Wednesday 26 October 2011

Sportsweek 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6HB54I1ANYo#!

Alresford Town 1-6 Winchester City

A great team performance from Winchester City saw them progress to the second round of the FA Vase and pick up a £900 prize fund.

A Winchester corner almost straight from kick off provided the first goal, Chris Mason steered it in to the home goal, with the help of a deflection from Alresford's Dean Smith, but Mason claimed it for his 8th goal of the season.

Charlie Smeeton was the provider for Winchester's second goal a couple of minutes later, with a darting run down the right wing followed by a strike at the keeper, that was parried into the path of Dom Allen who finished with ease.

A goal line clearance, some great saves by Alresford goalkeeper Chris Waller and the crossbar prevented City from getting a third early on but eventually the prolific Jamie White grabbed a goal with a poachers finish from another Waller save.

Winchester City made it 4-0 before the break, Smeeton volleying home from 6 yards thanks to Allen's perfectly placed cross.

White was playing with the confidence of a striker on form, and he added to his tally just after half time, delicately touching substitute Alex Easton's cross past the goalkeeper. White has now scored 13 goals in just 8 appearances.

Winchester's sixth goal came from an unfortunate defensive mix up, after Smeeton's dangerous cross. Adie De La Nougerede got the last touch leaving him with the embarrassment of an own goal.

Mike McEnery grabbed a consolation goal in stoppage time for Alresford with a neat headed goal, which left Ryan Gosney stranded, after some good work on the left wing by substitute Danilio Cadete.




WINOL: Week 3 Review

This week, I thought I should try something slightly different, I arranged with Winchester boxing club to film at their clubhouse. After speaking to Brian about this, he suggested that I make it a hands on feature piece, so I took Michael along with me to help out with the filming.

When we turned up we were faced with a few problems, firstly Winchester boxing club is basically a shed, meaning that space was limited, I felt as though we were in the way at times so this did limit the shots that we were able to get. Added to this, there were several under 18's present, so we had to be careful who and where we formed.

I did an opening piece to camera in front of the ring, which turned out to be the downfall of my package, the sound quality was poor and in no way fit to be used for the main bulletin, lighting was also not great. I needed to use a radio mic for this piece, or have the camera trained in closer to my face and hold the gun mic underneath me, rather than having the gun mic rested on the ring, out of shot. I got a few nice shots of people training, but with a short package was unable to use a lot of these. I realised that unless I got involved this could turn out to be a complete non story, so I asked one of the boxers if I could spar with him, he obliged.

Sparring with an amateur boxer wasn't fun, he punched me a lot, and it hurt, but it made for great footage (although wearing a helmet may have been a good idea). I was also completely unable to keep my guard up, which probably added to the entertainment value of the feature. As I was finishing with a piece to camera, with a boxer on a punchbag in the background, he punched me in the back of the head, which really added to the light hearted fun, gonzo journalism aspect of the feature.

The feature was generally well received, but the sound problems really let me down, I was told to completely redo the package as it was, but the punch at the end could not be recreated, as it was spontaneous and I wasn't expecting it. I may do another piece at the boxing club, and completely take part in an entire training session, and include a sparring session (with a helmet and a radio mic.)

Monday 17 October 2011

Winol Sportsweek 2: Reflection

A terrible start to the week for me made things more difficult than was necessary, an over indulgent night in London led to me missing my coach back to Winchester, meaning I was unable to film at Winchester City FC. Fortunately Mikey was on hand to replace me. This meant however that I had to find a sports news story, easier said than done.

I settled for a story concerning the 2012 London Olympics, Winchester Sports Stadium is a potential training ground for athletes before the games. I managed to get an interview with the Sports Development Officer at the university who was very excited about the whole situation, and gained permission to film at the stadium. Gareth told me to experiment with some shots to try and make the piece interesting, however the stadium was completely empty so getting interesting shots was not easy. I feel as though I managed to make the piece look reasonably professional, using tools on Final Cut Pro to slow some parts down, and using shots to cut away from the interview, which was not framed as well as I would have liked it to have been.

I got the piece in on time, and it was an appropriate length, it would have been good to have found another angle to the story, but I feel as though I was on to a slight non story in the first place. It may be worth following it up if there is interest from an Olympic team.

Thursday 6 October 2011

Winol Week 1: Reflection

My role this year, as part of Winchester News Online, is correspondent for Winchester City FC. I see this as almost an ideal role. I know each week in advance what I have to do, I can get there by foot, and I love football. Perfect. But that doesn't mean that my role is by any means easy, for a start my camera skills are not great (yet), and climbing wobbly ladders is rarely an enjoyable experience. Winchester City FC are, fortunately, very accommodating to the WINOL cameras so I am able to film from the top of their main stand, which will hopefully result in some good coverage.. Eventually.

The main problem I had this week was simple technique, the white balance was not perfect, due to the harsh October heatwave that left the sun sitting annoyingly behind one goal. I also found it difficult to keep track of the action when zoomed in, which left me filming most of the match from what looks like a considerable distance. There were 6 goals and a penalty in the match, so the laws of averages meant that I did catch some of the goals quite well. The high scoring game also allowed me to get away with leaving out one of the particularly poorly shot goals from the final edit.

Editing was, what I can only describe as, a nightmare. Final Cut Pro did everything it possibly could to stop me being able to edit, tapes wouldn't work, computers froze and electricity was turned off, and apart from the remembering the basics of editing, I learnt very little except for how much I hate technology at times. Eventually, things worked out, but I'm far from content with my final piece, there is so much to be worked on, much of which I'm sure I'll be able to put right this week.

The football package for Sportsweek was not my only contribution to WINOL this week. I was also asked to present the sports for the main bulletin. Unfortunately we had some technical issues that we were unprepared for, making the bulletin 15 minutes late to air. This is something that can not happen again. I feel as though my piece went reasonably well for a first time presenting. One tip that Angus gave was to work on the handover between the two presenters. This is something that we hadn't put much work into, but is something that will hopefully come with time and practice.


Monday 3 October 2011

Winchester vs Blackfield and Langley Match Report.

Winchester City FC 6 - 0 Blackfield and Langley FC



Winchester got off to a difficult start when Mike Byrne was judged to have fouled Beng 'Yela Ngwa in the penalty box within 15 minutes. Thankfully for the home side, Ryan Gosney was on hand to pull off a sublime save to his right from 12 yards.


City looked vulnerable and the away side nearly took the lead again but were stopped by the reactions of goalkeeper Ryan Gosney once again as he pushed a powerful volley around the post.


On 31 minutes, Winchester got off the mark through Jamie White. A Tom Dunford cross was headed down by Charlie Smeeton, into the path of white, who scored with ease.


White got his second goal 10 minutes later, again thanks to a Charlie Smeeton assist, Smeeton battled to keep the ball in a crowded penalty box, before putting cleverly slotting the ball across to White, who skilfully chipped the ball into the open goal.


Winchester City showed no sign of slowing down after half time, Chris Mason making it 3-0 just 2 minutes after the break, Charlie Smeeton picking up his third assist of the game.


Mason was able to get his second of the game with a skilfully placed shot from just inside the penalty area, gifted to him by a great piece of teamwork between White and Substitute Alex Easton.


Jamie White completed a man of the match performance on 75 minutes after capitalising on a misplaced pass in the middle of the Langley half, he carried the ball forwards before unleashing a fierce strike at the goalkeepers near post, which could only be parried into the goal.


Dom Allen made it 6 in stoppage time, after latching on to a pass from Jamie White, the goal was allowed to stand despite white appearing to be in an offside position.