Suitcase in the Middle of the Road

I am copying a link to an article from one of my favorite authors, Hollis Gillespie. She lives in Atlanta and has an amazing way with words.

I feel that it represents how class has gone this week and I'd like everyone to read it.

http://charlotte.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/a_suitcase_on_the_freeway/Content?oid=190708

Reinventing Television News

I can't tell you how many times I've heard a student say that they don't watch TV news or read a newspaper is because it's boring. Well, in many cases, I agree. I mean, after all, how many different times can we hear about a traffic jam, murder, fire, robbery, city council meeting, taxes, politicians, social security, homelessness, joblessness....you get the idea. Television news is often a steady stream of predictable stories, with predictable soundbites and predictable endings, often far removed from our own reality as students.

News can be varied and informative...not just sad. Case in point: Here's when news is crazy.... Zebra snarls traffic in Atlanta... (there are so many creative lead opportunities here!) or here's when news is unpredictable...wow, what a basketball player! (see video below)

Or when news invokes a certain awe or warmth in your heart...Unlikely friends or when news inspires us to be like others...Helping kids like Diane Parrish.

The one thing I want you to remember more than anything in this class is that News is About People. Not things, not events, but people. There is so much that is bad and sad going on in our world, but there is even more things that are going on that are good; why don't we see it?

11Alive News is changing the format of their news and I'm really excited. Their news stories are becoming much more of what we do here on Eagle TV. Uplifting, caring, happy, entertaining, REAL. Real stories that are about our neighbors, our friends, our family doing and experiencing things that we can relate to. Not some far-removed political movement or a tax hike aimed at the rich, or some depressing story about someone losing their life savings.

And although those hard news issues are important, there is so much more that is going on in the world that is good that it seems we ought to be focusing on some of that. Maybe the reason our society has become so disenfranchised, rude, selfish and callous is because we don't hear about the good in people much anymore. That is all changing thanks to 11Alive and its innovative, brave news director, Ellen Crooke. Ellen is going out on a limb to showcase some of Atlanta's untold stories and put the human touch back in news.

I challenge each one of you to watch WXIA at least once in the next few days and weeks and let me know what you think. At the same time, focus on your stories and what can you do to make your story humanistic. How can you create a feeling of awe or of warmth or inspiration in the stories we show on Eagle TV? How do you reach out to your viewers and get them engrossed in your story? Which one of you will air a story that gets the most "great show!" comments in my email? What are you doing to make an impression on people?

Keep in mind that people will remember how you made them feel longer than how much you teach them.

The order of things....

There is order to the world. I'm not talking about the precise angles and cubes that a crystal forms or the fact that the earth orbits and tilts around the sun which gives us days and nights and seasons, over and over again.

I'm talking about crawling before walking, walking before running, using training wheels before you use two wheels and so on. You can't write a book report without reading the book first nor can you be a doctor without studying medicine first. A diamond goes through many steps as a piece of coal before it becomes a diamond. It's a process.

I'm trying to teach you the "process" of producing news stories and you aren't listening. As a result, you get in the edit room, pull down various clips in no particular order, move this one here and that one there....dang, it still doesn't sound or look right! Then, you realize you need b-roll of this or that. Oh, that b-roll won't work because it's not white balanced or there is no audio. Ooops, what are we going to say in our VO? You don't know because there is no "order" to the way you produce a package. You have to go through the proper process; just like professional broadcast journalists/photogs/editors, etc.

I'm going to put it in a nutshell for you here, but I'm holding you to it in class. I am grading the process this time, not just the finished product. And, here's how I want you to do it....

Step 1. Dig for story ideas. There are story ideas all over the place. Find a topic that is visual, do-able, interesting, different and tell me something NEW that I didn't know before.

Step 2. Do research. Find out any organizations that are related to your topic. Find any statistics that will support your story and give it credibility.

Step 3. Pitch your story to me. Write your focus statement or angle that you're committing to, tell me why this is an important story and who might be interested in it. Tell me what I'm going to learn by watching your finished story and how it will look/sound/feel. How will your package open, will you have someone telling it through their eyes (most of the time the answer to that question is yes because news is about PEOPLE), how will you find that person and how will they add credibility to your story? Show me that you've done your homework and that you already know a great deal about this topic and that you've explored resources to make it a reality.

These above 3 steps should take one class period.

Step 4. Planning. Write a planning sheet. Who will you interview and when? Write down a shot sheet. What shots do you need to get? What are the necessary or primary shots? What might be the secondary shots? How about creative shots? Visualize your story and write down your vision on a planning sheet. What nat sound or b-roll must you get?

Step 5. Get on the phone. Call those people in those organizations and find out who is the expert that you can interview. Set up interviews.....don't take no for an answer. If the answer is an emphatic no, then ask them who else you could talk to. Set up times and dates. Tell them you're on deadline and need to schedule the interviews here at the beginning of your project...not the last days before your deadline.

Step 6. Draft interview questions. What questions MUST you get answers to? Then, don't stay married to your question list...you must listen to your interview to come up with additional, follow up questions. What things can you find out about this topic from research? Can you use that knowledge you got from research to come up with more in-depth, probing questions of your subject?

These next steps...4 - 6 should take the second day of class.

Step 6. Gather your elements. Shoot your interviews. Shoot your b-roll, nat sound, your stand up. And then shoot some more...........and when you think you're done, shoot even more!

This one step (6) may take a couple of days. Certainly, if you've set up your interviews for the beginning of your week, you should be done by day 3 or 4.

Step 7. Log your raw video on a log sheet. This is NOT the time to Log and Capture, but use the logging sheet to watch all the video you've gathered and write down the time code of the shots you got and the ones you plan to use in your package. This is on paper....not on the computer. Log sheets are in the form shelf.

Step 7 should take you a day to a day and a half.

Step 8. Now...write your script. No, you're still not editing yet. You MUST write your script now that you have looked at your footage, your nat sound, your sots and the b-roll that you've gotten as well as the information you've learned by doing interviews or research on your own. Come up with a creative way to tell your story.

Step 9. Record your Voice Overs. Since you have written your script, you know exactly what you are going to say in your video. You can record these on the same tape at the end of what you've been logging on your log sheet. Just don't record over your video...make sure that tape is cued to the end!

Eight and 9 should take one day.

Step 10. Log and Capture footage on the edit machine. NOW you get to edit. Because you have identified the SOTS and B-roll that you plan to use by time code, this should be very easy.

Step 10...one day or less.

Step 11. Edit A roll, then B roll. A-roll is the primary footage such as SOTS, stand ups and VO's; the backbone of your story. Place your voice overs on the timeline. Then, place your interviews on the timeline, then place your graphics (lower thirds, etc.) throughout your package and slate at the beginning on timeline last.

Step 11...a day or perhaps a day and a half.

Step 12. Write anchor lead in, TRT, etc. on your air confirmation form and turn it in! You're done and it only took about 8 school days! That's less than 2 weeks! You're on to your next awesome project! Right!!!???? (The answer is yes)

That, my dear Eagle TV student, is the order of things.