Children In Need 2015

Survivor photo

The Live Show

Children in Need 2015 was broadcast live from YSTV studios beginning around 7:15pm on November 14, 2015 and lasting approximately 2 hours. The live show included presenter challenges, a quiz show, live music, VTs and more. Kenric Yuen and Iona McEwan had produced and directed the show. it's Presented by . The live show had raise £152.3 for BBC children in Need

Theme

This year Children in Need have the theme of "Be a Hero", where the production have based it's script and presenter challenge around it. The main narrative is the presenter trying to find out who of them is the better "Hero Apprentice" for Pudsey. Also Kenric Yuen had "invited" Pudsey from Leeds to film varies VT for YSTV. However due to the closeness of BBC Children in Need and YSTV show, Pudsey is incapable to appear in Live show unless changing the show date.

Music Acts

There were two live musical acts, Joe Christie sang 2 song while playing piano, the second act is by Simon Baron who performed guitar and sining. A separate stage area with a black curtain and the end of the lighting rig had set up for easy transition and different lighting set up.

There's also the

Other Acts and Interviews

Magic Soc provided some light entertainment and mind-baffling tricks, and a member of Pant Soc was interviewed about their then upcoming production of Dreaming Beauty.

VTs

• Duckton Abbey

Amy and Hannah recording voices for Duckton Abbey

Did you say talking ducks? Ah, the magic of television. For this VT, Amy and Sarah wrote a script entirely consisting of duck puns that they managed to wring out of unsuspecting friends and family, and then filmed some ducks on campus, and finally recorded voiceovers.

• Children in Need Charity Spotlight: The Island

Sarah interviewing children at The Island's youth mentoring scheme

We wanted to showcase a local charity that receives funding from Children in Need, so we contacted three, and The Island replied. Matt and Sarah set up a time to go interview the charity director at his office. The main issues that came out of this, were that two cameras would have been better for getting an establishing shot and closeups at the same time, and that carrying heavy equipment downtown on the bus is not fun. We arranged a second date to visit one of the fortnightly youth clubs that The Island runs, in order to interview some of the children and get some b-roll. The main issue at this second shoot was that we brought the wrong camera battery with us, luckily we also had a DSLR that we were able to use instead. In the future, it would be good to triple check equipment before leaving the station. Also, it would be a good idea to bring a boom mic if you are interviewing children.

Robyn dancing with children at The Island

• Pudsey Quidditch

Sarah and Matt took two cameras and Pudsey to a game of Quidditch with the Hogyork Horntails and had a beary good time. Only one camera was used in the end, and both the warmup and the game were filmed, with Pudsey substituting for the Quaffle in many shots. There were not too many challenges...one camera worked well enough, and Matt did a good job tracking the fast play of the game. The team were really enthusiastic about having Pudsey play for the afternoon!

• YSTV 3Peaks

• Bear Banter

Amy wrote and filmed this VT in an afternoon, with her friends playing the various roles. It was a quick and easy shoot and edit, and a good opening to the show. Bear in mind that the puns are painfully funny!

• Luxo Jr. Band

Amy and Robyn recorded Luxo Jr. playing three songs and ended up using one of them for the show. The band recorded their song on their own sound equipment, which made the quality very nice.

Producers' Notes

The Good

This section is comprised of all the things that went really well, and that might be good for future producers to replicate.

• Do send lots of emails to your guests in the weeks leading up to the broadcast and keep them up-to-date on all the latest information (all the guests showed up on time!!!)

• Do schedule a rehearsal on the day of the broadcast for musical acts to test sound equipment, etc.

• Do make lots of detailed plans and schedules on large sheets of poster paper and plaster them all over your bedroom walls (hardly anything was forgotten, except for the graphics).

• Do have a weekly producers meeting and send lots of emails back and forth.

• Do ask more quests than you need in the beginning, because some of them will say no.

The Bad

Matt and Sarah were up editing until the wee hours of the morning the day of Children in Need

This section is composed of a list of things that didn't go so well, and that future producers of CiN might want to think about when they are planning their broadcast.

• Don't stay up until the wee hours of the morning the night before, editing the last VTs.

• Do eat something other than junk food!

• Don't wait till the day of the show to give the presenters the script, especially if the presenters are still madly editing VTs...

• Do train the presenters on how to work with autocue before the actual live broadcast! (Aside from Sarah and Robyn looking a bit uncomfortable with little words scrolling on a screen in front of them, the autocue also died a couple of times, so do have a backup script for the presenters to hold, also...make sure that you use tape to mark the on the autocue screen in the control room, to let the autocue operator know what portion of the text the presenters can see on their screen in the studio.)

• Do request graphics well in advance and not on the day of the show...so that people do not have to scramble to make them for you!

• Do have a backup plan for if a VT doesn't play, as in when the Three peaks videos suddenly stopped playing.

• Don't forget to check that you have the correct equipment when shooting on location (i.e. bring the right type of battery with you).

• Don't let your water bottles, clothing and papers be seen in shot on the floor or tables during the live show.

And the Ugly

There actually wasn't anything ugly...we just couldn't resist this joke!

Fundraising

There were two parts to the fundraising campaign for YSTV's Children in Need broadcast in 2014; the first was completing the Three Peaks Challenge (and filming it, which involved carrying a lot of heavy equipment), and the second was running around campus in Pudsey onesies and asking people to take selfies with Pudsey. See information under the VT category above for more about the Three Peaks Challenge. The "take a selfie with Pudsey" campaign was relatively successful...it involved a visit to The Glasshouse on Heslington East, and walking around Heslington East, visiting various housing blocks. Most people were willing to take a picture with Pudsey and donate some spare change. In the future, setting up a booth in a heavier-traffic area might be a good idea. And maybe not asking people in their pyjamas nursing hangovers to have their picture taken!

We created a Just Giving fundraising page (https://www.justgiving.com/YSTV-CiN2014/) for the Three Peaks Challenge, and raised £609.

We also created a Just Giving fundraising page for the live broadcast (https://www.justgiving.com/YSTV-Childreninneed2014/), modelled after the one created for the 2013 CiN broadcast. There was some confusion for our viewers with the 2013 Just Giving page, and we received two donations towards the 2014 total on the 2013 page (https://www.justgiving.com/YSTV-ChildrenInNeed/). We raised £90 total, including £15 collected from our adventures around campus in the Pudsey onesies.

The grand total raised was £739 including the two donations to the 2013 page.

Press and Publicity

Facebook and Twitter served as the sole means of publicity for this broadcast. YSTV members shared posts about the Just Giving site and live broadcast through social media, and numerous posts to the YSTV Twitter and Facebook accounts were made in the days leading up to the broadcast, and on the day of.

Credits

• Producers: Kenric Yuen, Iona McEwan
• Director: Iona McEwan
• Presenters: Adam Tye and Kate Whitaker
• Vision Mixer: Rachel Burns
• VT Op: Anthony Williams
• Sound Engineer: Sam Willcocks
• Camera Ops: Joella Panthradil, Grace Downer, Freya Phillips
• Graphics Op: Kenric Yuen
• Autocue Op: Grace Winpenny
• Floor Manager: Daniel Lock
• Special Thanks to: DanceSoc, LegoSoc, York Revelation Rock-Gospel Choir, Pudsey, Chris Wall, Simon Baron, Joe Christie, Alex Light
• Pudsey: Spiritual Supported by (cause Pudsey is real) Kenric Yuen, Iona McEwan
• Technical & Computing: Anthony Williams, Sam Willcox, Peter Eskdale, Sam Nicholson and Robert Walker
• Runner: Anxin Zhang
• Riggers: Peter Eskdale,Anxin Zhang, Sam Willcocks, Robert Walker, Grace Winpenny, Rachel Burns and who else???Unverified or incomplete information
• VT Camera: Anthony Williams
• Graphics & Animation: Kenric Yuen
• Editors: Iona McEwan and Kenric Yuen
• Social Media: Sophie Monk