A Learning Experience

One of my favorite parts of producing was getting to try new things and see them succeed, or, if they failed, to work on improving them. The first time we did a live shot, for example, was so exciting and nerve-wracking, and the final product was so fulfilling. I was lead producing the day we had our first live shot and decided to have Tracy tease the weathercast in the A block and then go back to her in the B block. Even though her liveshot in the B block failed, the tease in A was so smooth and wonderful and gave me such a sense of accomplishment to look at it and know we had put that together ourselves.

Part of trying new things is failing and learning. When Tracy's shot in the B block failed, the newscast fell apart due to my lack of preparation, so the next time I lead produced and we had the liveshot of Jillian, I quadruple checked that backup scripts were written, that the anchors had the backup scripts, that Lexie knew what she was saying, and that Jillian knew the format. When I saw the feed getting pixellated during run-throughs I ran into the studio to make sure Lexie was prepared to go to backup scripts. Sure enough, the liveshot failed but the anchors and control room went to the backup flawlessly. We even got to go back to the liveshot, and it was successful!

Another part of trying new things is continuing to add on. For example, once we got the liveshot down, yesterday we tried a live tease which was great and had a reporter live in the studio, which also added a special element to the newscast.

Another thing I have enjoyed about producing were the shows where we really made the newscast our own, used our own footage, localized it, reported on USC stories, and had great reporter packages that were shot around LA. Yesterday, for example, we used very little pathfire video and had great video from our reporters and MJs. Seeing their hard work on the screen at 6 really gives me the sense of being part of a student runs news station and thats a good feeling.