The Television Studio

Studios are designed to handle a variety of productions with their wide open spaces and are equipped to hang and supply power to lights. Studios are ideal, because they protect productions from the impact of weather such as snow and rain, they are independent from the time of day (productions can be lit as though it is day­ light), and they allow for sound control.

They are used for many dramatic productions, news shows, and talk shows. Although in practice television studios vary from the modest to purpose-built giants, all seem somehow to share a certain indefinable atmosphere.

Despite the number of people working around a set during the production, it is surprising how quiet the place usually is. Only the dialogue between the actors should be audible. Camera dollies should quietly move over the specially leveled floor, as the slightest bumps can shake the image. People and equipment move around silently, choreographed, systematically, and smoothly, to an unspoken plan.

However, if you were to put on an intercom headset, you would enter into a different world! You would hear the continuous instructions from the unseen director in the production con­-trol room: guiding, assessing, querying, explaining, cuing, warning, correcting-coordinating the studio crew through their headsets. The director uses the intercom to guide the production crew. In the studio, the crews operating the cameras, microphones, lighting, set, and so on hear the intercom through their headsets-information that is unheard by the performers/talent or the studio microphones. The floor manager, the director’s link with the studio floor, is respon­sible for diplomatically relaying the director’s instructions and observations to the performers with hand signals. (See our article: Floor Director Hand SIgnals)

The television studio control room is the nerve center where the director, accompanied by a support group, controls the production. Most control rooms are segmented into separate rooms or areas. However, there are smaller control rooms, or even one-piece switchers, that merge many of these operations into one area. A large control room has more room and flexibility, but requires more people. A one-piece system can be operated by one person but is limited in the number of cameras it can include.

The director can have many people trying to get his or her attention in the control room. Of course, there is another whole group of people in the studio. However, in the control room
the director needs to review graphics, listen to the assistant director, and respond to audio personnel, video shaders, playback, the technical director, and sometimes the producer.

The director usually sits in the television control room-although sometimes sitcom directors prefer to be out in the studio-watching a large group of video monitors called the monitor wall. The smaller moni­tors show the displays from each camera being used, plus a variety of image sources such as graphics, animations, and satellite feeds. There are usually two larger screens. One is generally the preview monitor, which is the director’s “quality control” monitor, and which allows him or her to assess upcoming shots, video effects, combined sources, and the like. The second monitor, is the “on-air” or “transmission” monitor, which shows what is actually being broadcast or recorded.

The director’s attention is divided between the various input monitors, the selected output on the on-air monitor, and the program audio from a nearby loudspeaker.

Although some directors may prefer to switch for them­selves, most directors utilize a technical director (TD). TDs are responsible for switching between the various video and graphic inputs on the switcher (see Figure 3.17). The TD enables the production director to concentrate on controlling the many other aspects of the show. The TD may oversee the engineering aspects of the production such as aligning effects, checking shots, ensuring source availability, and monitoring quality.

Interviewing

Interviews are integral to good journalism. They provide more than just additional voices; they provide facts, expertise, balance, depth and credibility.

They also breathe life into information that might otherwise fall flat. Interviews:

• Improve your stories (by providing atmosphere and making them more interesting).
• Teach you a lot (by providing background).
• Build credibility (by giving various stakeholders’ points of view).
• Make your stories fairer (by providing balance).

The details that jump out of a story (and stick in your mind) are usually the results of an interview. A description of a child’s face or the scene at a local soup kitchen or construction site – these pictures, verbal or actual, are what make stories come alive. If you’re able, try to capture whole scenes in your notes: sights, sounds and smells as well as the answers to questions that you jot down or record.

Interviewing Tips

Whether you’re interviewing your family for grandma and grandpa’s 50th anniversary, the CEO of a business for a training video, or even a politician for a news story; there are a few tried and true tips used by the pros that can help you put together a clean and polished interview.  You can’t get a good interview by holding the camera at eye level with one hand, thrusting a mic into someone’s face with the other hand, and asking questions behind the back of the camera. Theoretically, it can be done, but it shouldn’t be done… unless you’re just causally cruising around the company picnic. Two musts: Use an external mic – don’t rely on the camera’s mic because you can’t get it close enough to the subject without compromising quality; and use a tripod – or some other way to keep your camera steady, even if it’s just propped up on a table. Here are a few more tips to help you get clean editable and polished interviews.
1. Sit Close to the Camera

Unless this is a first person account, the best angle for an interview subject is a ¾-view of their face. Never a profile shot, and you don’t want them staring into the camera (only politicians and news anchors stare into the camera)! This is the most comfortable of all interview situations for the interviewee and the viewer. To achieve this, you set the camera pointing at your subject, then sit right next to the camera, so that your subject appears to be looking at you, not your camera.

2. Set the Camera at Eye Level

Set the camera at the same level as your subject. Imagine a tic-tac-toe grid in front of your lens and set the subject’s eyes in either the left or right side upper point where the lines intersect, and then give them what we call lead room.

If you’re interviewing a basketball player who is twice your height, you should stand on a chair, or have him sit in the chair. The goal is to have your subject in a neutral position, not upstanding with the camera looking down on the subject, giving the feeling that the interviewer has some power over the subject; or downcast giving the feeling that the interviewer is inferior to the subject.

3. Don’t Stare into the Viewfinder

If you stare into the camera’s viewfinder or eyepiece, your interviewee has a strange visual to look at; a one-eyed half-face blocked by a large black plate of plastic – and that lone eye is looking at the screen, rather than the subject. We engage people by using eye contact, so use a tripod, and frame your subject in a medium shot, and just glance at the viewfinder occasionally to assure the subject didn’t shift.

4. Uh-huh – yeah – OK

I watch a show with a host who constantly interrupts people to make unrelated comments, which breaks their chain of thought. Being silent and non-committal, however, appears as if you are bored and unengaged. There’s a fine line between encouraging the continued conversation and annoying interruptions by the interviewer. Not only are the usual “uh-huhs” annoying audible responses, they are very difficult to remove in editing. Practice listening to someone talking to you without making any audible response, but letting them know you’re engaged by slightly nodding your head with slight facial movements; a simple smile or frown when appropriate, this is how the pros do it.

5. Don’t Step on Them!

During the interview, if you feel your subject is going on a tangent you know you won’t need, feel free to interrupt him, but if the statement he is making will end up in the edited video, then let him finish the comment. Completely. I’ve had to do some tight sound tweaking to edit out the words of an interviewer who jumped in with the next question before a statement was finished. This is very common in conversations, and we hardly notice it, but it’s difficult to edit out, and you’ll always have to compromise where the cut happens – either by cutting out a portion of the final statement, or leaving in an audible blip of the interviewer. Listen to the sounds of the interviewee; you can tell when they’re winding down. Be prepared to jump in, but give a heartbeat pause between his last word and your next one. Your editor (or you!) will thank you later.

Using a few of these tactics will make your subjects feel more at ease. Let them know what’s happening. When you first sit them down, make small talk about their day while you are setting up your gear. You can hit “record” any time during the setup, but don’t make a big deal about it. Just merge from small banter into the interview and when it’s over they’ll say, “was that it?” yeah – simple as that.

Jennifer O’Rourke has produced thousands of interviews for network and local TV stations nationwide.

5 facts about the state of local TV newsrooms

BY KATERINA EVA MATSALEAVE A COMMENT

WHY Video?

Video delivers visual, audio and textual information all at once, so your message is conveyed more efficiently and more effectively. A creative video can humanize, energize and bring your product, your service, your brand, to life.

Video engages, educates and inspires.

Marketing analysis clearly shows that using video increases sales, converts customers and raises brand awareness.

Video is no longer an optional component in your marketing game plan, it’s a must have element for marketing success.

Not convinced? Checkout these statistics:

• People who view an engaging web video are 54% more likely to buy the product or explore the brand.

• Only 20% of web visitors will read the majority of the text, but 80% will watch a video.

• Adding a video to your website makes your site 6 times more likely to convert a browser to a paying customer.

• Online marketers report that including a video in an email marketing campaign, increases the click-through rate by more than 200%.

• 59% of Senior Executives prefer to watch video rather than read text.

• YouTube is the second largest internet search engine with over 800 million unique visitors every month.

• The use of properly optimized web video greatly enhances your SEO and drastically improves your Google ranking.

• Video now accounts for more than 50% of all mobile device traffic.

Sources: “The Digital Media Forecast 2012 – 2017,” Forrester Research “VideoTrends Map, May 2013″, TopRankBlog

It’s a scene we can all imagine: the teacher flips on a movie, dims the lights, and sits in the back of the classroom catching up on grading papers. The students slump in their seats half paying attention, while they snooze or text or do chem homework. We can imagine this because many of us have been there.

Americans have these associations with bringing film into the classroom because, in the past, movies have been used as “breaks” from instruction. And occasionally, that’s a fine use for them (rainy day lunches, a post-AP treat). However, if we cling on to this idea that it is the only way movies can work in the classroom, we are losing an incredible source of learning material.

The week after the Academy Awards seems like the ideal time to talk about teaching film. Each year, the Oscars remind us how fantastic movies can be. After all, most filmmakers consider their craft as significant as a piece of literature. And films have the added complexity of requiring their audience to process visual and auditory information along with plot and character development.

Certainly, being able to critically analyze visual information the way one would analyze text is a key skill in today’s world. Teenagers are bombarded with visual stimuli and need to be able to pick it apart and ask questions of it. Many advocates of using film and TV in the classroom point out that kids need to learn how to tell if something in the media is a social construction. They should learn how to evaluate if a movie is biased, or if a TV show is portraying cultural stereotypes. This is true — we don’t want our youth to be “victimized” by the media.

But I think movies are worthwhile pieces of learning material in and of themselves, even without the victimization argument. That’s how film professors treat movies in a college seminar — why can’t we apply some of that seriousness and enthusiasm to a high school classroom?

Yes, high school students are not college students. Teenagers are difficult and there are some major management issues associated with showing movies. Thus, in order to teach films in the classroom most effectively, there are a few guidelines we should follow. My boss, Kim Birbrower, and I put our heads together and came up with the following teaching tips:

1. Do your own homework. To prepare, watch the film yourself before you show it to your class. Take special note of places to pause for discussion. Jot down questions as you watch and take note of segments that might be confusing or require extra facilitation.
2. Provide background information where necessary. It is important to provide students with background information so that when they start watching they don’t lose time trying to figure out “where they are.” You may need to provide information on the setting or time period in which the film takes place, background on the issues that the film addresses, or the cultural context in which the film was made.
3. Relate the film to your students’ lives. Prior to starting the film, plan an “empathy-building” or “connection-making” activity for your students that can start them thinking about the larger issues or themes in the film, and how they relate to their own lives. This way, they are primed to make a connection.
4. Teach the language of film. You don’t have to teach film theory, but providing students with some basic terms (such as cut, focus, frame, fade, and close-up) will help them articulate what they are seeing more easily.
5. Frame the film. Prepare questions and short activities that highlight what you want students to consider as they watch the film. For example, begin class with a pre-viewing discussion and end the class with a piece of reflective writing that points to the key aspects of why they are watching. This will help them know what to keep an eye out for as they continue watching.
6. Ensure active viewing. Provide your students with a note-taking sheet — a table, a graphic organizer, or a set of as-you-watch questions. A great way to do this is to create a customized “viewing chart” with columns where students can identify particular scenes and then take notes on how these scenes relate to specific themes. This will allow them to actively process the information in the film.
7. Hold kids accountable. It doesn’t have to be a quiz, but your daily discussions, homework assignments, journal entries, and/or viewing charts should eliminate lazy viewing, and can also serve as a short portfolio for self-assessment and future reference.
8. Assign viewing as homework. Maybe you don’t have the time to devote a week to a film. Luckily, in today’s technological landscape, it is often feasible to assign some viewing at home. Give your students a 30-minute teaser in class and assign the rest for homework. A lot of movies are streaming online, on Hulu, Netflix, SnagFilms and a number of other sites.
9. Don’t let tech discourage you. Having to depend on a DVD player or projector for your lessons can be daunting. If possible, test out your device the afternoon before and cue up the film ahead of time so it’s ready to go. If something goes wrong the day-of, consider having copies of an article or small group activity that relate to the film to serve as a backup.
10. You don’t have to turn off the lights. Yes, most people argue that it’s the most enjoyable way to watch a movie, but if you are worried about kids goofing off, keep the lights on.

To download all the tips, go to www.bigpictureinstructional.com/tipsforteachingfilm.pdf

VIDEOGRAPHY TIPS

Sometimes a dose of reality can be pretty sobering, and scary. We’ve all heard about the cord cutters in the trades, but you don’t often get a sense of how real it is.

I’m in the OLDER demo. I must have my cable channels along with my Netflix. I don’t have Hulu plus, and while I do have Amazon Prime, I’m not wowed with their video selection. Yes I have my Apple TV, my ipad and my smartphone and I often three-screen in the evening.

I was recently visiting a client station, meeting with about 20 producers, managers and reporters who were almost all under 35. We started talking about cord cutters and who uses what. This informal “survey” was eye opening, and honestly it more than surprised me. It sent a few chills down my spine.

I asked how many had online video services?

Netflix +85%
Hulu Plus 70%
Amazon Prime 60%

They’re okay with waiting a year to see the episode I watched last night.

How many DON’T have cable/satellite?

85% (No CNN, MSNBC or Fox. For ESPN events, they may go to a bar or a friend’s house that has cable.) Only two people who dropped cable had broadcast antennas.

I asked the others, “How do you watch local news?” Many don’t … and they work in the business. Four or so said they watched the live stream on their phone. But they admitted they could be easily distracted.

These are people who work in news and they don’t feel compelled to watch local news.

Why? I’m not entirely sure. Clearly they felt they got the news they needed from other online sources. More important, I got the sense they felt local news wasn’t relevant to them. They admitted that their friends outside the business don’t watch local news at all.

For ratings, we have a tendency to focus on the +35 demo. We know how to produce for that viewer. The under 35 demo is a shrinking local news audience – the numbers may resemble a ski slope.

This should scare us. We need to start discussions, research and planning to understand what will get this consumer to watch local news. Will they watch local news?

Consider holding strategy sessions driven by your employees younger than 35. Take the +35 managers out of the initial loop. See what the younger demo wants to create without the +35 bias. Empower them to come up with a project to create content their peers will seek out. Produce it. Test it.

If we don’t figure this out soon we could be facing a viewership that is truly aging out of the demos we sell. And that would be a tragedy.

The number of stations originating local news went up slightly (by two stations) this year, according to the latest installment of an RTDNA/Hofstra University study. A total of 1,026 stations run local news, with more planned for next year: the study finds “network affiliates are a lot more likely to expect the amount of news to increase in 2014 over 2013.”

You may think of them as little more than the kids in the summer who answer phones on the desk, but the truth is this: interns are the future of the business. Joyce Terhaar, executive editor of theSacramento Bee, wrote a fascinating piece Sunday: “A glimpse at the future of journalism through the eyes of interns.” Terhaar interviewed the Bee‘s fifteen summer interns, and among other tidbits discovered just one of them actually prefers to get her news in the form of a printed newspaper.

Many said one of their primary forms of news is their Facebook newsfeed. But the Bee‘s interns were not pondering a career change in the face of massive industry change. “Our interns are entering a profession that is reinventing itself, not just in how it distributes news and information but in how it pays for that journalism. That uncertainty doesn’t seem to frighten any of them. They think journalism is here to stay.”

So it seemed wise to ask our local TV interns the same questions.

Michelle Alfini is an intern at WXII in Winston-Salem.”When I’m home and in possession of a TV I usually watch the 6:00 and 11:00 news on one of the local news channels, either WJZ or WBAL but when I’m at school and share a TV with my roommates I watch local TV news less frequently.” When news breaks, she says she usually hears about it on Twitter or Facebook, and then turns on the TV. (Links, kids, matter a lot. For more on that, try this.)

Danielle Hendrix is a student at the University of Central Florida and interns at WESH in Orlando. Her primary news source is Twitter, and she says you won’t find many UCF students gathering around a TV at 6 or 11–at least, not to watch local news. “No one that I know of really ever consistently tunes into local TV news, unless something of a large scale is happening in the area. I think most of us do get our news from social media.”

Most of the TV interns insist journalism’s alive and well, and TV news remains a perfect place to launch a career. But unlike years past, interns like Ole Miss student Gabriel Austin don’t necessarily envy the career paths of local TV reporters:

I do think local tv is a good place to start. I don’t really see any other way to get experience to build my career on. I think it’s the only option, unless you get a break via the internet and gathering followers of your own personal website or channel. I’m not too sure about the possibilities of upward mobility however, it seems that even a very good, experienced reporter might stop at certain points, and I’m not sure why. That’s my only worry, are they choosing to stay? Or are they getting stuck in smaller markets once they move up once or twice.

What are your interns telling you? Have you asked?