Internship Report

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Internship Report

Natalie Lange (S3501426)

Journalism Studies

University of Groningen

11.05.2020

Supervisor: Anne Peetoom

Word count: 4155

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1 The internship

1.1. M.E. Works

Me works is a production company that produces a variety of different documentaries for different German tv channels, mainly for the public service broadcast like ZDF, WDR or SWR but also some private tv channels like RTL, Pro7, or Sixx. All of the formats are produced with high journalistic standards and the goal to create documentaries in excellent quality. As a production company me works produces the documentaries for which they were commissioned from the tv channel. This includes everything from creating an idea, forming it into a concept, comprehensive research on the topic, finding the experts and protagonists, organising the filming as well as the actual filming, creating graphics if needed, scoring, and the whole editing process. Me works has certain formats that they produce ranging from investigative journalism, to consumer journalism, to travel journalism and other more entertaining formats. Next to the ongoing tv formats they produce, the company regularly pitches its ideas to various tv channels. Me works has around 40 people employees and a pool of interns supporting the different departments. Every team consists of experienced journalists who work together with less experienced ones and help them to establish themselves.

1.2 Why I chose M.E. Works

I chose this specific internship because it offered me to dive into the professional world of journalistic tv productions. The fact that the company produces a variety of different formats was appealing to me because it requires lots of different skills and expertise to develop and produce a range of different tv documentaries. Each of these journalistic formats deals with different topics and has different approaches to tell the story to the viewer. This variety of formats and diversity of approaches excited me and made me choose the company. My goal was to work for a company that treats me as one of their own employees, that challenges me to learn more and work hard but also guide me if needed. I tried to figure this out as much as I could beforehand, for instance during the skype interview since I didn’t intend to end up at a place where interns are simply there to prepare the coffee and do the tasks that no one else wants to do.

1.3 My tasks

My internship was very diverse and I got to work in different teams and departments. I will explain my tasks in reference to the three different departments (travel, development, investigative) that I was part of during the duration of my internship.

I started in the travel department which mainly produces the travel documentary “2für300” and “Ein tag in… mit Lisa Kestel” for the public broadcast channel WDR. Another fairly new project “Mission Backpacker”, is also produced by the travel department for the WDR and their radio station 1live. This project wasn’t part of my range of tasks but I got some insights from my colleague who was

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2 responsible for it. This project was meant to start in April but was unfortunately put on hold after the Covid-19 outbreak.

In the beginning of my internship, my main responsibility was the format “2für300” which translates into 2for300 which is a travel format in which two people, a presenter and her cameraman, travel to different cities within Europe and explore the city with a budget of 300 Euros. The budget has to include transfer tickets, museum or gallery tickets, food, drinks as well as the accommodation for one night. The presenter and her cameraman not only want to get to know the city by exploring the main sights or tourist attractions but also want to experience the city by its people and interesting characters. Each episode is created with the goal that viewers can travel to the city themselves using the episode as an inspiration or if they can’t travel that they can experience the city through Tamina’s and Uwe’s (presenter and cameraman) eyes. Special about this format is that it is informative but also fun to watch as the presenter and her cameraman are very interactive and their interaction is captured by a second camera.

From day one I had a lot of responsibilities and was working on my own projects. I started with the research of the city of Liverpool. I, therefore, had to check out online sources as well as travel magazines to get a feeling for the city and an idea which are the main sights in order to create a theme board for the city. This theme board contained a mix of sights, food and drink places, unique activities as well as cool people to meet, which characterise the city. I also had to get in contact with local institutions to get some insider tips and local recommendations. It also included the task to call the different locations and people we were interested to meet in person to see if we could film there and if they would be a good fit for the travel episode about the city. For the production of each travel report the following steps can be summarised, a) research, b) organising the planning trip that takes place a few weeks before the actual shooting, c)trip to the city which involves meeting the people, briefing them and testing everything in person to see if it’s authentic and can be recommended to the viewers, d) preparation of the filming (organising filming permits, creating a filming schedule and contacting the locations, writing the script), e) filming days, d) post-production, examining the material, editing, music selection, writing of press releases, translation of the interviews, etc.

Liverpool was the first city that I researched and that I got to travel to plan everything together with my colleague. Afterwards, I started with the research of a new city which was Palma de Mallorca. I researched this city all by myself only with the help of a school intern which I took under my care and guided in learning how to do research for this particular format. After creating a list of potential sights, restaurants and bars as well as interesting characters to meet in Palma I went on the planning trip to Palma with a colleague of mine. She wasn’t involved in the prior planning but assisted me since interns are not allowed to go on these trips alone. During the planning trip me and me colleague visited all the different places we planned to include in the episode about Palma and interviewed many different people like artists, designers, restaurant or bar owners or family businesses. After the

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3 planning trip, I created a filming schedule together with my colleague who was going to direct the episode and came to Palma to get an idea of the city and the places I researched as potential filming locations. Due to the outbreak of Covid-19, we had to stop the production of the travel episode about Palma as well as the other cities like Athens and Gent. This means that I was not involved in the production and post-production steps since the filming in Palma was cancelled. For Liverpool, I was only involved in the research and planning trip so that I afterwards could independently plan and organise the episode about Palma. For the episode in Liverpool I also translated the interviews between the presenter Tamina and the locals into German. However, I still had the chance to be the second camera on various occasions. On January 28th we had a test shooting in Eindhoven for the format “Ein Tag In… with Lisa Kestel” which is about a presenter and her cameraman who explore a city in just one day. The test shooting took place since a new presenter and cameraman were paired up for the format and the producer wanted to see how the two interact and work together. After the travel restrictions and the cancellation of all travel related-formats I talked with my supervisor Britta since I wanted to go on at least some shootings during my internships and the more local projects in Germany weren’t cancelled at least not all of them since the regulations to film in Germany during Covid-19 changed and only productions with an immense journalistic value were given a filming permit. Thus, I had the opportunity to be the second camera on five occasions for an investigative format called “Könnes Kämpft” produced for the public broadcasting channel WDR. For this format, a corona special was produced which showed how different businesses and branches are affected by the crisis and how they cope financially. My tasks were to independently film the presenter and his interviewees while a professional cameraman was the first camera. For this format, I wasn’t involved in the research or post-production process but mainly helped out as a second camera.

Before I joined the Könnes Kämpft team as a second camera I worked in the development team. There my tasks were to be creative and develop new ideas, write a concept and start to develop the ideas further. During my time in the development team, I developed different ideas for different tv programmes and different genres. It was interesting to get to know the different steps of developing tv formats and to see how ideas can turn into concrete formats with lots of creativity and know-how of existing formats. This was by far the most creative team I worked in during my internship. It was required to think outside the box but also connect new ideas with existing tv formats and structures. My master enabled me to come up with ideas for new reports and find new approaches to existing topics but doing this for a real company and not just for assignments was a completely new and great experience. From all the different teams I worked in this was the one that requested a lot of work in teams and we were often creative together in video conferences.

The 3rd team I properly joined (For Könnes Kämpft team I just helped out as the second camera for a week) was one of the investigative teams at me works which produces the format “ZDF Zoom”. This format is produced for Germanys biggest public broadcasting channel ZDF. During my time there I

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4 did research on various topics, interviewed experts on the phone, wrote a concept to pitch a new episode idea or topic, brainstormed together with the team, and contacted possible sources and protagonists. This team helped me to critically research a topic from various angles and dive deeper into the investigative filed of journalism which I enjoyed a lot. In this team, we always had morning and evening meetings online in which I participated with my ideas or updated my colleagues about the progress I made during the day. This team also encouraged me to work independently on various tasks. My team leader Florian Nöthe encouraged me to research new topics and make them “my own”. During the last week of my internship, I also got to sort out lots filming material which meant to mark important scenes and transcribe the interviews so the producer could use the transciption to prepare for other interviews in reference to the existing ones.

1.4 Meetings

The time of meetings varied a little and can be categorised into before and during Covid-19. My company always had a morning meeting on Tuesday where all the different teams would come together and the whole firm was present to share updates and discuss upcoming projects. The purpose of this meeting was to inform everyone about the current affairs in each teams and to update each other. This meeting was only held once a week but helped to know what everyone is working on and exchange ideas or contacts if needed. In my first team, the travel department, we also had daily meetings or whenever it made sense to discuss something in a group. We had meetings on a daily basis with different purposes. In those meetings everyone, myself included, was encouraged to share ideas, present their work, and discuss further steps or upcoming challenges. In my first team we often also met to brainstorm together and create concrete plans of how the film can look like given the researched filming locations and characters.

With Covid-19 this changed a little and my company had a fixed morning meeting online with everyone daily at 9 am to start the working day together. Afterwards, the different teams met up separately to discuss their individual working schedule of the day. In the afternoon my latest team (ZDF Zoom) would also meet to discuss the progress and update each other about significant developments. The frequency of daily video-meetings varied per team. When I was still in the travel team we would have many meetings through the day. Especially in the program development team, we would meet in a video meeting and just brainstorm new ideas and develop them into new formats together. Me works demands a high journalistic quality for every report they produce as well as for the variety of working steps that are involved into creating the piece. Rigour, accuracy and excellent research are key elements and promoted by every team leader.

2 Supervision

The supervision during my internship was great, from my supervisor at work as well as from Anne Peetoom. My supervisor at work, Britta Ebel, is the senior duty editor of the travel department. I was

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5 in constant contact with her since we worked in the same office. From the start I was expected to work independently and effectively. I knew that if I had any questions I could always ask Britta and she was there to help but I mostly worked independently on the tasks. The travel team would often have meetings throughout the day, where we would update each other on our progress, brainstorm together, discuss challenges or the next steps. I mainly contacted my supervisor if I had any questions which was not the case very often. I mainly contacted her to plan a meeting so I could walk her through the state of my work. For me, this worked perfectly since I knew what needed to be done and enjoyed working independently while at the same time I knew how to help myself by looking at the production of previous cities to find guidance or just ask my supervisor.

For two weeks I also took on the supervision of a school intern, which I guided into learning how to do research and develop skills needed in a work environment. I also worked in another student who started a month after me and asked me for advice here and then especially before she had to contact people and conduct a phone interviews. This made me realise that my master equipped me for all the necessary tasks even such like calling interviewees or experts to get some information.

My supervision from my home university by Anne Petoom was great. She made it clear from the beginning that I could always contact her if I have any questions or if I encounter any difficulties during my internship. She checked in with me and Britta after my first week to see how the internship started and continued to check how I was doing throughout the whole duration of my internship. The meetings with her always helped me to reflect my situation and encouraged me to speak up for myself at my workplace, for example after the Covid-19 outbreak that I would still like to be the second camera for at least one of the projects. All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a better supervisor, Anne did a great job.

3 Evaluation and Recommendation

My master equipped me in various ways for my internship and helped me to take up responsibilities at work easily. It takes some time to understand how each format works and to know by heart what the characteristic elements and recurring structures are. From day one I was using the skills taught during my masters to dive into the research for different cities and later to research different topics on an investigative level, to call experts and interviewees, and to work as a second camera.

The difference between my masters and my internship was mainly that the research time for each episode was significantly longer. For the different formats, I worked in, the time in which the research is conducted, takes from around two weeks of research and preparation time (e.g. travel format) up to two months (investigative formats) depending on the format. The main reason for these longer production phases is the fact that me works does not produce daily news episodes but documentaries which are part of a series. They are not only well researched but also take longer to prepare simply

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6 because they are not a minute but 30 minutes or up to an hour. The organisation and preparation is also more complex. For each format and episode different filming locations throughout Germany are used to create a diverse and comprehensive report that reflects not just one local area of Germany but represents many. I also did not only speak to two sources but most of the times to many more, especially in the investigative team I would call various experts during a day and the documentaries would contain many different protagonists and not just two.

During my internship, I learned to create a detailed storyboard and develop a structure for the film. During my masters, we developed an idea but we would just go and film it on the same day and afterwards work around the material to create a good storyline. At my internship, I learned to put more thought into the finished film before the actual filming starts. It taught me to actually think about the scenes and interviews that create the storyline and to develop an idea how they could be put together in order to create a well structured but at the same time interesting report. This also included the craft of fitting different aspects of the topic, sources and individual stories of protagonists together to a compelling documentary.

Another difference to my masters was the whole set up of the camera since they often used two different cameras to capture various angles simultaneously. This makes it easier to for example film both sides of an interview simultaneously without having to shoot each interviewee separately and recreate the interview situation to once film the journalist and then the interviewee. At the same time, it also created a challenge since different cameras were used which made differences in quality visible, at least for the professional. Using two cameras can be tricky in some situations for example at a hairdressers where there are lots of mirrors. It needs some extra thought in how to use them beneficially as an extra asset to compose the documentary. Learning how to organise and use two cameras for a report is something that my masters didn’t teach me but which I definitely learned during my internship.

My internship also taught me the complex production process of longer journalistic pieces like documentaries. In class we mostly produced short news stories but creating 30 or 45 minutes of investigative reports takes up a lot of research, many different filming elements and lots of effort to create a coherent storyline. During our skills classes in writing we once also had two weeks to create a more investigative story but the tv reports were always rather short. Looking back after my internship it would have been nice to also do an investigative report as part of the tv assignments. I am really glad about how my internship went and the turns it took during Covid-19. I am also grateful that I decided to do a 4-month internship since most of the formats that my company produces take up lots of research time and time to organise the production. This way I got to experience the different phases of a project even though I was missing the editing phase which wasn’t possible due to Covid-19 and the home office situation. The institution I interned at does a great job in letting their interns be part of the project and expect their interns to work independently.

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7 All in all, I would say the journalism master prepares students very well for the actual working environment. The practical classes enabled us to work hard in order to tell our news story, to call various sources and to keep asking questions that are important but maybe uncomfortable to ask and most of all to handle the whole news production process and all the steps that are part of it in a professional way. The variety of classes print, radio and tv classes were all helpful in a way since for tv, for instance, it’s not just important to know all the video skills but also a good audio quality is important as well as good writing skills since they needed for the off text. The technical knowledge the master teaches was really helpful to me and helped me to do a good job as the second camera. Especially the fact that during the master we had to do all the different processes of producing a piece ourselves was a great asset. It gave us certain expertise of what is important for each step. Even though in the “real world” each individual step is done by one professional person, I believe it’s good to at least have an understaning and the knowledge of the various steps. It enables you to work better in connecting these different steps and create the final journalistic report.

4 Personal development

Since I worked in different teams I was able to develop myself in various ways. I got insights into the world of travel journalism. I learned how to prepare travel-related contend, from doing the research to visiting different locations live, evaluating which locations or which character make a good asset to the travel episode, to researching and working on investigative reports. Within the development team, I learned to bring ideas to the table and develop new formats with a unique selling point.

Regarding my goals, I would say that I was able to reach them. My internship might not have gone as planned but I am grateful that it continued even in times of Covid-19. I learned to work and communicate with my team from home. The change of teams taught me to establish myself within a completely new team various times and enriched my experience. My goal of getting better at editing wasn’t met because my internship didn’t continue as planned. The episodes for which I was scheduled to be part of the editing process didn’t take place. However, since the company employs professional editors it wouldn’t have been me editing the episode but discussing with the editor how to edit it and structure the relevant material. I can honestly say, that I have developed myself in many different areas and enjoyed my internship and its challenges and tasks a lot. In my opinion, is the internship experience the perfect bridge between perfecting your masters and learning to make your first steps in the “real world of journalism”. It also gives you the opportunity to gain a foothold in the journalistic field.

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5 Conclusion

I really enjoyed my internship and believe it is a perfect way to complete the journalism masters. It offers a gently way to dive into the “real world of journalism”. It, furthermore, helps to develop the practical skills that the master taught even further and to widen one’s expertise and knowledge on a substantial level. I would say that I developed myself in so many ways. I see it as a blessing that I got to work in different teams with different journalistic approaches. I was able to film but also to develop my investigative skills but also many other soft skills or working well in a team as well as independently.

I personally think that an internship duration of seven weeks is not long enough. I would suggest longer internship periods simply because it takes some time to settle into the work routine and tasks. Especially for non-daily journalism formats like documentaries and investigative reports which have longer production processes. There it makes sense to do a longer internship in order to be involved in all the different production phases from which the end product is made.

7 Attachments

Since most of the projects I was working on in the beginning got postponed, I cannot provide any links since the production was put on hold. The reports I was working on in the investigative team are still in the making. However, I can attach the link of the Könnes Kämpft episode where I worked as a second camera on multiple occasions.

Könnes Kämpft: Gemeinsam gegen die Krise ( 22.04.2020)

https://www1.wdr.de/mediathek/video/sendungen/koennes-kaempft/video-gemeinsam-gegen-die-krise-100.html

To get an idea what other projects me works realises it is worthwhile to check out their website.

Internship Report