There are hundreds of French websites on the Internet, contacts for information, for browsing, pen pals, chat rooms, causeries by subscription enrollment. There are also American connections to the Minitel available by subscription. This functions as a gopher with various menus and branching. A series of services operated by the French government, originally sent from the Georgetown server through the University of Minnesota gopher and now available directly by subscription through E-Mail, includes commercial, political and academic interest groups, and a news service, appropriately called Frognet. There are additional services such as Frogjobs, and a Frogmag which can be downloaded monthly onto hard copy as a single file (if you have the disk space and printer capacity).
Frognet releases a daily update of world news culled from a variety of hard copy sources, Le Monde, Le Figaro, regional newspapers, and magazines, and includes interviews, dialogues, commentary, as well as wire releases, which are condensed but not rewritten, an editing that retains the original authentic language.
The French program at West Chester University sponsors the production of a bi-monthly half-hour television news program in French using this material, which has been released to us. The production staff including the anchors, all native speakers, takes a sampling of these updated releases on current topics of major world interest, as well as French national news and sports, and divides them between the three anchors. The show is recorded in the TV sound studio on campus, using three cameras feeding through a switcher, and presented with graphics done on an upgraded Toaster 2000. Generally the director uses just straight cut editing with some long shots and mostly close-ups, but it is possible to do a fade transition between cameras with the switcher. The show is recorded onto tape as it is filmed, and other previously taped segments of interest stories and interviews are edited into the program, generally at the end of the news, which is divided into world news, local French news, and French sports. The news show itself often includes a studio interview at the end.
Le T‚l‚journal is then broadcast weekly on the WCU4 campus television channel at an announced time. WCU4 also uses a campus bulletin board of powerpoint screens to announce and update programming information.
1) PREPRODUCTION. The show is fully scripted, with both a news script and a technical shooting script. The shooting script is typed on Word and laserprinted, with copies for all 12 crew members. The news script is prepared by the anchors.
2) PRODUCTION The set up of the news production involves setting the studio lights, setting up the decor, white balancing the cameras, installing lavalier microphones on the anchors and checking sound levels. Timing between members of the crew is essential. There are approximately 100 pieces of equipment involved in the production and a crew of 12. Communication is thus essential to the success of the production. At least three members of the crew wear headphones. The show's theme music is fed in off tape or CD through the mixer. The same music was used every week, and we showed a French music video of the group, Les Négresses Vertes.
In the production of the news show, there are a number of steps involving computing. The show is videotaped without interruption, on the model of the major network evening news shows. Thus it could be fed live onto the campus TV network. In order to do this, it is necessary to have a chiron type titler connected to the switcher, to the incoming combined feed of the three studio cameras. As it is, we have an upgraded Toaster 2000 connected to the video feed, which we title as we tape it onto 3/4 umatic s archive format. This high resolution format is important for any future copying done to VHS. We have created a separate book of CGs for the show, as well as a framestore of the French tricolore flag, vertical blue, white and red, hand-done by paint-filling the colored zones of the screen. For the opening titles, we load the flag, then run LE TELEJOURNAL and AVEC over the flag, then use the FX of the spinning globe out transition to the studio camera, with opening shots successively on each anchor with his/her byline, a double blue box full horizontal screen with the name in grey. None of the titles go directly over the video feed. They are all framed on boxes of solid color to make them more readable. Each major news item has a box with title in French in the upper lefthand corner. The layout, framing, font and point of the news titles are carefully chosen and executed, as the title must not overlap the video image of the anchor's head. All the French titles are done in capital letters to avoid accents. The studio guest has a boxed byline as well. Closing titles include crew credits over the flag framestore, which then rolls out to black using the same FX rotating globe.
3) POSTPRODUCTION Alternate additional possibilities of postproduction editing require a taped copy of the show on hi-8 to edit with the Toaster or other titler to 3/4 archive format. This permits insert editing of other hi-8 tape footage, of actual events, of previously taped interviews, or of live-feed satellite footage or footage from a subscription service like SCOLA. There are copyright waivers for non-commercial no-admission-charge closed circuit broadcast of such materials, provided they are not rebroadcast after a certain time period. They may be used as materials for an academic course for up to 45 class days before they must be erased. It is equally important to obtain written permission to broadcast interviews and footage of anyone participating in the show. We in fact screen the show for its participants at its conclusion to obtain their approval to broadcast.
With postproduction editing, it is possible to place additional chiron or Toaster CG titles directly over the video footage. It is also possible to scroll a continuous CG horizontally along the bottom of the screen. This may be 1) a French summary of the news being presented, 2) verbatim excerpts in French from the news being read to the camera, 3) English-language translated summary of the news being read. Static subtitles like those used in film may also be generated, but each screen requires a separate edit. Thus it is a lot more work than scrolling a continuous CG through a segment on a single topic. There are consistently about 20 topics in the news section of the show.
Curriculum follow-up possibilities include a study comparing French and American news broadcasting, contrasting style, presentation, language levels, conduct, topics, ideology, editorializing, editing, lighting, camera work.
Rebecca M. Pauly and Michel H. Sage
West Chester University, PA
