It’s hard to believe that 14 days have passed and our second newscast is in the books. A fortnight felt like a matter of a few days. I’m told a distortion of the sense of time is symptomatic of either very stimulating or very difficult events. I would submit that, in this case, it was some combination of the two.
While I don’t need to recap the entire process, there were many parts of it that felt very different than before. I would say the most poignant feeling I took away from Newscast 2 was a sense of evolving – of turning the page as a team. Maybe this is just my former dedication to the study of history welling up, but I can’t help recalling the words of Winston Churchill: “This is not the end, this is not even the beginning of the end. But, perhaps it is the end of the beginning.”
Imagine how remarkable a journalist would be with that kind of sense of profundity.
Apologies for the digression. Back to Newscast 2. Our reporters were chomping at the bit as a sense of urgency accompanied the first weekend after Newscast 1. I believe the trials and failures in the first round had reporters keen to seek a greater advantage this time. A lot of the news team already had interviews and stories lined up at the end of Newscast 1 and had either started or completed a package in time for the official meeting on Monday.
As always communication was a well-regarded necessity and everyone worked well in that capacity. At the risk of tooting my own horn, I think it was an area where I felt some improvement as well – more timely emails, better tweets, etc. It seemed that more of our people were forced to work within certain confines, given their stories, and met the challenge with a new perspective. Although, there were still quite a few examples where visual story-telling fundamentals got lost in the weeds. More on that…coming up.
Unlike the last time around, I had the benefit of sitting in on a couple news conferences the following Thursday, that gave me an additional filter, or new perspective…I haven’t decided which. Whatever it gave me, it greatly helped my conceptualization of the editing process and what some of the specific expectations should be. That evening came the second-most grueling role I personally play as producer – package critiques. I certainly noticed certain trends emerging. With little exception, there was universal improvement and evidence of visualization in the field. However, there was still quite a bit of underdeveloped visual story-telling, sometimes in the writing, but mostly in the sequencing and selection of shots. James Mason, Professor Dahlia and I all had consistent notes in regard to the order of shots and obstacles to the forward motion of stories in a fair number of packages. In the most extreme examples, b-roll seemed to be a random assortment rather than a well-considered collection. A problem that I believe we called adequate attention to and, given the ease of the fix, should be well sorted by the 3rd round of packages. That said, the principle of “say it – see it” was remarkably improved and we had a number of people who showed substantial progress.
As for the taping at Studio B, all I have to say is I genuinely hope all future tapings go as smoothly. Reporter Megan Guerra had excellent screen presence and typically sports a level of comfort in front of the lens that made my job behind the camera all too easy. Much of the time we spent at the Media Innovation Center last Friday was mostly devoted to diligence as we generally had the shot within a few takes. However, the quest for perfection necessitates a certain level of obsession and this is something not exclusive to Megan. Indeed, some of the hard drives I’ve seen across the cast and crew are filling up at an alarming rate with shoots, reshoots and still more reshoots.
Then came time for my single greatest challenge, my Gordian Knot, my single greatest responsibility to the news team and my most unforgiving nemesis – the script. No longer impaired by delusions of myself as a capable writer, I gave every spare moment to its formatting and flow. In a 48-hour whirlwind of coffee fueled rage, I wrote and transitioned and refined from work, home and anywhere else a Wi-Fi signal could be found. I gave much more effort than my first attempt (which was not unsubstantial) and, truthfully, still came up short. Were it not for Professor Dahlia’s insistence on my potential and improvement thus far, I would be greatly discouraged.
Scripts were printed Monday and as final fixes were made we made preparation for the rehearsal on Tuesday. We were accompanied by Director, Kevin Pierson, who focused on technical aspects and cues to better prepare himself for show day. The presence of the director is not a necessity at rehearsal, but I think that effort paid dividends in the booth Wednesday and showed an extra level of commitment. Patrick, Kendall, Kyleigh, Elizabeth and Noelle fell into their blocking easily and, while critiques remained, were more than suited for their roles. In fact, rehearsal was going so smoothly at one point I felt a challenge, or rather, an exercise in levity was appropriate and suggested the cast to do a complete read-through with an accent. A task that, much to our amusement, was well within Patrick Clarke’s wheelhouse with his enthusiastic performance as an Irish news anchor.
When show day arrived the mood was anything but comical, the jitters from the first newscast had yet to dissipate. Although everyone was in good spirits, the focus and execution that would be required of us hung heavy in the air. In the moments before I gave my thumbs up to Kevin I couldn’t help but recall a memory from a different era of my life – standing on the threshold of a perfectly good airplane, with nothing between me and terra firma but a silk chute packed by an overworked 19-year-old. The words of my old jump master came to mind every time – “People with good sense don’t jump out of airplanes, that’s why you’re here. You don’t have good sense. You don’t have a need to feel ‘ready’ you just go. Just GO!”
Before you dismiss that as a sloppy metaphor allow me to defend myself by saying I think there’s a lesson there. There’s no such thing as completely ready, but one can certainly determine if they’re ready enough. The very same is true for us. While we have much ground to cover, I think we are well on our way, and before long we’ll each carry the confidence to know when we’re ready. What’s more, we’ll have confidence in the outcome.