The target length for stories for Et Cetera should be 6 minutes or 12 minutes. If you want to do a whole episode on one topic talk to me or Michael about it, we can do this but generally we are looking for two or more stories per episode.

Talk to either me or Michael about your story idea before hand. Please try to avoid controversial subjects, but if you do want to do a story that might be controversial, i.e. protest, or political type stories, talk to me or Michael about it and if we are happy that it can be done without the possibility of any legal problems etc. then you should be able to do it. Bear in mind that this sort of story, particularly if it focuses on one viewpoint, at the very least must give the opposing viewpoint a right of reply.

If you don’t have any experience or training in doing stories for TV I suggest that you work with either me or Michael on your first one. If people want a more formal training session I can arrange to do a group training session on how to do interviews if there is enough interest.

Subjects for stories can be virtually anything, and not just limited to the Northern suburbs, though bear in mind that we are Northern Access TV and so if you can do stories centered around the north that is a good idea. Also, try to keep subject matter to a G or PG rating.

Always research and line up interviews before hand (except obviously in the case of vox pops) and remember to get permission if you are filming on private property, and as a courtesy if anyone expresses that they don’t want to be filmed don’t do so and make sure we don’t use any such footage.

I am including with this material on the classification guidelines from the code of practice for community TV. I am also including material on Defamation, Copyright, Obscenity and Blasphemy which you should read so that we can avoid problems in these areas.

I am including with this a set of paper edit sheets and a tape logging sheet. You will have to photocopy copies of these as I have only provided one of each.

I would encourage everyone to learn how to do a paper edit. This is the process of deciding and describing on paper exactly how a story is edited. This will give you more control over the final outcome of the story, though myself and Michael reserve the right to change things round if we think they need to be. It also will make the editing process easier for Me and Michael and whoever else may also be doing the editing.

Though the editing will be done by myself or Michael to start with one possibility for the future would be for pairs of people, i.e. Interviewer and Cameraperson/Editor to work together on each story and just hand us a finished tape for compilation into the program. I will have my BVU cut edit suite available for use again by other editors soon.

At the very least we would like you to log the raw tape after you have finished filming. This is done by looking back at it and writing down the times where each shot is on the tape. We will give you instruction on how to do this as needed. This can be done of the raw master tape or from a copy of the raw tape with timecode burnt into it – which we can do for you or show you how to do.

Any further questions contact either me on 0412 166 563 or Michael on 0411 122 967.