This week, I have tried to focus on improving my preparation before we begin taping a show. This starts by getting to the studio before everyone else and adding last-minute notes to my script. I then meet with my director, Sean, to go over any production needs we’ll have for the crew.
For Show 4 in particular, we both agreed our biggest concern was camera framing because we had the anchors moving around a lot during the A block. We added a new shot for Terrell’s toss this week as well, so we looked at the framing of that and practiced the shot changes. I think it is really cool to say we have added new camera shots each show.
After talking with Sean, I moved on to working with Madison on the teleprompter. I write the teleprompter script on Mondays but tweak it during anchor rehearsals to help the anchors’ reads flow smoothly. All of the changes were small changes to sentence structure, but they made big changes to the anchors’ deliveries.
When we finished with the teleprompter, I made my way over to the talent. I individually spoke with Patrick and Ty to talk about a few notes I had during our anchor rehearsals and then gathered everyone to discuss the show rundown. Prof. Marra usually takes the lead, but I added notes about the show where I could. I then left the anchors to rehearse and got set up in the control room. Sean and I directed the camera operators on how we wanted each shot to look, so they knew how to set up during the show. We also tested IFBs and audio levels and got to work on our first take.
Technically, our show was great. There were no new challenges this week as we only had readers and packages, so the work was fully in the anchor's hands. That is where we struggled the most this week. The talent was not feeling super positive or energetic and that came across on camera. It felt as if they were just going through the motions and were losing steam.
I did a lot more work in the first take trying to counteract that and get them more energetic. It felt like one anchor in particular was the only person consistently taking in my feedback and adjusting. After that take, I had a long list of notes to give everyone. Although I feel I delivered the critiques in a positive way, I think hearing so many notes put them in a worse mood.
Our second take was our worst take of the day. That didn’t stop me from doing everything I could to try to raise their spirits. This was probably the most amount of talking I've done for a show so far this year. It didn’t take until our third taping for everyone to really take my feedback and apply it to themselves. I ended up finishing the show happy with the final product, but incredibly tired from the extra effort.