It's almost done!

After six months of writing, my book about the uncertain future of Powerview-Pine Falls, Manitoba is in its final proofreading and production stage. It's off to the printer tomorrow! Stay tuned for more updates on where you can pick up a copy.

So you wanna be a TV reporter?

I just spent the last three weeks working as an intern at Shaw TV. The first week I shadowed reporters, picked their brains and sought out whatever advice I could wrap my brain around before week two. Week two and three immersed me into the Shaw TV newsroom. And by immersed I mean sucked me in, shook me up and spit me back out – a good thing of course. Here’s what I learnt by the end.

1. Coming up with stories for TV isn’t a walk in the park. Bottom line: no visuals no story.
2. Speaking of visuals, there’s a difference between still, abstract shots that sort of get the point across and moving, concrete shots that dictate what you’re going to say. You want to find a story with the latter.
3. Getting the scoop on a good story requires you to get out, talk to people, meet people, observe your surroundings and question them. Ask yourself: was there anything unusual about what a person said? About what I saw? Follow-up, look into what you found out. Analyze everything!
4. Shooting the story is where the pressure sets in and you only have one chance. First things first, when you arrive observe your surroundings. Talk to people, get the story, find out how everything is going to play out if it’s an event or photo-op. Tell your cameraperson what’s happening and what you need out of the shoot. Go in with an idea of what your story is and who you want to talk to, but be flexible, sometimes the best story unfolds while you’re there. Observe, analyze, observe, analyze, repeat, repeat, repeat. Craft your story while you’re there because your standup is coming and you don’t want to waste it.
5. Doing a standup isn’t just your chance to show off on camera…not that I ever thought it was; I just never understood why reporters had to do them. Turns out they’re pretty useful – do a standup when you either need to show your viewers something or when you need to talk about something you can’t show with pictures, like statistical data.
6. Sweating yet? Things aren’t going to slow down. Before you leave your shoot ask yourself: did my interviews cover the basics of the story? The who, what, when, where, why. Did my interview questions generate emotional responses? Do you know how your subject will be impacted by the news? How they feel about it? What they would like to see happen and why? Does your standup provide information? Can it be said in a voiceover? Probably? Reshoot it. Then brief your cameraperson on what your story is looking like so far – will they have enough shots to cover your angle? Is there anything specific you envision absolutely needing from them? Ask and get it. Okay, now you can go. …God, I’m sweating writing this.
7. Writing the script should be easy by now because you know what you want to say. But double check a few things before you send your script to be vetted. Does the story begin with a memorable visual? As in, is it well shot? Will it grab the mom changing her baby’s diapers attention? Does it set up the rest of the story? Are you writing in and out of your clips? This one, I found tricky. It doesn’t mean summing up what everyone has to say about your news story before you go into a clip with them saying the same thing. It means providing viewers with small bits on information your viewer couldn’t look up on google while linking the last clip to the next one. Joanne Kelly gave me some good advice on how to do this when she told me to literally take the viewer on the journey I went on. Make them feel like they were right there alongside you uncovering the story. Telling a story isn’t just about providing the viewer with a piece of news and reiterating it over and over again in different ways for a minute and a half. Also, keep one thought to a sentence.
8. Analyzing what you’ve done is hard and by the end you’re exhausted. A lot of the time I felt like I was crossing my fingers and hoping for the best by the end. I knew what I was supposed to have done, I just told you everything. But being able to read over your own work critically is difficult so I don’t know if I learnt a great approach to being able to do this other than asking myself all the things I just told you. But the best piece of advice I found myself taking into every shoot was from Kim Babij. She told me the reporter is getting access to information the viewers aren’t. This means, you’re the one asking the questions only your interview subject can answer. It means you’re the one pulling out all the details viewers won’t necessarily think of and providing those details in your story later. It means knowing more about the story than you can tell in a minute and a half. It’s the reporter’s job to collect this information and craft it in a way that’s descriptive, interesting, easy to follow and worth watching. Otherwise, she said, what’s the point of having a reporter?
9. Screwing up is inevitable. Even the pro’s do it…or so I’m told. Swallow your pride, make the call and fix the mistake. Sending a shitty story to air will prove to be more embarrassing in the end. Having said that, don’t get cozy with screw ups, once you hit the big time you really will only have one shot and likely less time.

The good news is it’s really not that scary once you start to get the hang of it. By the end of my three week work placement I found myself feeling much more confident going out on shoots and writing scripts. While I’m still not an expert, the lightbulb is beginning to flicker.

Things I've been noticing lately

1. Guys referring to their girlfriends as objects by calling them ‘my girl’ or ‘the girl’.
2. Hot 103’s Steve Adams has an incredibly well prepared show.
3. My ipod says it’s last week.
4. Pho No. 1 is the most underrated Vietnamese restaurant in the city.
5. I don’t think people really taste their food – as in I don’t think many explore the flavours they’re chewing.
6. There are way too many ‘new fiction’ and ‘new non-fiction’ books on the McNally Robinson bookshelves to go through.
7. An apple at 7-Eleven is almost $2.
8. This blog is an example of faulty parallelism.
9. After three weeks of driving to work, I miss taking the stinky city bus.
10. It’s cold outside.