LIVE SHOT

Yesterday Team Monday did its first live shot, and we learned a lot! As lead producer, I formatted the live shot into the rundown with the backup scripts and tosses. I opted for a weather live shot because the weather was the biggest local story of the day in my mind and the top stories in our A block were about weather. I went over the details with our streambox technician and weather anchor in the morning and then again after the rundown meeting when we changed the rundown to go live to weather in both the A and B block. Then when I got to the studio I was on the phone with the weather anchor and streambox making sure they understood the rundown. When we went live to Tracy in the A block it was great! As lead producer I couldn't have been happier. She looked great, seemed natural and comfortable, and everything aired no problem. When we went to her in the B block, however, things started to fall apart. We went to her, and there was no sound. The mics were turned up in the control room, and her mic was on, but we couldn't hear anything. It took me a minute (which felt like 10 minutes) to realize we needed to go to backup. I told our news anchor to start reading and after a bit of a delay she did, but there was a disconnect between her and the teleprompter and the scripts. Overall, we got our weather cast done, and I learned what to do next time. Now I know I need to brief not only the weather anchor but the news anchors as well on the live shot. We need to go over the script and talk about what will happen if the shot falls through, and I need to make sure they have their backup scripts ready. I need to have better communication in the control room when technical problems arise and take more initiative.It was an exciting experience, and I look forward to a great live shot next week now that we have a better sense of what to do.