaying the EVS footage of the flag, we made the set look more red than usual. During the national anthem segment, to our surprise, people audience stood up for it too, however, that moment was not captured. I believe this moment would have been better if we switched the vision over the audience camera.

Overall, the execution of our segment was successful to a live audience. There were many laughs that could be heard from the control room. I think this is due to the time we spent giving the audience sufficient background on the issue and showing relevant clips to them before making the jokes. For our satire to work, we needed to create a sense of community amongst those who get the joke (McClennon, 2011).

I can not imagine doing this from the ground up without the collaboration with the rest of my group. Each and every member contributed to a crucial role of the taping and development of the script.

McClennen, Sophia (book excerpt). “Satire as Public Pedagogy” America According to Colbert: Satire as Public Pedagogy. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. pp. 71-95.

Due to the absences of a few group members in this week’s class, a team member and I mainly focused on completing the paperwork for the assignment. We decided that whatever script we have by Friday will be the final script we present in the live taping, meaning no more new bits were to be added into the script.

When doing the graphics on Thursday, I noted some points near the end of the script that could be adjusted in order to set the tone. Prior to this adjustment, the tone throughout the script is largely cynical and sarcastic, therefore, when we do arrive at the end with the call to action, the tonal shift may be too large. Therefore, I made the adjusted before the final call to action to include more reflective and sharp comments to set a serious tone. This makes the shift to the call to action more subtle.

In the studio, we had issues with the EVS footage not displaying properly in midst of the run-through. However, we just kept rolling, whenever an EVS footage was supposed to be displayed, we just cut between two cameras and continued on. Eventually, one of the techs were able to come in and resolve the issue, allowing all the EVS footage from that point on to work as normal. Ruth mentioned that if we were actually live, that would be the best way to resolve it. If a similar issue occurs next week during the live taping, it could result in jokes not landing due to no EVS being displayed for the audience. I think a good way to resolve this would be for us to stop recording when EVS is supposed to play, fix the issue, and then continue from that EVS. This would make it easier to edit together afterwards and would make the audience get the joke.