This week was probably the most comfortable I have ever felt in my role as producer. I feel like everything from start to finish went a lot smoother than it has before, especially in comparison to show #3. I would say I have found a rhythm, as well as my classmates, and being able to just enter that flow made my producing weekend and show day easy. This week also greatly proved the importance of communication and organization to me, as I feel like the only issues we had came from crossed wires and misunderstandings, and you must eliminate those if you want to make your show as good as possible.
To start off the week leading into show #4, I liked the content we had lined up and was excited to see how everything came out. I had the opportunity to help a few of my classmates shoot their content, mostly figuring out the details around their interactive stand-ups. I learned a valuable lesson from these experiences, between being unsure about an idea and seeing it work out very well, and putting endless effort into an idea that just couldn’t turn out right. A lot goes into the work that our reporters do, and the reality is that sometimes things just don’t work, and I am glad I got to experience that myself firsthand.
I was happy with the content my classmates turned in on Thursday. Laying out the show wasn’t very hard either, since we had a lot of stories that were talking about similar things and that made writing the script to flow between each of them a lot simpler. I knew going into the weekend that my professors wouldn’t be able to look at the script until much later than usual, which meant I had to step up and give them something a lot more polished than I did last week. I think I put a lot more time into this script compared to any of the others, except for show #1, but by the time I was ready to submit in the early morning hours on Sunday, I felt happy with what I had written and hopeful that it didn’t leave much for my professors to check over.
At first, I was nervous going into the studio, especially since this was the first show that I didn’t have someone to look over my script markings beforehand. This all went away once I saw everyone there happy and prepared, and I got excited to get started. I went through my usual responsibilities in the studio and spoke with our director, Logan, to see what we would practice. We had a few mess-ups through each take, and an especially rough start to the first one, but it made me happy to see that no one in the studio lost energy going into our final take. The anchors still brought the enthusiasm we needed, and the control room was the most alive and comfortable it had been all day, all while still staying locked in on the task at hand.
Episode 4 was a much-needed bounce back after the issues surrounding our last show. Our content was good, I felt like my script was good, and we excelled in the studio with a class of younger students watching, much like each of us had watched another class only a year ago. I’m proud of what this team did this week and throughout the semester. With only one episode of Mountaineer Playbook left, I’m excited to see us hopefully go out on the highest note possible.