Better than drugs
Seven hours sounds like a long time. Usually, it is -- almost a full day at work, or a full night's sleep. But on Thursdays, it's all too short. Thursdays are show days, where my class produces and airs a live television newscast. We come into school first thing in the morning, and we have until 3 p.m. -- when the show goes to air -- to find stories, write the show and film our interviews. On those days, seven hours go by like a flash. But the time frame also focuses you, makes you work quickly, as the day counts down to 3 p.m. Peter, my T.V. prof, says that live television is better than drugs. The payoff of the countdown is the adrenaline rush, the thrill when it's done.
I wake up at 7 a.m., giving myself enough time to shower before heading out. I walk to school. The day is overcast but surprisingly warm, and the snow is melting. An absolutely perfect day for filming outside -- warm enough to do it, but with no direct sunlight to wash out the shots. On the way, I pick up a coffee at Moonbean and buy a paper from the vendors on Dundas. I get to school just before 8 a.m. The countdown starts.
The newsroom is virtually empty. One of my classmates shows me the documentary she just finished editing, while I read over the day's top stories and some press releases. After considering a few, I pick one about a think-tank that just released a report suggesting universities hike tuition by 25% to raise money during the recession. Perfect. It's controversial, it's local, and it affects students. The classmate who's operating the camera for me that day gets there shortly afterward. While she gets the equipment, I start making phone calls. The think-tank isn't picking up the phone, so I leave a couple of messages. I also grab the contact info for a few student activists off the Internet. Another classmate, who's serving as the show's producer this week, wants to know more about the story and who I'm planning to interview. I tell her I'm going to talk to someone from the think-tank, someone from the CFS (a student lobby group) and get reaction from a few random students on campus. She doesn't think we'll have enough time. I want to prove her wrong.
By 9 a.m., the think-tank still isn't answering the phone, so we go out and film some on-campus stuff first. We get a few shots of the school and people coming and going, and I get some student interviews. I call up the CFS, and they want to talk. We head over to their cramped offices on Bloor near the U of T campus. The walls are decorated with anti-tuition posters and the halls are piled high with boxes of pamphlets and buttons. I run into a couple people I know -- activists I frequently interviewed for the school paper last year -- and we make small-talk while we get the camera set up. The lighting stand is broken. Luckily, the light from the window and the overhead flourescents is just bright enough that we can do without it. The girl we interview is perfect. She's articulate and she has a loud, clear voice. After the interview is done, the camera operator gets some random shots of people working around the office. My cell rings. It's the think-tank calling back. Their busy that day, but if I can get to their office in the next half-hour, I can get an interview with one of the guys who wrote the report.
We rush outside and get a cab. The traffic is heavy along Bloor, and the route is somewhat convoluted, but we eventually make it to the think-tank's offices, in a converted warehouse on a back street in the fashion district. The guy we're going to interview doesn't want us to film him at his desk -- it's too messy, he says -- so I ask to do the interview out on the street, since our lighting stand is busted, and it's a great day for shooting outdoors. It takes a while to get everything set up and we have to wait for a truck to stop backing up to start shooting, but the interview works. He's a young guy, a former student politician, which gives us something to talk about as we get set up. He's also articulate and looks good on camera. Once the interview's done, we get some extra footage upstairs. The piece is coming together in my head, and I start putting the script together for my voice-over.
We get back to school at noon. Just as we're getting out of the cab, the producer calls me. She sounds stressed out, and she wants to know where we are. She sounds somewhat relieved when I tell her we're on campus and we'll be back for editing soon. We get a couple of cover shots on campus, then head inside to film my stand-up. I decide to try something different. I start sitting at a computer, then turn around in the chair and open with "Imagine checking your account online one day, only to discover you owe over $1,000 more in tuition than you thought you did...", then get up and walk towards the camera as I deliver the stand-up. First the lighting, then the sound don't quite work, and we have to re-film the stand-up several times to get it right.
By 1:30, we start editing. The camera operator is more technically savvy than me, and she does most of the cutting, while I pick out the shots we'll use. It's a system of back-seat driving, but it works. She's calm and methodical, which makes the whole process a lot smoother. The interviews are clean, and the shooting is all good. I'm relieved. We have no time to re-shoot.
Around 2 p.m., the producer checks on us and delegates someone to create our title cards for us. By 2:30, we've got all the visuals down and I record my voice-over. Again, our sound is bad and we have to re-record a couple of times. Once we put the voice down, we see the piece is a minute or so over, and we start going through it, shot by shot, and cutting, fitting the visuals to the voice-over.
At 2:52, the assignment editor knocks on the door.
"How's it going?"
"Good -- we're just making some final cuts," I say.
"We've got eight minutes to air, and this is the lead story," he says.
"We'll be done in five."
In the rush to finish, I make a major editing mistake -- layering my voice-over on top of an interview -- and there's no time to re-edit, so I chop part of the script. Luckily, it still flows.
At 2:58, we send the file to the studio and head over to watch the show from the control room. At 3 p.m. exactly, I see the file pop up on the control room computer, and the assignment editor moves it into queue. Some fifteen seconds later, the anchor in the studio introduces it, and the tape rolls. My story plays perfectly.
The camera operator hugs the assignment editor and we high-five. There are a few things we could have fixed if we'd had more time to edit -- some of the shots go on for too long, the background sound is too loud, and we could have used more footage during the voice-over -- but overall, it looks good.
The head of the journalism school has slipped in and watches the show with us. My stand-up gets a big laugh and a comment from Peter -- "very clever, Adrian" -- and I can see one of the anchors smile. The piece gets a round of applause at the end.
I feel a big rush, now that it's done. This is definitely better than drugs.
I wake up at 7 a.m., giving myself enough time to shower before heading out. I walk to school. The day is overcast but surprisingly warm, and the snow is melting. An absolutely perfect day for filming outside -- warm enough to do it, but with no direct sunlight to wash out the shots. On the way, I pick up a coffee at Moonbean and buy a paper from the vendors on Dundas. I get to school just before 8 a.m. The countdown starts.
The newsroom is virtually empty. One of my classmates shows me the documentary she just finished editing, while I read over the day's top stories and some press releases. After considering a few, I pick one about a think-tank that just released a report suggesting universities hike tuition by 25% to raise money during the recession. Perfect. It's controversial, it's local, and it affects students. The classmate who's operating the camera for me that day gets there shortly afterward. While she gets the equipment, I start making phone calls. The think-tank isn't picking up the phone, so I leave a couple of messages. I also grab the contact info for a few student activists off the Internet. Another classmate, who's serving as the show's producer this week, wants to know more about the story and who I'm planning to interview. I tell her I'm going to talk to someone from the think-tank, someone from the CFS (a student lobby group) and get reaction from a few random students on campus. She doesn't think we'll have enough time. I want to prove her wrong.
By 9 a.m., the think-tank still isn't answering the phone, so we go out and film some on-campus stuff first. We get a few shots of the school and people coming and going, and I get some student interviews. I call up the CFS, and they want to talk. We head over to their cramped offices on Bloor near the U of T campus. The walls are decorated with anti-tuition posters and the halls are piled high with boxes of pamphlets and buttons. I run into a couple people I know -- activists I frequently interviewed for the school paper last year -- and we make small-talk while we get the camera set up. The lighting stand is broken. Luckily, the light from the window and the overhead flourescents is just bright enough that we can do without it. The girl we interview is perfect. She's articulate and she has a loud, clear voice. After the interview is done, the camera operator gets some random shots of people working around the office. My cell rings. It's the think-tank calling back. Their busy that day, but if I can get to their office in the next half-hour, I can get an interview with one of the guys who wrote the report.
We rush outside and get a cab. The traffic is heavy along Bloor, and the route is somewhat convoluted, but we eventually make it to the think-tank's offices, in a converted warehouse on a back street in the fashion district. The guy we're going to interview doesn't want us to film him at his desk -- it's too messy, he says -- so I ask to do the interview out on the street, since our lighting stand is busted, and it's a great day for shooting outdoors. It takes a while to get everything set up and we have to wait for a truck to stop backing up to start shooting, but the interview works. He's a young guy, a former student politician, which gives us something to talk about as we get set up. He's also articulate and looks good on camera. Once the interview's done, we get some extra footage upstairs. The piece is coming together in my head, and I start putting the script together for my voice-over.
We get back to school at noon. Just as we're getting out of the cab, the producer calls me. She sounds stressed out, and she wants to know where we are. She sounds somewhat relieved when I tell her we're on campus and we'll be back for editing soon. We get a couple of cover shots on campus, then head inside to film my stand-up. I decide to try something different. I start sitting at a computer, then turn around in the chair and open with "Imagine checking your account online one day, only to discover you owe over $1,000 more in tuition than you thought you did...", then get up and walk towards the camera as I deliver the stand-up. First the lighting, then the sound don't quite work, and we have to re-film the stand-up several times to get it right.
By 1:30, we start editing. The camera operator is more technically savvy than me, and she does most of the cutting, while I pick out the shots we'll use. It's a system of back-seat driving, but it works. She's calm and methodical, which makes the whole process a lot smoother. The interviews are clean, and the shooting is all good. I'm relieved. We have no time to re-shoot.
Around 2 p.m., the producer checks on us and delegates someone to create our title cards for us. By 2:30, we've got all the visuals down and I record my voice-over. Again, our sound is bad and we have to re-record a couple of times. Once we put the voice down, we see the piece is a minute or so over, and we start going through it, shot by shot, and cutting, fitting the visuals to the voice-over.
At 2:52, the assignment editor knocks on the door.
"How's it going?"
"Good -- we're just making some final cuts," I say.
"We've got eight minutes to air, and this is the lead story," he says.
"We'll be done in five."
In the rush to finish, I make a major editing mistake -- layering my voice-over on top of an interview -- and there's no time to re-edit, so I chop part of the script. Luckily, it still flows.
At 2:58, we send the file to the studio and head over to watch the show from the control room. At 3 p.m. exactly, I see the file pop up on the control room computer, and the assignment editor moves it into queue. Some fifteen seconds later, the anchor in the studio introduces it, and the tape rolls. My story plays perfectly.
The camera operator hugs the assignment editor and we high-five. There are a few things we could have fixed if we'd had more time to edit -- some of the shots go on for too long, the background sound is too loud, and we could have used more footage during the voice-over -- but overall, it looks good.
The head of the journalism school has slipped in and watches the show with us. My stand-up gets a big laugh and a comment from Peter -- "very clever, Adrian" -- and I can see one of the anchors smile. The piece gets a round of applause at the end.
I feel a big rush, now that it's done. This is definitely better than drugs.