Evaluation Assignment Three - Looking Back

'The creative treatment of ACTUALITY is one of the greatest gifts a Filmmaker can have' 

Evaluate how you have grown and developed as a practitioner, during this first assignment? 

I think that I have grown because I am now able to work on my own, I am confident in using all of the camera equipment by myself. In this project I think that my editing has also improved a lot, this is because in my last assessment I didn't think my editing was that good therefore I think that it was important that I focused a lot on it. 

 What two things were you most proud of?

I think one thing that I was most proud of was my final documentary, this was biggest it was my first major project and I was able to work on my won and do things how I wanted to do them. I also really enjoyed mine and Olivia's Pandora advert, I really liked this was because it was a really simple idea that worked out really well. 

 What two things do you think you could improve in the future?

I still think that I could improve on my editing, although I think I am better at it now, I still believe that I have a lot to improve on and work towards. Another thing I think that I need to work on is the quality of sound that I produce, I think I am confident with filming but I think the sound side of it is something that I am not that confident with and therefore I want to improve on it. 

Write down some future targets you would like to achieve?

I think that working in smaller groups and on my own more often will help me to improve some more. 

Final Documentary - Filming and Editing

This documentary was done by myself therefore all the filming and editing was down to me. I decided that my filming days would be Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Although I had a schedule I didn't follow it exactly. I followed it to a point.

On the Monday I decided that I would start by getting a 10 minute clip of people walking around town but only showing their lower body. I got to 8 minutes and both of the camera batteries died. I was really disappointed at this because I wanted to get a large portion of it done on Monday. However I took all of my equipment home and decided to do the majority of the voice over that night. I had to plan what I was going to say in my voice over because it would be spoken throughout my video. I wrote it all down what I was going to say and recorded it into my voice recorder. It took me a couple of times to get the clips and to make them sound right, however I felt as though I said everything that needed to be said. 

That night I also decided to do some more filming, I filmed my 'online shopping segment.' In this segment I got my brother to scroll up and down on the 'Topman' website to show him looking at clothes, as this is a big part of online shopping. I then got him to go onto 'Ebay' and 'Amazon', who are two of the biggest online retailers sites. These two sites have had a major impact on high street stores because especially on 'Ebay' you can get the same quality goods but for much cheaper and everyone likes a bargain. I did an over the shoulder shot for this part because I felt as though it would give the best view of the sites. 

On Tuesday I made sure that both of my batteries were charged right up and therefore wouldn't die on me again. I took all of my equipment back into town, however it decided to start raining really had. This was my problem and solution. I came up with a solution and that was to cover up the camera as much as possible therefore it didn't get damaged while filming. Despite the weather I managed to film a lot. I started off with filming a lot of shops down the bottom of town that had been closed and abandoned, this was easy to film because there wasn't many people about. I then decided to move and film a bit more in the other parts of town that was a lot busier. I filmed outside shops such as House of Fraser, Blacks, Miss Selfridges and others. In these shots I just got them open and people walking in and out of the shops to show that they were still busy. After I had down that I filmed some other abandoned shops, ones which were a lot bigger before they went down. The shops that these were Entertainment for less, JJB sport and Derry's. 

After I had done a lot of these shots coming from different angles, I decided to do a big shot from outside of House of Fraser it was one where I filmed people going in and out of the shop; this shot worked well because at this time House of Fraser was really busy and therefore people kept walking in and out. The idea behind this shot was that I was going to speed it up while editing. After that I went back down to the quieter end of town and shoot outside the charity shops. Charity shops have been one of the only shops that haven't been affected by the online shopping and therefore I felt like it was important that  I included them in my footage. Finally the last shot that I got of the day was outside of Drake Circus mall, this was by far the busiest part of town and I filmed people going in and out of the mall. Due to it being this busy I decided that this was a good place to get my wild track and there was a lot of voices. 

To complete a documentary, you will always need to interview people, therefore on Wednesday that is what I did, to start with an interview of Olivia who is one of my friends from college, I was going to interview people in Plymouth City Centre, but due to the weather I wasn't able to do this. The second interviewer I got was Lynne Marker who works for Soft Soles which is a beauty salon in the middle of town, I asked each of them the same three questions. Do you think online shopping has affected the high street? Do you prefer online shopping to high street shopping? Who do you think online shopping is aimed at? There answers were a bit different because Lynne was coming from a professional background while Olivia was stating her own opinion. I felt that both of their opinions were great and incredibly lengthy which was amazing for my documentary. 

Editing 

On Tuesday I started my filming, to start with I had to get all of my footage from my laptop to the college computer which was a bit of a hard task as I had a lot of footage and my memory stick wasn't big enough to fit it all on. 

After I had done that I started my edit, I went through all of my clips and deleted the ones that I didn't need. I had a lot of extra voice overs that I didn't need so I rid of them. I then put all of the footage into Adobe Premiere Pro. I selected all of the footage and cut each of the clips down as I had to make sure that my documentary was under 6 minutes. I thought that selecting the footage and putting them into order was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I think the reason for this was because of the amount of practice I have had with editing since September. 

After I had put all of the clips in, I matched the sound up from Olivia's interview to the actual clip. This was then I realised that I didn't have very good sound quality from Lynne's interview. The best thing that I could do was to turn the sound right up from the audio tune to make sure that it was as clear as it could be. I managed to save the sound and I was really impressed with the way it turned out. Due to the sound not being amazing this meant I had to turn the sound down from Olivia's interview so it wasn't too loud as else it would have sounded really strange. 

Once the sound from the interview was sorted, I needed to put in the voice overs, this was important where I stuck the voice overs because it needed to make sense with the clips, therefore the voice over where I was talking about charity shops I put with the footage of the charity shops. I did the same when it came to online shopping, out of everything in the edit this most certainly took the longest because I had over 30 voice overs and I had to select the ones I felt were the most suitable, this took me about an hour to work this out. 

These were the most important part of the video, due to the amount of voice overs that I had I felt like I didn't need the wild track. Finally I sped up some of the clips to 800% to make it look more like a news documentary and then added some fades and dissolves, I felt as though this made it look a lot more professional and I was really pleased with the outcome. Finally the last thing I did was blur ending, I did this with the help of Matt Jury as I wasn't entirely sure but he showed me what to do and I was incredibly happy with the outcome. 

I really loved this documentary and it turned out fantastic  I am glad that I worked on my own because it made me realise that I can work on my own and it can turn out successful. I really enjoyed working on documentaries as I find them so interesting.

This is my documentary. 

Final Documentary - Planning

The big final project was to do a documentary in under 6 minutes in three weeks. The first week we had to plan, the second week to film and the third week to edit.

As soon as I had heard that we could do a documentary on anything we wanted, I had a pretty good idea. My idea was High Street Shopping Vs Online Shopping' to see which one did better. My idea was easy to come up with because I felt as though it was something that nobody else would of done and it was really interesting. I did a presentation on Prezi which had to last 2 minutes. I think that my documentary last about 2 minutes, although I had to go through it quite quickly due to the length of it.

I had to do a lot of research in looking up what happened in high street shopping and online shopping. I found out a lot of facts about online shopping. I found out that a majority of people preferred to shop online to avoid queuing in shops. I surveyed people and I asked them seven questions. The type of questions I asked was; Where do you shop? Do you think online shopping has affected the high street? Do you prefer online shopping to high street shopping? The age I asked was a bit of a variety. The age was ranging from 16 + under to 75+. I felt as though it was important to get a say from everyone because then it was more fair and not as bias to those who have a better understanding of the internet. I got a good number of results back, as are shown on the data above. I think this was important because I got a real understanding for my subject and how much online had affected the high street. 

 To start with my intentions were to show that even though online shopping is taking over it's not affecting the high street market a much as people make it out to be. The high street is eking a lot of money still and many people still prefer the high street over online. I had set out the aspects that I needed to capture. I needed to have some sort of time lapse that I would be able to speed up in editing. I also decided that I need a voice over, interviews from members of the public, shots of different areas of shopping online and the high street. Finally I need to include different shots of town to show off the busyness and the popular streets. It was important to me that I had a plan to follow because this way I could see what I was doing each day which would cause for me to not fall behind. 

I thought that it would be best if I took a side of this argument. I felt as though it was best to do this so that I could focus on one aspect more and people could see the side in which I was coming from. The side in which I was coming from was that I felt that although online shopping had gotten incredibly popular it hadn't actually taken over from high street shopping as it was still very popular. In my planning for my voice over I thought to mention this so that it was very clear to what side I was coming from. This was important because in a normal documentary that would have been the case, with the interviewer coming from a side instead of staying neutral as it makes it far more interesting to watch. 

This was the release for that I used, it was important to have this because it showed that these people were allowing me to put them into my film. 

For this project in particular it was important to have a risk assessment for this, all the filming that I did was offsite therefore I needed this because during college time I wasn't actually there meaning that I need to be careful of my whereabouts and if there were any heath and safety precautions that I need to take into consideration. In fact there was some considerations that I to be careful of as there was the possibility of it raining and therefore the ground becoming slippery. This was important because I was on my own with a lot of equipment. 

My storyboard was quite easy to come up with, I knew what order my shots were going to be in and therefore it was pretty easy to come up with the storyboard, although this was a very vague idea to what I was going to do I felt that this storyboard is very detailed and something that would be relatively easy to follow. 

I felt as though this was the easiest part of the documentary was the planning because I did an incredibly detailed plan which helped me when it came to starting the filming. I am thankful that I put so much time and effort into the planning because it definitely helped me. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/10537640/Shoppers-shun-the-high-street-to-spend-their-money-on-internet-sales.html - 25th March

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255677/Booming-internet-sales-close-5-000-High-Street-stores-cost-50-000-jobs.html - 25th March

Critique of a Docudrama - The Social Network

The Social Network was directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, it was released on October 1st 2010. The film was released by Columbia Pictures. The story behind it is how Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook while still in college. Jesse Eisenberg plays Mark Zuckerberg. The docudrama shows the struggles that Mark went through but also what made him so successful.

'Terrific entertainment - an unlikely thriller that makes business ethics, class distinctions and intellectual-property arguments sexy, that zips through two hours quicker than you can say "relationship status," and that'll likely fascinate pretty much anyone not named Zuckerberg.' - NPR- Bob Mondello

The Social Network is a docudrama because it attempts to recreate the events within the event. I think the way that they manage to recreate the events is done very well. I think that in this docudrama it was important that they managed to stay as close to the original concept as they could. Unlike a documentary a docudrama is a lot more dramatic. The reason for it being so much more dramatic is so that it keeps the audience interested. By making it more dramatic the audience is more likely to empathise with the characters which has been stimulated by a certain event. This is important so that it keeps to the original idea but keeps the audience wanting more. An example of making it more dramatic, is when Mark is dumped by his girlfriend and he blogs about right after after using some offensive language to describe her, I highly doubt it was exactly like this in real time, but in this type of docudrama it's important to use dramatic techniques to tell the story. 

In this film we see everything that Mark experienced during college and the hardships that he went to while he was discovering Facebook. In this film it shows how Mark had to overcome people thinking that he was stealing their idea. Also in this film it shows how Mark lost his best friend after he lost him while discovering Facebook, I think that this part of the film is important because it shows how his experiences made him the person he is today.

'The film comes down to a mesmerizing portrait of a man who in any other age would perhaps be deemed nuts or useless, but in the Internet age has this mental agility to transform an idea into an empire.' - The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

This film looks very slick and modern, although you can tell that this film is set in the past because of the technology that is used. The computers and network sites that are used in this film are very dated and about 10 years old. This is important because new technology wouldn't have been created when Mark was still in college. The fact that this is a documentary means that it is important that the equipment that is used in the film is what was used in the real time. At the Academy Awards the film won Best Picture and Best Editing, this is important in the way it looks because this shows that incredible care and detail was put into it.

The sound used in The Social Network is a lot of barroom chatter and shuffling feet these sounds were used to enhance important sounds than rather use a standard orchestral sounds which is used in a lot of films as a standard wild track. The sound department in The Social Network won Best Oscar for original score and nominated for best sound. The directer David Fincher oversaw Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross engineering of the films sound and score, he worked with the team to perfect the technological. Although a real world atmosphere he strove to attain. The most common source of sound that Fincher used was overlapping dialogue and real world sounds, although this technique was common and seen as repetitive.

The Social Network is told from a third person perspective, the story is told by an outsiders view, this is done through it being a docudrama. The way the in which the story was told it was very heavily criticised. Mark Zuckerberg said "I can promise you, this is my life so I know it’s not that dramatic. The last six years have been a lot of coding and focus and hard work, but maybe it would be fun to remember it as partying and all this crazy drama." This occurs a lot in docudramas because the story isn't fully the truth and always exaggerates what it actually is. 

The film does work really well for what it is, the concept is just to inform people of Mark Zuckerberg's life before Facebook and while he was inventing Facebook, the story does well in portraying Mark's character very similar to his personality traits. I think that there is nothing other that the director could have done to make it better for what it is. 

I think that this film doesn't really make you feel anything, the idea is to inform and that it does. I think this film definitely makes you think about how one person life can change over night. It is important to look at the situation and think that this could happen to anyone. Mark worked on Facebook for a period of time and in that he was successful. I think people will look at this film and think that if a 19 year old college student can make a website that successful from his college dorm, then it is possible for others to be able to achieve what they want. For me personally this is how it makes me feel, I think I look at this film as a motivation to achieve. This film exists because Mark Zuckerberg is an incredibly rich young man and people are interested in him and his story of how he got that much money and became so successful. 

This film got a lot of mix reviews, so people absolutely loved it, others despised it. I think that this film is about taste you either love it or hate it. 

'David Fincher's film has the rare quality of being not only as smart as its brilliant hero, but in the same way. It is cocksure, impatient, cold, exciting and instinctively perceptive.  - Chicago Sun Times Roger Ebert'

What people love about this film is the fact that it's a David Fincher film, an incredibly successful directer who is known for his smart and clever films. However people despise it due to the portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg's character. A lot of critiques complain that is isn't Mark's personality, it isn't nothing like Mark the way in which things are done. 

'But as a story about Facebook, it is deeply, deeply flawed. As I watched the film, and considered what it missed, it struck me that there was more than a hint of self-congratulatory contempt in the motives behind how this story was told. - New Republic'

I think that in conclusion that this docudrama was very successful, it portrayed the main aspects of Mark Zuckerberg's life, although some parts of it could have been more true to real life. However if this was the case it would mean that it wouldn't of been as successful when it came to audience response because it would have had a lack of dramatic techniques.

http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-social-network/critic-reviews - 20th March

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/books-and-arts/78081/sorkin-zuckerberg-the-social-network  - 20th March

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-social-network-2010  - 20th March

http://www.examiner.com/article/the-sounds-of-silence-analyzing-sound-the-social-network-and-citizen-kane-1  - 20th March

http://www.joblo.com/movie-news/what-does-facebook-founder-mark-zuckerberg-think-of-the-social-network  - 20th March

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Network  - 20th March

'Real or not so Real'

In this production we had to create a story based on the picture. I based my idea on the fact that the girl looked rough and that she had a tough upbringing. I thought it was really fun creating the background for this character because all we have is a picture yet we are placing judgment and telling our own story to suit that persons looks. I think it is important to be able to make up your own story based on an imagine.

This idea came about learning about the difference between Mockumentaries and Docu-Drama's.

A Mockumentary is a made up story but the director still uses documentary techniques in order to make it look real. A Mockumentary will usually contain a description of the events, what happens; who was there, what was said, these are usually taken from their accounts or interviews. These interview happen at the time or months after the event. Along with this another thing that is included is techniques such as 'real life footage' this so conventionally catches the action. Two very well known Mocumentaries are 'The Office' and 'Parks and Recreation.'

While on the over hand a Docu-Drama takes a real life event and produces a fictional drama of the events. This is done by a re-enactment of what is happening using drama techniques. Sometimes these re-enactments can be slightly over-exaggerated in order for the audience to capture the concept. An example of where this happens the most is on 'Crimewatch' and on the Pride of Britain awards.

This production was called 'Real or not so Real.' There are so many reasons as to why this documentary is real but also not so real. This is because this documentary is about describing a person in a video diary, this way of doing it through a documentary is real. This could be real though because somebody out there, this is probably there life that I am describing yet I have no idea because what I believe that it is all what I have made up.

'My name is Diana Rose Green, I have been homeless for the past 9 years. This all started when I got kicked out of my home after overdosing on sleeping pills at a party. I left my home in London and moved across the ocean to San Francisco. For the past 5 years I have been the top drug dealer in Old San Fran. Every few weeks I have to move to a different part of San Francisco to make sure I don't get caught by the police. Recently along with being the top drug dealer I have also started become a prostitute, it's different from being a drug dealer but I still get the same thrill. Life isn't all that bad on the streets, people make it out to be worse than it actually is, I enjoy it.'

There are so many reasons as to why this documentary is real but also not so real. This documentary is real because it is about describing a person in a video diary, this way of doing it through a documentary is real. This could be real though because somebody out there, this is probably there life that I am describing yet I have no idea because what I believe that it is all what I have made up.

However on the other side this documentary it really isn't real. I don't know this women, I have absolutely no clue who she is. For all I know this women could be rich and famous, yet I am making a judgment about her. However I think this production is necessary, is it important that they are real or not? I think it's more important to get the idea behind learning about Mockumentaries and Docu-Drama's. I personally think that it isn't real, however I think that there are elements that are real, the description of her isn't accurate yet the concept behind it is and this is where the problem lies of it being 'Real or not so Real.'

Although this production was very simple and easy to make I enjoyed it a lot, I think that if I were to do it again I wouldn't pick the same women, I would want to do something a bit different and maybe base it on someone who is completely different to this 'Diana Rose Green' that I made up.

Here is my version of the production

Furious Footage

In this production I had to make up a scratch video, which is by using old footage. The footage that I found was on youtube and archive sites. The idea behind this was that the quality of the footage would be awful to make it look as though this footage had been reused. The way in which I did that was by downloading the footage in the small amount of MB possible, this meant that the footage was unclear and blurry... exactly what I wanted.

Scratch video was a British video art movement that emerged in the early to mid-1980s. It was characterised by the use of found footage, fast cutting and multi-layered rhythms. Scratch video arose in opposition to broadcast TV, as (anti-)artists attempted to deal critically and directly with the impact of mass communications. Much of the work was politically radical, often containing images of a sexual or violent nature, and using images appropriated from mainstream media. Two very famous scratch video artists Rik Lander and Peter Boyd MaClean, who are also known as the 'Duvet Brothers.' This is their most famous video. This video gave me a lot of inspiration as to what mine should be about. 

How would you describe a scratch video...

'If television is our shop window on the world, starch has just chucked a brick through it, and is busy looting 30 years of goodies with abandon' - Andy Lipman, City Limits, 5th October 1984 

'Scratch video establishes a radical new approach to television itself. It abandons the idea that TV images are mere representations of what’s real. It starts to disassemble the images themselves by indulging in orgies of editing. In a sense scratch is the epitome of what professional broadcasters would call irresponsible television.' - Benjamin Woolley, The Listener, 14th Sept 1986

Both of these quotes are amazing definitions as to what a scratch video is, I particularly like the second quote because it's true. These videos are going against what editors have been doing for years and it's for this reason why they have turned out brilliant. I really like the concept of them because I think it's a good way to express your opinion without using any words.

In my production I based mine upon feminism; past and present. I used protests from over 30 years ago, to protests that have happened in the past 10 years. Along with that I used present feminists such as celebrities such as Miley Cyrus and girl group Guns N Hoses. In the video I also used the feminist version of Robin Thicke' blurred lines music video. I felt as though this video was incredibly important to use because it became very popular for current feminists because it showed the world just what feminism was about. I chose to do feminism because it's something that really intrigues me because I feel as though society as a whole doesn't necessarily understand it.

I used a total of 8 or 9 clips I then cut the clips down to the shot that I wanted. These clips were about 5 seconds long, I then cut them in half again so I could use each part but put them in a different order, to show that it had been edited thoroughly. I really enjoyed edited this although it did take a lot of effort to get all of the clips in the 1 minute that I had. The song that I used was 'Girl on Fire' by Alicia Keys, I felt as though it was very important to have a female vocal especially when my video was about the strength of women. For this video I turned it into black and white, the reason for this is because a lot of scratch videos are black and white, I also did this because some of the clips were in colour while some weren't therefore I thought that it would suit it better.

I think that scratch videos are really great and I enjoyed making mine especially when it's on a subject that fascinates you.

Here is my video 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch_video - 4th March 2014

Space is the Place

In this documentary we had to come up with a location to film about, the idea behind it was that we had to make a 1 minute video of a 'postcard effect'. We had to make it seem to the audience that they were already there. Along with the footage we also had to come up with a multi track' and a 'Soundscape'. In this project I worked with my colleagues Jade Popham, Olivia Searle, Lauren Walke and Scott Friday.

Our location was on Plymouth Hoe, it was an old building that had been abandoned for quite some time, it was also on the sea front over looking the harbour. It looked like a very picturesque scenery. The building made an impression on us because it was something different and out of the way meaning that nobody else from our class was going to come and also film here. My first thought was; how are we going to turn this old empty building into a location suitable for a college film. To us the location offered a lot, the main factor in choosing this location was that it was close to the sea, which meant that it was going to be easier to get a better quality wild track. Although today the weather wasn't to brilliant, it didn't affect us to much this is because the majority of our filming was under the shelter in the building.

Inside of our location

In the actual building there wasn't too many objects, there was although some broken glass which proved very important to us. There was also pieces of broken wood inside the building that we used for the same reason as the glass. The atmosphere in there was almost creepy, it was dark with the feel that nobody had been in there for sometime. The atmosphere also set part of our sound because it meant that we were able to use whooshing sounds, the create the atmosphere. The scenery of the sea in the background was incredibly important because it gave the feel that this was some abandoned washed up building.

We did shots in three different areas, the first lot of shots that we did were of outside, such as shots of the sea, the steps leading down to the sea and then a panning shot. The next lot of shots were of outside of the building which was of the side of the building and then through the broken window, we took shots of the different angles of the window to show just how abandoned it really was. We then shot inside the building which was almost pitch black apart from the sunlight coming from the outside. These shots were important because it showed the loneliness of the place which was a good way to show the essence of the location which was the main focus that we had when shooting.

When it came to the editing I did it all of my own, I decided to start with the panning as I thought that this was a good starting point to introduce it. I then took to shots of the sea so the audience could get a sense of the location. I then went onto the outside of the building and then leading up to the main part of the filming which was of the inside of the abandoned building.

The 'multi track' worked really well I think this was because we recorded it for just over a minute, it was of the sea which gave us a really strong and powerful sound, the sounds of the waves crashing against the shore were really incredible. The other sound clips that we used were of someone stepping on the different pieces of glass, someone making the whooshing noises of the eerie atmosphere and finally of someone standing on the wood and cracking it. This worked well because each of these were inside of the budding and our sounds went really well with the footage, I think we match it up well. In the editing I repeated the sound throughout the video, this is so that it felt as though it was going round in a loop as each of the sound clips only lasting two seconds. I think that the best part of the editing was most definitely the soundtrack this is because I felt it was already really strong and didn't need too much tweaking, it just needed to be reorganised to fit with the footage.

I don't think that the footage was that brilliant. I think a lot of it was blurring and didn't look professional enough. I think in the future if we were to do it in this location again it would be important to keep it on the tripod so that it gives it more of a professional feel. However apart from that I am really happy with how the documentary turned out.

This is my edit of 'A Documentary of a Place' 

Fox News/CNN Case Study

FOX

Over the past few decades the way in which the news has been presented has changed very drastically. Years ago presenters would have to have a neutral view on things yet now a day it is quite obvious when a news reporter and news channel is being bias.

A very big example of this is Fox News. Fox News is owned by Fox entertainment group, which was created by Rupert Murdoch. Fox News promotes conservative views with it being incredibly right wing and supporting the Republican party. It is known for it's bias reporters, with reporters such as Glen Beck and Bill O'Reilly who are incredibly anti Liberal. In the past reporters at Fox have responded that news reporting and political commentary operate independently and have denied any bias in news reporting, however it is obvious that they have been lying in the past. Fox News has been known to complain about Liberal bias in the media yet brag about their cable dominance which makes absolutely no sense, if everyone was listening to the Liberal views.

The reporters on Fox News are known to get very aggressive in the past and it is very unlikely that they can let their interviewee answer the question without interrupting them if it something that they don't agree with. The reporters have been known to change the view point around to make it look like the interviewee was the bad person. An example of this was when Bill O'Reilly interviews Jeremy Glick. This interview turned incredible aggressive with 'O'Reilly ending it saying 'Out of respect of your father' yet through the entire interview he was seen as being rude and inpatient. Fox News is privately funded everything that is on Fox News is to do with Rupert Murdoch and he only employs people have the same views as him. Due to the amount of time that Fox News has been round for, it's obvious that people who watch Fox News are the ones that have the same view as those that are presented. Although however some people watch it just for the arguments because on Fox News there are many arguments between the right wing reporters and the left wing audience.

CNN

CNN News is owned by The Turner Broadcasting System, which is owned by Edward Turner. Edward Turner is a very liberal man, therefore the way that the news presenters, present the news is very important. Unlike Fox News, Ted Turner is liberal and therefore so is CNN, although their political views aren't as noticeable as those of Fox. CNN have been known to be bias towards the liberal parties in the past, however unlike Fox they haven't made a big argument out of it. Here CNN are denying any sort of bias.

Like Fox News, CNN are also funded privately because they are privately owned, this is the main reason as to why they are aloud to have the viewpoints that they do. If they were funded by the public then they would need to have more of a neutral view. Although a lot of the time most news channels are neutral. However people who watch Fox News are more likely to be Republicans because the audience want to watch something which they agree with and people that watch CNN are more likely to be Liberal for the same reasons. They will be consider both view points however it will be obvious which one they are supporting when they become defensive over the political party and the views.

It is definitely not fair, but when reporting the news it is never going to be. Everyone has their own opinion and when news reporters are talking to those who have a different opinion to them they aren't going to agree with them they are going to want to argue about why they feel that way.

 CNN VS BBC

CNN and BBC are probably a lot more similar than people want to believe. The BBC has been around since 1991 while CNN have been around since 1992. The BBC were broadcasting to the worldwide audience, while CNN were aimed at American businessmen to start with but later on they were focusing towards more of a worldwide audience. While the BBC is publicly funded by the United Kingdom, CNN is privately funded. 

To both BBC and CNN their images are very important to them, they both have a very slick image that they have managed to keep a grasp on over a period of time. The BBC is 'Simple, clean and instantly recognizable you just know it is the BBC' this is a great compliment for the BBC because being recognized by their look is great. BBC are known for the amount of white they have in their titles, many would see this as boring while viewers of the BBC know that this is deliberate. While CNN are seen as 'Big, simple and feels like what it is a slick news outfit.' This definition of CNN is exactly correct because to start with their aim was to just focus on American businessmen, this is due to the broadcasters that they have working for them. Although compared to the BBC, CNN is more in your face which is better in a competitive market. 

The BBC and CNN are both very similar with the context that they present, both of the news channels broadcast the exact same news and they both run 24 hours a day. Both of them are the main broadcast for their country, while there is one major difference. The BBC in the UK are a lot less dependent on personalities as all they do is present the news. The way they do this is so that they are just showing the facts and nothing else. However on the over side of the pond in America, CNN is completely different. CNN news 'anchors' are a main part of the show, they have very strong views and therefore the channel makes a very big deal out of them, this is because they are seen as the 'big men' on television. This is most definitely the biggest difference between BBC and CNN. 

Both of them cover all over the world. A particular place that is big for their news coverage is the Middle East. While the BBC do a lot of coverage about the Middle East, it is all filmed and based in London, while CNN have another studio based in Abu Dhabi, this way they are able to get a better coverage of the news than the BBC because they have a studio based in the actual place. 

Another difference between the BBC and CNN is the ad breaks. BBC have no ad breaks, this is something that they have managed to survive without. This helps with their viewers because people aren't going to switch over because they aren't going to get bored of the news adverts. While like a lot of American channels there are hundreds of adverts, this is because America need to get in as many brands as they possibly can. 

The presenters for the BBC don't usually have much of an opinion compared to the presenters on CNN who need to make sure that everyone knows their opinion. This is the number one reason for CNN being as big as they are because they make the audience sure that they know their opinion and only theirs as they get very angry when people come onto their show and disagree with them. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN -1st March

http://www.kippreport.com/fcs/bbc-world-news-vs-cnn/ - 1st March

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_Channel -1st March