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.