Believe it or not, I actually started off as a Broadcasting (read: on-air tv reporting) major at the University of Georgia (GO DAWGS!). As I was going through my coursework, I hit that term where I was required to take our version of Production 101. Keep in mind, this was before everyone was carrying a cell phone with a camera attached. This was before cell phones, period. Email was barely a thing. But I digress.
So I panicked. What do I know about running cameras or creating graphics? Little did I know, my career path was about to be rocked. I had SO. MUCH. FUN. I got to push buttons and make things happen that went on television!
And the rest, as they say, is history.
The “Olden Days” of newscast production
Back in those days, production people started at prompter and worked their way up to director. Prompter, cameras, floor director, video tape (yes, tape) editing & rolling, graphics, audio, technical director, director (or director/td). There used to be at least one person for each position. If you’ve read my “Peek behind the curtain” post, you know I am now a one-woman production band. But back in the day, I had a video switcher all to myself. The last one I used was a Grass Valley Kayak. It was by far not my favorite switcher, but it did what it was supposed to do.
Ah, buttons. Colorful, lit-up buttons. Some even blink! And fader bars. I so miss my fader bars…
As directors, we used to block out what we planned to do prior to the show, but would execute it manually on the air. You want a 2-box with an anchor on one side and a reporter on the other? I built it in the 5 seconds before I put it on the air. Fly video out of a map? Ditto. Want something else in the 92 monitors in the studio? I pushed the buttons to make it happen.
Automated production
Now, the vast majority of that needs to be coded into the story scripts prior to air. While we can make a few tweaks on the fly, it is not quite as quick and easy as in the past. This is what my screen of codes looks like. This is the beginning of a 6pm show I directed. Each of those boxes performs a function on the air.
The numbers down the left are the page numbers of the story. They just keep me from getting lost!
“Mix” and “White flash” are transition types. Things I make the video do.
Cam 1, 2, 3, Column Jumbo, Rtr 7, etc. are full screen video sources. The ones with names (“Column Jumbo”) drive the robotic cameras to more or less the right spot in the studio. I then adjust those manually. The ones with just numbers mean the camera doesn’t move. RTR stands for “router,” and indicates a live source that I have to designate before putting it on the air.
The boxes with 3 bars in them and RF, Cont, & PO SVR labels are audio cues. All sound is run through those. If I forget to turn something on or off there, it’ll be awfully quiet (or loud) on the air. That's where that mini audio switcher to my left in the booth comes in handy!
On the far right, the boxes full of mostly arrows are how we fill the umpteen monitors we have on the set. Video, graphics, sometimes live shots go in those. The arrows mean we are keeping the same video source from the previous code in that monitor.
How does this translate to air?
To give you an idea of what this actually looks like on the air, here is the top (beginning) of the 6pm newscast of Halloween 2017. It wasn’t a particularly complicated show, but it had some holiday fun to start out.
Here is what the rundown looked like. The rundown is where the producer “stacks” the stories (puts them in order for air), and reporters, anchors, and producers write their scripts for air. Red lines mean that portion of the story was “floated,” or isn’t going to air.
This is what my codes looked like for this show. RTR 10 is where NBC network lives. We went directly from Nightly News into our show. Then a KGW transition into our nifty "bold open." RTR 4 is the Halloween live shot. White flash to a 2 box with Matt doing weather.
Then a two-box with video on the left and Tracy on the right to introduce Snowmaggedon. Pat lives in RTR 1. SVR is his prerecorded story. Don't worry; you'll see all of this in just a moment play out onscreen!
Audio note: Anchors are on mics RF 1, 2 & 3, with weather on RF 5.
This is what this segment looked like on air. "Top of 6" on Halloween 2017!
Comments