TC NEWS

"TC NEWS" is a spoof news show created by Year 13 Media Studies students at Tawa College. The name "TC NEWS" is simply short for "Tawa College News" as Tawa College is often referred to by students simply as "TC". The show was created in 2012, by Media Studies teacher Darin Ramsay. The first series of TC news was only shown at school, and the second series in 2013 was such a disaster than only a couple of episodes were made. However, in 2014 the show started to become more successful. Some 'fine-tuning' to the format, production and planning was done and the show became much more successful. This was also the first series of the show to appear on YouTube, on the official TC NEWS YouTube Channel.

Because TC NEWS is produced by Year 13 students, the show has a totally different cast & crew every year. This means that the show is always refreshed each year with new ideas and creativity.

2016 was an interesting year for TC NEWS, firstly becuase I was involved, but also because of a few other things that happened as well. Firstly, this year saw the introduction of "TC NEWS EXTRA". Because episodes of TC NEWS only come out every 3-4 weeks, we made additional short episodes when we needed to make important announcement or advertise events that would occur before the next episode was due to air. 2016 was also different because creator Darin Ramsay left Tawa College half way through our second term, to go back to his hometown in New Plymouth. This mean that episodes 3 to 9 of TC NEWS in 2016 were made entirely independently by students, with little to no input from our new teacher. This came about because there was be a period of around 5-6 weeks between Mr Ramsay departing and Miss arriving (we were left with a relief/substitute teacher).

Due to the big gap, we learned how to run the show by ourselves. This included the third and fourth episodes, for which Mr Ramsay was still present, but was not involved in production, as we wanted to prove to him that we could make a good show ourselves. The fourth episode was dedicated to Mr Ramsay, and we surprised him with a special goodbye message, which I presented and edited.

2017 has seen Miss revamp the show, including a new format by which the anchors are different in each episode. This has never been done before. In previous series, the show has had the same anchors in each episode (apart from substitutions).

Unfortunately, Episode 9 of the 2016 run has been removed from YouTube.

## Production, Skits & Items:

The show uses a mixture of news reporting and comedy skits. The purpose of TC NEWS is to report on current affairs within the school, but in a way that would be fun and entertaining. Most of the clips filmed are designed to be funny in someway, and some are simply created purely for the purposes of comedy. Each sketch is filmed with a presenter and is then edited. In most cases the sketch is edited by the people in charge of making that sketch. The sketches are then edited into the episode. The last filming block is the anchors, which is usually filmed and edited the day before the episode airs.

#### Anchors

Two anchors, usually one male and one female, host the show. It is their job to open and close the episode and introduce each segment.

#### News

This segment sees reports and interviews from various presenters about events happening in the school, clubs or other exciting things. Common subjects for these segments are Market Day's, Valentine's Day, Cross Country Day, Fundraisers, Drama/Musical Performances, Productions and more. Some of these segments are also focused on advertising future events, as well as reporting on recent ones.

#### Sports

The sports segment sees a present give an interview with a student or group of students that has made great achievement in a recent sporting event. 2016 also saw an additional segment called "Views from the Sixth". This segment focused on the progress of the 6th Grade boys football team, and was hosted by some of the team's players.

#### Weather

The Weather is a comedy segment designed purely for entertainment. Jack Huang (2015) chose to do song parodies for his segments, while others such as myself chose comedic sketches instead. I was the host of this segment in 2016.

#### Comedy

Comedy segments are huge part of TC NEWS. These can often be little sketches at the being and end of the episode, or in between segments. Sometimes, actual frequent comedy sections are featured. 2015 saw Dr. Brown, hosted by Nick Brown, who killed off his character at the end of the last episode of 2015. A guy called Josese was also a frequent contributor of comedy sections in the 2015 series. In 2016, Olivia and Melissa hosted a comedy segment simply titled "Liv & Mel".

#### Other

Sometimes other little bits and pieces are made. One-off segments, such as "What advice would year 13's give their Year 9 self", etc. were frequently on the show. Also, 2016 saw the introduction of TC Advice, hosted by Bailey. In this segment, bailey would give advice to students, who send in questions to him anonymously via Tumblr.

#### Film Parodies (2016)

Every episode in 2016 saw a parody of a scene from a popular film or TV show (except Episode 7, which was instead focused on the Olympics and Episode 8, which was a computer glitch), featuring anchors Ryan Anderson & India Porter, and sometimes featuring other memebers of the TC NEWS cast.

1. Star Wars 7
2. Twilight
3. The Matrix
4. Forest Gump (and Benny Hill)
5. The Lion King
6. Friends (opening titles)
7. 2016 Rio Olympics
8. "Intro.exe has stopped working" (also Universal Studios)
9. The Office *(Episode unfortunately removed from YouTube)*

## My Involvement

My primary role was playing the Weatherman in the 2016 series of the show. My segments were comedic skits that were always totally different from eachother. Some of them focused on events happening int he real world (such as the release of Star Wars 7, The 2016 Rio Olympics and BREXIT). Others were simply just fun sections. A frequent part of my segment was that I injured myself (though the injuries were always faked). I did not appear in the 5th episode, as the edition was too long, so we had to cut a few segments.

1. Star Wars
2. The NZ Flag referendum
3. Swag Glasses & Fashionable Sunhat
4. The Hamster Wheel (my best segment)
5. *No weather segment this episode*
6. BREXIT
7. The Olympic Torch run
8. I roll with Gangs
9. Made Redundant *(Episode unfortunately removed from YouTube)*

I also appeared in a couple of other segments too. In episode 4, I presented a segment wishing farewell to our Media Studies teacher (and show creator) Darin Ramsay. In Episode 7, I make a cameo in the Market Day segment, where I try to get into the back of shot as many times as possible. The segment ends with Gabe saying to the camera "If Alex is currently behind me pulling any hi-jinks, he's not my best friend anymore", and sure enough, there I am doing a silly dance in the back of shot. I also appear in the opening parody segment of Episode 9. The opening parody for Episode One features the head from a giraffe costume (it was supposed to be Chewbacca). While I don't actually appear, I am the one holding the head prop. The only other on-screen appearance I made was in an edition of TC NEWS EXTRA, advertising the Day of Silence, which I actually filmed, edited and uploaded all from home.

As well as appearing on screen, I also edited many segments, including many of my own weather segments. I also edited two episodes of TC NEWS EXTRA. I was also responsible for making the video thumbnails in Photoshop, which I did at home on the night the episode was aired. I also photoshopped the channel banner.