Broadcast Brian

This past Tuesday I had a chance to do two live shots during my dayside reporting shift.

First, a word on scheduling.  I’ve taken to signing up for Tuesday shifts, despite the potential for missing lecture.  This is because Wednesday is completely booked during the day.  Last week I was able to make it to class, but this week I had to miss the lecture because I couldn’t get a lock on interview subjects until around 9:30.  

Moving on, the story meeting went well.  I brought six solid ideas, which was a good thing because my top three were mirrored in the pitch of the reporter just before me.  They were all in Jefferson City, and political in nature.  I was actually sort of glad (later) not to be covering that because my previous.  After we’d pitched the ideas, the person running the story meeting told us the only thing we’d missed that she was aware of was this shooting overnight.  She asked for volunteers to cover it, and I raised my hand.  Turned out to be a really good decision.

I called up the police department to set up an interview with someone who could provide details beyond those in the press release/police report we’d already received.  Interview setup for 1pm, I headed to the neighborhood to shoot some video and meet the neighbors.

Fourth and Grand Avenues in Columbia is situated between two schools, with a church around one corner and a park around the other, yet it has a reputation for being a sort of wild place.  I wasn’t aware of this until the day following the live shot a long-time Columbian told me the shot was impressive because of where it was; the implication being the neighborhood isn’t safe.  While I did get a sense that there’s some cultural poverty at work in terms of forming neighborhood dynamics, the folks I spoke with were polite, open, forthright about details of the shooting, but seemed truly uninterested in being on camera for an interview.  Whether this was out of fear of retribution or simply not wanting to be hassled by a TV journalist wasn’t clear to me, and probably doesn’t really matter, but I wanted to mention this as I ended up with a piece that only had the police on camera, which isn’t the type of story I’d like to tell, ideally, in this situation.  The story should really be about how the neighbors reacted to this violence just down the street, not what the police want to say about a shooting on their watch.  But, when people don’t want to be on camera, the challenge is to figure out how to get their story told through other means; at least according to Al Tompkins.

My break in pursuit of that goal came in the form of a neighborhood kid who approached me while I was fiddling endlessly with the camera so that the sky didn’t look like Chernobyl.  He asked who I was with.  I told him KOMU.  He seemed impressed, and said that he’d be interviewed by the police.  I asked what he saw.  He said he’d seen the whole thing.  I asked if he wanted to do an interview.  He said he didn’t feel comfortable going on camera and that he had to get to school, but that he’d tell me what he saw off-camera.  So, I listened.  He told a great story.  I mean, details, re-enactments, the works.  He’d have been great on camera, but I respected his decision, wrote down my number in case he changed his mind or found time later in the afternoon to go on camera, and wished him well with thanks for his time.

Then, it was off to interview the lead investigator.  That went well.  I pushed to get some sort of emotional content in the answers, and found that he’d answer most forthrightly and thoughtfully when I prefaced my questions with details from the kid I’d spoken to.  Not sure if that indicated respect for someone who’d taken time to do their own investigation or just familiarity with that story which indicated that I was on the right track.  That approach opened the Capt. up a bit, and it led to a nice sequence of conversation about how the witnesses’ and victim’s weren’t yet aligned in the eyes of the investigators.  Only problem was that my unfamiliarity with the camera operation led to me upping the gain instead of dropping the filter, so the interview was grainy.  That’s not a mistake I’m likely to repeat.

Back at the station, I walked in, announced that I had enough for a package, and was told “good, because you’re going live at 5 and 6.”  I just said “cool” and went to go vomit…just kidding.  I was taken aback, but figured, what the heck, this is what local news does, and this was actually a really good live shot opportunity because the news was fresh, there were things to show, and the setting was part of the story because this all happened right next to a school.

So, sat down to write and cut the package.  Met Kyle the live truck operator, who had me tell him where to set up so the truck wasn’t going to be in the shot.  I had grand plans in terms of moving around and showing people different angles on the scene, which meant that Kyle would have to park around the corner instead of right on Fourth.  He was cool with that and bit excited to get the camera off the tripod.  I know the feeling.

I finished the package and headed out to meet Kyle.  Found him, put my make up on in the car (something I’d never thought I’d have to do ever) and started figuring out what sort of shot we were going to do.  We went through it a couple times; it involved me moving across the screen to show where the cars met during the shooting and ending on the skid marks where the car slid to a halt.  Kyle had some great suggestions and taught me how to feel the light to know whether I was on my mark for the start.  Then, Holly was in my ear and the countdown started.

I was LIVE!  

After the shot, I realized I was still alive, that things had gone well.  A neighbor whom I’d interviewed earlier that day (off-camera) stepped outside her house to wave and tell me that she’d seen me on her TV and gave me a thumbs up.  It felt really good.  It had happened so fast, I hadn’t had time to be nervous.  

The next shot was an hour away, so Kyle rolled up the cam into the truck, borrowed my car to go find a bathroom, and I chilled with some neighborhood kids who’d come out to watch the live shot.  One of them was friends with the kid I’d spoken with earlier in the day, and he called him over.  This time, the kid came with a bullet casing in his hand.  He said he’d picked it up the night before, just after the shooting.  I asked him if the police knew, and he said yes, that they wanted him to give it to them.  He wanted to know if I wanted to use it during the live shot.  I said maybe.  In the end I decided against it after discussing it in a student - like fashion with Kyle.  We couldn’t be sure where the bullet came from, and I was feeling a bit weird about handling evidence. 

Live shot at 6 went well.  We set up at a different angle, which showed the kids in the neighborhood playing and then we swung around to the school during the VOB, so there was a different background when the camera came back live after the bite.  I was pleased with the visual variety that choice afforded the shot, and the camera movement from shooting from the shoulder was minimal, a testament to Kyle’s ability.

All in all, this was a great experience.  I didn’t look like an idiot.  I got to tell a story from several angles, and experienced a bit of the flush of live performance.  Perhaps on-camera work is cooler than I thought it might be.