Take 3!

Live shots are used as a daily part of broadcast news and are meant to bring the audience to the scene of the action. It was really exciting when our team began using live shots in our newscast. I thought it made our newscast more visual and engaging.

We included a live shot in our 6pm newscast last week. We had a volunteer reporter interview USG President, Rini Sampath, in the campus center. Team Tuesday decided to do the live shot in the campus center. There was some difficulty in communicating with the reporter. The camera operator was getting signals from the media center. However, the reporter did not have an IFB so she had to rely on hand motions from the operator. The live shot looked great, but efficient communication would have caused less delay to the reporter.

Location is one of the most important aspects in doing a live shot. During breaking news especially, sending a reporter to the exact location of the event allows viewers to become more engaged with the story. Additionally, I prefer having the reporter move around during his/her live shot. Again, this allows a newscast to capture an audience's attention.

I thought our first live shot was very successful and made our newscast look professional. Moving forward, I hope that everyone in the media center challenges themselves to do more live shots and take that extra step in making our newscast look that much better.