This week allowed me to assist several classmates with their shoots and spend time in the editing lab helping others troubleshoot different aspects of their projects. While there were definitely some successes, there were also a few moments where I realized things I could have done better. Overall, it was a productive week that helped me learn more about both the shooting and editing sides of the process.
I helped TJ shoot Friday’s WVU playoff hockey game against Duquesne. My main responsibility was capturing b-roll during the game. Because of how fast-paced hockey is, there were a lot of exciting moments to capture, and I ended up filming quite a few highlights. Hockey naturally provided a lot of dynamic visuals, and I felt confident that he would be able to put together a strong package using the footage. This method of shooting is just so different than the way I shoot for creative video, I need to do a better job at differentiating the requirements that the two roles require.
On Tuesday, I helped Chelsea shoot her stand-up and SOT Tzs at the rec fields for her story on the club lacrosse team. Unfortunately, this shoot was a bit of a struggle for me personally. I had some things happen earlier in the day, and my head really was not in the right place. On top of that, I realized after arriving that I had left my wireless microphones at home. That mistake definitely frustrated me because Chelsea had a really strong idea for the stand-up and interview setup, but visually, it just did not look as clean using the stick mic instead. It was one of those moments that reminded me how important preparation was before heading out to shoot. Because of this, I created a checklist on my phone that I look at before I leave for each shoot to ensure that I always have the required materials to help me and my fellow classmates be successful!
I also helped Korey film an interview with band director Cheldon Williams for his story about the Big 12 tournament. This shoot went really well, and I felt like I applied some useful advice that James had given us during a previous shoot. The location also ended up working better than I expected. There were large windows next to the subject, and the overhead lights were off. I initially thought it might create strange shadows or affect the color balance of the shot. Instead, the natural light enhanced the look of the interview and made the visuals feel more interesting.
I did not spend as much time editing my own material this week, but I did help several classmates in the editing lab. While working with Connor, I helped him adjust his audio channels and also learned a really helpful audio troubleshooting trick from Korey involving the panner controls. There was an issue with people’s audio not being recorded in the right channels, which meant that the reporters didn’t have the ability to separate their Nat’s and their voices in the proper channels. From what Korey showed me, you can adjust the panner completely to one side, which has the same effect that manually switching channels does! It wasn’t a permanent fix for everyone, but it helped in some situations.
Andrew had an interesting issue with his footage from Studio B. There was some type of smudge or light glare that was visible on the wall at the bottom of the monitors, which meant he would have had to potentially go back and reshoot. Instead, I was able to utilize the opacity masking feature within Premiere to fix this. I duplicated the footage, selected a small clean area with the masking tool, and positioned it over the smudge, which solved the problem perfectly! Masking is such a powerful tool to know how to utilize. I highly recommend that everyone familiarize themselves with it!
I spent some time helping Chelsea with the graphics in her package. She was trying to animate some statistics but was having trouble scaling them while keeping everything centered on the screen. Originally, she was keyframing the crop effect, which made the animation more difficult than it needed to be. I showed her a simpler approach by keyframing the scale and position instead. This created a smoother animation and also gave her more flexibility to add additional layers later during fix day, such as highlighting certain words, enlarging key statistics, or blurring the background to emphasize specific information. I saw in her final package that she expanded on the original animation, which turned out great!
Overall, the week had a mix of learning experiences. I had a few moments where I wished I had prepared better, especially with the Chelsea shoot, but there were also situations where I felt like I applied things I had learned in class more effectively. Between shooting interviews, capturing B-roll, and helping others troubleshoot editing issues, I felt like I was starting to get a better understanding of how all the pieces of a news package came together.
Each shoot and editing session added another layer of experience that I hoped would make the next one even better. In the control room, I thought that we improved tremendously from our third take of Show 1 to our first take of Show 2. It was really encouraging to see how much more comfortable everyone is in their role and how seriously they are taking it. I think that we are in a great position to make Show 3 incredible!