Transcript The Art of Package Making

Writing a Package
Definition of a Package
 An edited, self contained video report of a news event
or feature, complete with pictures, sound bites, voice
over narration, and natural sounds.
 The package is a form of narrative storytelling with a
beginning, middle and ending.
The Blueprint of a Package Script
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Focus (the story stated in one sentence)
Beginning (studio lead)
Package Lead (a. visual lead, b. voice over or VO)
Middle (three or four main points)
End (a. final visual, b. strong closing sound, c. final
VO)
Define Your Focus
 What do you understand by ‘focus’ or ‘focus
statement’?
Focus or Focus Statement
 The focus is a simple, vivid, declarative sentence
expressing the heart and the soul of the story as it will
appear on air.
 Until you know the story yourself, it will be difficult to
tell it to anyone else.
Suppose you have been asked to cover a story on smart
ways to loose weight. After the research you begin to
understand that the story focus is, “The secret to
weight loss lies in eating a healthy diet from the four
basic groups.”
Studio
Lead-In
 The studio lead-in , read by the anchor, should
disclose the heart of the story.
 Audiences are best served if the studio lead-in
instantly and intrusively begins the story, rather than
serves merely as an introduction to a story yet to come.
STUDIO LEAD-IN:
“If you want to lose weight and become healthy for life,
you will never need a fad diet again. In fact you never
did. You learned the secret in elementary school.
Satish Jacob has the story.”
The Package Lead
 Before choosing the first video of your package,
identify the central idea you wish to communicate
before you worry about words. In general the thought
process focuses first on:
1. An idea to communicate.
2. Images to prove the idea visually.
3. Words as necessary to interpret and explain the
images.
The Package Lead
Suppose you decide to indicate in your first visual that
healthy diets are instinctive, you may decide your first
video should be of children eating healthy foods. You
might further decide to emphasize close-ups that show
the healthy faces and foods. Your package lead may go
like this:
The Package Lead
“Nutritionists now tell us the only diet we ever needed
is to follow the four basic food groups, and to eat a
variety of food from those groups. It’s how healthy
people just naturally eat…. And it can become a way of
life for almost anyone.”
(Video: Close-ups of children eating fruits, vegetables
and snacks)
Writing Main Body or the Middle
of the Story
 After the package lead, begin the main body or middle
of your report. In a 01:10 to 01:30 minute package, try to
limit yourself to no more than three or four main
points. Again, focus on the ideas to be communicated
before you worry about the images or the words. In this
example about healthy diets, perhaps after finishing
your research you know that you wish to emphasize
four main points, as follows:
Writing Main Body or the Middle
of the Story
 You can eat anything you want, just not everything
(eat in right amounts)
 Exercise plays a role, although you don’t need to be
obsessive.
 Healthy diets and foods are tastier. Fatty foods are
actually less satisfying. If you cut fat in your diet, you
begin to crave for healthy food.
 If you find you can’t control your eating, you may be
using food as a substitute to fill other needs in your
life.
Writing Main Body or the Middle
of the Story
Again the main body, focus on
 The idea to communicate.
 Images to prove the idea visually
 And words necessary to interpret and explain the
images.
Point
One
“You can eat anything you want, just not everything”
 To prove this point your search for visuals may lead to
the shots of a person buying fruits and whole grain
foods from a super market. When you interview the
person you get the following sound bite:
“I’ve found that diets based on deprivation will not
work, so I try to eat healthy foods but also occasionally
reward myself with a hot fudge sundae.”
Point
Two
“Exercise plays a role, although you don’t need to be
obsessive.”
You may decide at this stage that a standup or P2C
gives you an excellent transition from point one (eat
reasonable amounts of whatever you want) to point
two (exercise plays an important role)
Standup (at fast food take-out)
“So the occasional indulgence in healthy lifestyle is normal,
and inevitable. Just one caution: Know when to say
enough…and remember to exercise.
Point Two
The standup helps introduce point two (Exercise plays a
role, although you don’t need to be obsessive.)
After you define the main point, look for images that will
help prove it. (Shots of a person running on tread mill or
shots of some one jogging in a park)
Sound bite of a person wearing a track suit and sweating.
“Five months ago, I weighed thirty-eight kilos more than I
do now. Once I started working out, my body began to
crave healthier foods.”
Point Three
“Healthy diet and foods are tastier. Fatty foods are less
satisfying. If you cut fat in your diet, you begin to crave
healthy food.”
Point Three
The transition shot that begins point three after the
sound bite could be of an ultra close shot of apples. As
the shot holds on screen, a hand comes into frame.
The next shot, in matched action, shows a shopper
selecting apples from the shelf of a super market. The
next shot, a close up, might show the woman’s hand
coming into frame. In a matched action shot, this time
a medium or long shot, the woman places an apple in
the fruit basket at the dining table. As the sequence
continues, she cuts the apple, arrange it on a plate with
some cheddar cheese, and hands the plate to her four
year old daughter.
Point Three
Voice over narration throughout this sequence would
make the following points:
1. Natural foods, those without much processing, often
are the healthiest and the tastiest.
2. When people cut fat in their diets, they begin to
crave healthy foods.
3. Fatty foods are actually less satisfying.
At this stage, you begin point four in your package:
Point Four
“If you find you can’t control your eating, you may be
using food as a substitute to fill other needs in your
life.”
Because point three ends on the idea that fatty foods
are less satisfying, you could launch point four with
video of fatty foods.
The shot might be of dessert cakes on a bakery shelf,
rows of potato chips packets in a super market, fried
chicken on display etc. And the voice over will go like
this to make transition to point four:
Point Four
“While fatty foods won’t kill you, they can leave craving
more. Worse yet, with high fat temptations around, it’s
easy to loose control with these foods.”
At this point, you might like to use the sound bite of a
dietitian.
“Food is like a powerful drug. Often we eat to satisfy
needs that have nothing to do with food. To live a
healthy life style, you may have to learn why you’re
eating when you’re not hungry.”
Write the Closing of the Package
To write the closing part of your package revisit the
focus statement of the story:
“The secret to weight loss lies in eating a healthy diet
from the four basic groups.”
The story close may go like this:
“If you learn how to eat and live healthily, you will live a
happier life, and possibly a longer life.”
What should now be the visuals to prove the point you
have made in the story close?
Write the Closing of the Package
For that kind of story close you may choose the
following images to prove your point visually:
1. An elderly person playing with a grandchild.
2. Or a fit, trim couple, in their 70s jogging in a park.
The more articulate you can make your images, the
more memorable your message will become.
Preplanning the Package
The term preplanning refers to planning that occurs
before you leave the station and go out for a shoot.
“You can do a lot of effective reporting without leaving
where you are…..kitchen or station….by letting your
fingers do the walking.”
Chuck Crouse, TV Reporter
But ‘preplanning should not be confused with
‘prewriting.’
Preplanning the Package
“Planning is essential. But it is no substitute for the
reality of what a reporter finds on location.”
Bob Dotson, NBC News
“Prewriting is an easy way to laziness. Skill in reporting
from the ability to rapidly organize your story once
you’ve arrived and had time to digest what is
happening.”
Martha Bradlee, WCVB News
Preplanning the Package
Another form of laziness occurs when reporters wait to
understand the story until they return from the field
and actually sit down to write. By then it is too late
because the story happens in the field and can never
be more than you bring back from the field.
“A good television news story is made in the field by
competent reporters and photojournalists. Reporters
must be concerned with the story and not the standup
and how it will play. You have to cover the story to
write it.”
Larry Hetteberg, TV Reporter
Spot News Packages
Spot-news packages can follow the same planning
process, although fast-breaking news offers less time
for contemplation and reflection. Often the
cameraperson and reporter do well to capture what’s
happening. Even while covering the spot news, the
reporter and the cameraperson can identify:
a) Story focus
b) The story’s three or four most important points.
c) How the story will close.
Set High Standard For Packages
Not every story justifies a package or reporter’s
presence and many stories work well as simple anchor
VO or VO with previously recorded sound (VO/SOT).
Thus TV stories fall into two broad categories:
a) A video story that can be told by the camera and
through sound bites. Into this category fall spot
news, fires, and similar event driven stories.
b) Stories that require explanation, analysis, or the
reporter’s observations of the environment….stories
the camera alone can not tell without a reporter help
tell it.
Set High Standard For Packages
“When reporters tackle a complex story, they chronicle
the sequence of events, flesh out the personalities,
explain the issues and the implications, and pull all
the pieces together.”
Peter R. Kann
“You pick timeless subjects and treat them properly,
and people are going to looking at them 200 years
from now. We are stockpiling history.”
Donald Britain, Canadian Documentary Filmmaker
Use Natural Sound Liberally
 To help involve viewers and listeners in your story,
and to help them feel as if they are experiencing the
events you show on screen, remember to use natural
sound throughout your package.
 Natural sound up full at the very start of a package
even before the first voice over, can help draw viewers
into the story.