Did I mention this was a rant? Sense really has no place in it!

 
Before I post the Blog entry I would just like to make a small mention to the weekend when Nathan visited. We had a great time and if you want further details I would redirect to his Blog for a comprehensive account of the four days - mainly because he's done such a good job of saying what we did, and there's no point in me typing it up as well (cos I agree with everything he's said!!! :-)

Anway - to my own entry!!!

INTO THE LAND OF TV!!!

Apologies to all those avid readers out there who have missed catching up on the life and times of Andrew Swann -but amazingly (and rather pleasingly that life has been very busy, and the Blog is pretty low on my update priorities - although not low enough to ignore altogether!! :-)

A bit of house keeping first, Mr Majeika has been updated at long last, click here to visit the new press cuttings archive.

Also with the very kind and generous help of Nathan I have launched my own personal web site, which when I get more time (TIME??!!!!) will essentially be my online CV, as well as some other bits and pieces that I want to put online that can't really go anywhere else.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, the main reason for today's Blog entry is the very exciting time I've had over the last couple of days. As anyone will know who knows me, I am desperate to work in TV, and over the last couple of weeks (with the help of the staff behind the scene's at the station) I was able to secure first some unpaid shadowing work to learn the ropes, followed VERY shortly afterwards by some proper paid work on TV Support.

What is TV Support I hear you scream!! Well essentially I am the Autocue operator!!! And what great fun it is!!! I get a little wheely type controller, and a special monitor, and control over exactly what the presenter reads!!!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! (Ahem!!!)

The TV Broadcast Assistant has three very separate and distinct jobs to do, and they are assigned to one area on a weekly (or thereabouts) rota basis. They are as follows

- TV Support (Autocue)
- HUB (The main server where all the video footage is fed in and played out from)
- Forward Planning (Working a day in advance planning the news!!)

OK - the last one may sound a tad ridiculous - you can't plan the news surely (?!) Well actually you can, because if you think about it, not all news articles are (what we call) time sensitive. We get many press releases sent to us which might be announcing the release of some facts and figures, but that info could be embargoed until a certain time - say 12 hours in advance of the actual time of the release being sent out. This gives the news agencies and newsrooms enough time to plan coverage, make sure the relevant journalists and resources are provided for relevant coverage - and that's where the "Planning Desk" come in. Plus of course there are follow-ups to any stories that break quickly, where we need to plan the coverage of the aftermath, or responses from relevant parties to something we may have covered.

But anyway - I was booked to do some freelance work on TV Support only after three days of shadowing (and rather more scarily - after only having one day's shadowing on the autocue!!!). S yesterday and today were my first two days of doing paid work for TV!!!! Exciting or what!?!

I was desperately trying to recall all the little operating procedures that I had been shown during my day on the autocue, (fortunately when I was shadowing, Karelle the person who was teaching me, had let me operate the autocue on all the news bulletins that day - which was very trusting of her, and I'm very grateful, as it was that hands on experience that gave me the courage to come in and actually go it alone!!)

It's strange going into a job like this, cos you recognise everyone's faces from the office, but you don't necessarily know their name - and generally you don't they don't know yours either - so I found myself shaking quite a few people's hands today, and saying good to meet you, even though I've been sharing an office with them for nearly 18 months - Still - what else could I say!!!! :-) But everyone was really nice - and despite the atmosphere of deadly seriousness that seems to eminate from the TV news desks when you walk past them - they're all a REALLY GREAT bunch of people who are really helpful, understanding and bloody nice!!!!

It's funny the kind of first impression you get from people. Phil (the director) comes across very much in charge - quite simply because he *IS* the one who calls the shots during the programme. Everyone seems very busy - and you're almost frightened of interrupting them, even when they're not talking to someone - for fear of breaking their concentration.

BUT all this changed when I was actually on the desk. They're still the same (ie concentrating) but you get a sense of how they operate when you actually spend two days working alongside them - and it essentially means that they're not all deadly serious and detached - they just have to concentrate very hard on what they're doing, when they're doing it!!!

Phil is actually very mellow and cool when he is directing - not what I expected at all. I kept making little mistakes during my first bulletin - not hearing directions from the gallery, or mis-hearing them - (there's a hell of a lot going on during a bulletin) and instead of him getting stroppy (which I guess is everyone's impression of a "luvvy director") he's exactly the opposite, understanding, and concerned. Which I guess is the right thing to do - cos if there are problems, there must be a reason, and getting angry won't solve them.

One of the bulletins nearly didn't happen because I couldn't load the script into the actual autocue itself. Phil's reaction wasn't to say "GET IT SORTED!!!", but "the first thing we need to do is make sure the presenter has a paper copy - because we can go on air with that if necessary".

It enabled the problem to be sorted without tempers fraying, and we got on air with no problem after that. When I chatted to Phil about it this evening before going to the pub he was perfectly understanding about it - after all he knew it was my first day, but also that it's not uncommon for computers to spit their dummy out.

Anyway - the TV Support BA's job consists of several things

- Logging the Music and Idents that are used in the programmes for the day before
- Creating a "Diversity Log" - this looks at how many people were interviewed in the programme, what sex they were, what race they were, if they were from a particular political party, who produced the piece and where the items were located geographically. This helps us to keep an eye on how the programme is doing - whether it is representing a fair and reasonable cross section of society and covering the whole region in equal amounts.
- Taking in links and creating captions for the pieces of video based on the requirements of the reporters who are often still "in the field"
- Checking the running order and distributing scripts to the camera crew and presenters
- Operating the Autocue during the broadcast.

Which leads me on to my next point, I have to say what a fantastic adrenaline boost it is to go on air. At 5.59 the station prepares to broadcast the regional headlines straight off the back of the National 6 o'clock heads. It's all very exciting cos you can hear the director from London calling the cues and shots which control George and Sophie, as well as the animated graphics and other bits of video. It's then our turn, and we do out 20 seconds of headlines - All very exciting!!!!

We normally rehearse the headlines about 5 mins before we go on air - but yesterday was a special edition of the programme, special because it was of course the first day of the War on Iraq - as such the opening of the show was quite complicated, and differed from the norm quite considerably. The producer decided to pre-record the first three minutes of the show an hour before we went on-air, simply to make sure that it all looked smooth. This led to an interesting little continuity error, it was still quite light at 5.15 when we pre-recorded the opening, but by the time it was broadcast at 6.30 it was nearly dusk outside - so the bridge between the "As-Live" and the "Live" sees it get dark outside quite rapidly!!! ;-)

Everyone who I've spoken to has asked me how difficult it is to operate the autocue at the right speed - too fast and the presenter can't keep up, too slow and the presenter rapidly runs out of words. The answer to that is quite simple - although I am "physically" controlling the autocue, the presenter is controlling me, as I am looking at how fast they are reading, and I move the script at the relevant speed to make sure they have the next sentence on screen ready. It's not difficult to do as such - but it is quite a skill to do it well, and make sure that the presenter always has what they want on the screen.

Sufficed to say it's great fun - the staff all made me feel REALLY welcome, and were really helpful in pointing out nicely what I should be doing. Although I did have trouble a couple of times knowing if people were talking to me or not as one person kept getting my name wrong, plus there was another Andrew who works on TV - so my ears pricked up everytime I heard the name!!

Anyway - I look forward to next week!!!!!

Swanny says .... "Run VT....go ident....and cue!"

posted by LAMPS at 23:08