What I learned this Semester

           I have learned more about broadcast in the past three and a half months than ever before. Some of things I learned specifically were the importance of news values and how it enables you to write the most effective story, how to write in broadcast style (and how it differs from AP),  and how to produce a five minute news cast.
          Through out the semester I realized that the more I learned the more confident and comfortable I felt. I enjoyed taking a skill from each one of my classes and applying it to our weekly news show. I also enjoyed being able to watch the news on TV with a different perspective. I also feel like this semester truly prepared and equipped me for my summer internship interview with ABC. I am extremely grateful for that. My only regret is that I didn't get interested, serious and involved with broadcast sooner.
         One of my goals for next semester is to make MOCS Talk a more realistic news show. I want the environment and flow to be as authentic as possible. I plan on having scripts written well ahead of time and utilize more writers from practicum. I also want to have a run down prepared each week before we tape and have the producer standing by watching our time. I also want the show to be one take and ONE TAKE ONLY! These changes will allow everyone to get a feel for what "real life" news is like.
        One other thing I really enjoyed this semester was making weekly packages. The more I do them the better they turn out and my broadcast writing class really helped me with that. Now I know how to write an appropriate and accurate script and how it should be properly structured. That was actually my favorite part of the whole semester. I felt like an actual reporter going through the B-roll and and logging my shots and SOTs. It made me think outside the box like an actual reporter in the field would. The only thing I really wish we did was bring in our own footage to put together. It would have been great for the final to go out and shoot our own B-roll and log it ourselves and then go through it and write out our scripts. It would have been great to go through the process beginning to end to get the full experience. I would have found it challenging, but fun! (and we could have watched everyone's packages on the final day of class and critiqued them.)
         All in all, it was a great semester. I am so excited about anchoring and co-producing next year's news show along with Rachel Belli. I think together she and I will work well together  and the changes we make will only make MOCS Talk better! I also plan to take the lessons ABC teaches me and apply it to my projects in the future.

Weeks 3/24, 3/31, and 4/7

For the past three weeks I have helped in shooting the morning news show. I worked with Robert to set up audio and lighting and I also ran the camera. I also produced a news package for next week's show. It's covering the new Lakeland skate park that is being built at Lake Bonny park. It will be the third largest skate park in florida once it is completed. Team Pain is behind the construction. They are a group of builders who actually skateboard themselves so they know exactly how to make it the most effective park.
 hours:
3 for the news show
2 hours shooting
1 hour writing
2 hours post production
total of 8 hours

Week of March 17th

This week I did a package on up and coming artist Aaron Corbitt's "60 Faces of Lakeland" project. Aaron has been painting since childhood and wanted to showcase his talents to the community. For the past few months Aaron has been hand painting portraits of people that are significant to Lakeland or have a unique story to share. I shot Aaron painting at the studio and also attended a premiere party where he showed off the project for the first time.
Total hours: 5 hours

Hours for the week ending 3/9

This week I went to the YMCA's par 3 golf course to shoot their weekly adaptive program. My package focused on the intellectually disabled individuals that learn life skills there on the golf course. I went out two separate days to get all my B-roll. The class was 2 hours. Post production took three hours ( one hour to write and two hours to capture, edit and export). Total hours: 5 hours

Midterm Hours

This week I did a news package on Paint Along studios. I sat through one of their weekend classes and shot B-roll for both my segment and photo essay. I met with the owner a few days later for an interview. I also participated with shooting Mocs Talk.
Paint along class: 4 hours
Interview: 30 min
News show: 1 hour
Post production: 2 hours
Total:  7.5

Brewz Crewz

This week I did a news package on the fourth annual BrewzCrewz Craft Beer Festival. I interviewed Jane Hammond, the coordinator for Elder Point Ministries and Tiffany Logan with the Downtown Lakeland Partnership. Unfortunately, after I put the package together it would not play. It kept stalling and skipping over parts. It was very agitating. After two hours, I ended up having to go home and edit it all over again on my own equipment.
Total hours this week: 7 hours

Chalk for Charity

For the second news show of the semester I did an advancer package for Chalk for charity. Because they held the same event last year, I was able to use a previous student's photo essay as the b-roll for the story. I also went to Paint along studios to gather information and shot an interview with a participant. The last thing I did was write the script and record my voice overs.
Total hours: 3

Morning Show Jan 28th

      This morning I ran the teleprompter for our weekly news show. I had never done that before. It was a little tricky, especially since it was in rich text format. Dr. Bradford showed me how to make it a plain text. This will make it easier for the anchors to read the script from now on.
         I also had an interview scheduled today with the coordinator of Chalk for Charity, however he was a no-show. That's the second time this semester an interviewee has blown me off. Luckily I have a different interview scheduled for tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
total hours: 1

First News Show of 2013

        This week I did a news package on the flu epidemic in America. When I reflect on the production of this story, the saying "we make plans and God laughs" immediately comes to mind.
Originally I had made arrangements to shoot at a doctor's office and interview a nurse there named Heather. I also had set up an interview time for a student on campus named Alex. He was hit bad with the flu the first two weeks of school.  Dr. Bradford suggested I speak to Nurse Betty as well so I went down to the clinic to speak with her, however there had been a death in the family and she was not able to meet with me in enough time. So I wrote my script with the intent to use Heather and Alex's interviews with B-roll from Heather's doctor's office.
         I met with Alex on a Monday afternoon and everything went smoothly. All I needed was Heather's pieces. Sounds great right? Well the morning of the shoot, Heather goes M.I.A. She is unavailable and will not answer my calls. I call the office and she is not in. I panicked. I called Austen to tell him without this nurse I have nothing. I called Nurse Betty to see if there was anyway she could see me and she apologized and said she couldn't meet with me until the following Thursday (this of course meant my package wouldn't make deadline). So I scrambled around and went through my Facebook friends and my phone contacts to see if I could figure out a way to get a medical professional to agree to an interview. Luckily, my friend hooked me up. She's a receptionist at a pediatrician's office and managed to get a Doctor to set an appt. with me. I was so thankful. However, when I got to the doctor's office it was a ghost town. I thought how am I going to get B-roll when there's not a single person waiting in this lobby?! Still, I got the interview. I was thankful he agreed on such short notice, but as you can see in my package he is a little cooky (making jokes about something so serious).
          Afterwards, I re-wrote the script to fit what he had discussed and for my "opening" B-roll, I used several clips from various news stations to emphasize how widespread the flu was. Not exactly how I would have done a segment had I been a reporter for a real news program, but without press badges and a nifty title I tried to make the best out of the situation.
Total hours: 5