Rhythms of the week

Thanksgiving week was hectic. I worked over 60 hours at KOMU-TV including three reporting shifts and three production assistant shifts. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to my next paycheck. 

I learned a lot with time management, interesting shots and story writing that week. 

Shift One

My first shift, the day before Thanksgiving, was difficult. It seems every public official thinks the day before a holiday is a holiday. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to turn a package that night because the right people to talk to weren't available, even after numerous phone calls. 

Shift Two

My second shift was the day after Thanksgiving. I was able to track down a story on designated driving service that began in Columbia in August. I was happy with my video with the exception of needing a few more cutaway shots, even though I did overshoot.  I balanced the camera out of sunroof to get a clear, moving shot of the little motorbike in front of me. I used a number of angles, and I was able to find a good person to humanize the story that ended up using the designated driving service at the end of night.

Most of all, I liked my stand up. It was creative, I think. I had the camera shooting me through a glass of beer, so my image was skewed. I took the glass away as a I spoke to reveal two beer bottles, the amount of alcohol it could take to go over the driving limit for a 180 pound man. I got a lot of positive feedback on that standup. 

Shift Three

For my Saturday reporting shift, I started out wanting to do a update/reflection story on the Columbia family that crashed their car in Georgia. Two people had died. I wanted to get a community/friend/family reaction. However after LOTS of searching, I was unable to come up with any names or connections in the two hour span, and I wasn't about to start calling every person with the last name of 'Brown' in the phonebook. 

After talking with the producer for the day, she suggested a story on the Mizzou/Kansas rivalry game. She wanted to me find locals who did not drive to the game and were having watch parties here. I needed an interesting twist and I found it. 

I went to D. Rowe's, a bar/restaurant owned by a formed Missouri Tiger. David Rowe was in town that day and plenty of people showed up to watch the game at his bar. I showed the atmosphere of the bar, the memorabilia on the walls and used his old Mizzou football jersey in my standup to reveal that the owner was a former Tiger football player. My video wasn't as special as in my other story, nor was my standup, but I feel my writing was stronger for this package, showing the excitement with lots of natural sound and putting an interesting twist on the story with the revelation about the bar's owner. 

My package ran in the 6 p.m. newscast and luckily and within seconds of my package being played, Missouri won the game, so it was great timing. (My final shot for the video had been a Jayhawk hanging in David Rowe's bar with me say "you probably don't want to be a Jayhawk here.")

I learned a lot with time management during this football package. The game started at 2:30 pm, about the time I should be back at the station. I went to the bar at 12:30 and got my interview with David Rowe and even found three Mizzou fans to interview that came early to get great spots at the bar. All my interviews and shots of memorabilia on the wall were done at the point. I went back to the station and wrote my story quickly and uploaded and converted the video. 

At 3:00 pm, I went back to the bar and got shots of reactions to plays and of the bar filled with people for b-roll and natural sound. When I got back to the station at 4:15 pm, I still had plenty of time to convert the new video and put together my package. I was proud of myself for the time management, especially because I wrote the package so quickly. 

Interesting video of the week

I stepped a bit outside the hardcore news this week and watched a package put together for National Geographic online. The package was a "nat pack" filled with all natural sound and no voice overs. It was on the rhythms of New York city, day and night. It used music from subway players, sounds from construction, walking, traffic, etc. There was never a dull moment for sound. 

The video was also interesting, and I think I could incorporate a lot of ideas from this package into my own work. They took video from a boat, helicopter, and hanging a camera outside a car window at the level of the wheel.  They made for very interesting angles. They also held a camera at knee level and walked through crowds, another neat angle. Many shots were taken from the ground and looking down from above.  

Interesting, uncommon angles are one thing I really try to get into every package of mine and the more ideas I get and the more, the merrier. I love to play with reflection shots, highs, lows, etc. That's the one thing I love about being creative with video stories. 

I need to work on audio more though. It's something I tend to neglect more and it can make or break a story when you want to bring someone to the scene.  In my next package, I will try to concentrate on that more.