TVNewsCheck speaks with Lucy Paynter, real-time art director for Vice News Tonight about how she draws on her traditional TV background to choose the elements and experiences that will best contribute to the workflow that's needed for a newscast with an avant garde flair.
Originally published by TVNewsCheck
Vice News Tonight began airing on HBO in October 2016 with a creative and editorial mission to recreate the nightly news.
It really is about striking the balance between speed and style. Lucy Paynter Real-time art director for Vice News Tonight
-- With an emphasis on freshness - not only in the news covered, but also in the way it's presented - viewers will immediately notice this isn't a typical evening newscast. For one thing, there are no anchors. Another difference is a certain fearlessness that allows the Vice team to experiment with how text and graphics are used and to embrace a bit of humor when necessary to help tell a news story.
Lucy Paynter, real-time art director for Vice News Tonight, has the responsibility of evolving the on-air workflow of the newscast as the nitty-gritty necessities of producing an unconventional daily news program evolve.
Paynter has a 15-year history in traditional TV, where she worked as a real-time artist - with an emphasis on using Vizrt tools. Before joining Vice, Paynter worked on projects like creating graphics for use on the augmented displays that were part of the 2012 NBC Democracy Plaza and the Today Show Concert Series.
In her new role at Vice, she draws on that traditional TV background to choose the elements and experiences that will best contribute to the workflow that's needed for a newscast with an avant garde flair.
In this interview with TVNewsCheck tech editor Phil Kurz, Paynter discusses how text is used to help transition between stories in lieu of an anchor's intro, how Vice journalists with a documentarian's eye are acclimating to the workflow to put a nightly newscast on air, and the approach Vice is taking with its nightly storytelling to win over a younger audience.
An edited transcript:
The executive producer of Vice News Tonight is quoted in a Daily Beast article on the new newscast as asking: If you were to start fresh, how would you do it? when it comes to nightly news. That's what your organization has set out to discover and deliver. What's the answer for TV graphics?
One of the things thats so different about working for Vice News is that creating inspired and interesting visuals is equally as important as quality editorial content. Not only are we aiming to deliver the news with a particular perspective, but the goal is to do so in a way thats memorable and engaging.
Our supportive graphics are bold and big and punctuative and some of our longer, illustrative pieces are really beautiful digital art. Wed all like to think that we have our viewers full attention at all times, but I think at some point you have to accept that you might be on in the background. And in either of these cases, the use of clear and sometimes minimalist graphic treatments does wonders to help to define the exact editorial point youre trying to make.
When Ive watched your nightly news, I cant help but feel like the typographic treatment has more in common with print design (magazine, for instance) than traditional TV text treatments. Is that so?
Print and web have influences on our typographic design, yes. We have a very talented group of graphic artists, illustrators and animators who come from a multitude of different backgrounds. And I think that helps in breaking the mold in a sense of whats expected in TV graphics. If the goal is to surprise and engage the viewer, your chances are only going to be helped by bringing some non-TV-traditional minds into the mix.
Text and white space do some heavy lifting on your newscast, helping to transition from one story to the next rather than relying on an anchor. Can you discuss this approach and tell me a little about how you came to it?
From the moment I came onboard at Vice News Tonight, this concept of an "anchorless" news show was presented as one of our greatest challenges and much of what weve ultimately developed is in support of it.
Obviously in the moments between stories and especially in the instances of drastic topic changes, some device is necessary to orient the viewer and help them follow the arc of the show. In the absence of a host, weve experimented with a few ways to accomplish this.
Sometimes it involves finding a common thread and using words or phrases to create a link; other times its a matter of ending on a poignant note, letting the piece "breathe" in white space and then picking up the next story with audio cues. Some of these techniques have been more effective than others. Its still something that were experimenting with every day.
You've mentioned in a previous conversation that a lot of the journalists working on the show are coming at this from a post-production-oriented point of view. First, can you elaborate on that a bit by reviewing the workflow?
I think its less about the origins of our editorial staff as much as it is the origins of this particular news program and in Vice itself, which has always excelled in documentary filmmaking. Theres an aesthetic there that comes from a particular workflow that is based in post-production.
By comparison, 24-hour live news networks dont always have the opportunity to post-produce, thus the importance of real-time graphics. And what were attempting on Vice News Tonight lies somewhere in the middle. So the approach needs to be very different both editorially and technically. Once again - given the fact weve only been on air since October - its a process that were working to finetune every day.
Second, how are you working with them to get in the groove of a workflow ne
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TVNewsCheck speaks with Lucy Paynter, real-time art director for Vice News Tonight about how she draws on her traditional TV background to choose the elements and experiences that will best contribute to the workflow that's needed for a newscast with an avant garde flair.
