Wow. I have had a great day today.

It didn't start out good... My reporter and I went to this groundbreaking ceremony for a new building at Heartland Community College. Unfortunately, it was raining buckets. In addition, the people in charge of the event were really mean to us (it's weird how much variation there is in how people treat us. The lady another reporter and I interviewed last night for another story was SO nice to us). First off, they wouldn't give my reporter an interview for a soundbite, then I was like, "Well, it's okay. I'll put a mic stand up on the podium and we can at least get a soundbite from the actual speech." But they wouldn't even let us do that, because they thought it would look bad. Okay, how? All these things always let the reporters put a mic up. Why would this be different?

But eventually we did badger someone into letting us interview them, so it turned out alright. In fact, even though I was extremely rushed (the ceremony didn't start till 11, and our show is at 12) it turned out really good, something I think I might put on my resume tape that I can be very proud of. Also funny: there was a guy there that was a dead ringer for Rev. Al Sharpton. In fact, I really mistook him for Sharpton at first. He has the hair, the 'stache, the portly figure, and facial features of the Rev. So for the whole time while we were standing around waiting for it to start we kept calling him fake rev. And I made sure to get him in the story as B-roll, for my own personal amusement.*

Also, though I did not crew the newscast today, I was really excited because of how much of my stuff got on today. I had a package I did last night about the preparations for the University President being inaugurated today, which was the lead story. Then, the second story they showed was the Heartland bit I did this morning. I also shot (last night) and put together (this morning) a VO/SOT about this guy running for Congress that visited our university yesterday. I editted a VO/SOT on the governor's prescription plan this morning, and a VO about a shooting that occured in our town last night this morning. So basically the first block was 90% editted by me, which I thought was awesome.

Then I met my Mom at Barnes & Noble, and we had lunch and went book shopping. It was wonderful, on the way there the radio played nothing but AWESOME songs, which doesn't happen very often, considering how picky I am. It was like icing on the cake of a really happy mood. At the book store I also had a great time. Usually I just camp out in the fantasy/sci-fi section, but today I wanted to find the biographies because I was interested in Scar Tissue (autobiography of Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I saw him on Late Night a couple days ago promoting it, and it sounded pretty good). I asked where the section was (it used to be by the toilets, but they moved it) and the people at the desk totally went and found it for me. And the guy all told me that Dave Navarro also has one out right now (which, I'm not really interested in him, but I thought it was really nice of this guy to mention it in case I was interested, even if it is to turn a profit). I actually wasn't going to buy it today, but between the discounts they had on it because it's being promoted right now, and the fact that my mom gave me one of her gift certificates from having that one discount card, I actually ended up getting it + 2 paperback fantasy novels I wanted for cheaper than the nominal full price of Scar Tissue. So that was a good time too.

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* Okay... I don't know if I've ever took the time to define all this stuff before, but here is a couple TV news terms I use all the time:

B-Roll: In a package, when the reporter who went to the event has a voiceover, it's the footage being shown at the same time.

Package: pre-editted story. Has a voiceover by the reporter, soundbites of people interviewed, and sometimes a standup. A standup is basically the actual reporter being shown on camera.

VO: All B-Roll, only instead of having the reporter at the event who wrote the story speaking, it is the anchors in studio talking over the footage. The footage is pre-editted, but the anchors are speaking live.

VO/SOT: a VO, but with a soundbite at the end. So the anchors read over footage, and then there's a soundbite of someone interviewed speaking. Then there can be more b roll & talking, or back to studio, depending on how much footage there is.

Block: segments of the show, the divisions between them being our PSA breaks (we can't have proper ads because it's not allowed on public access television). Typically, the first block is usually local news, second block is national news and weather, fourth is entertainment, ag, or health report, fourth is sports, fifth is a kicker.

Kicker: Happy news story they do at the end of news shows, to close out on a positive note. The reindeer story I shot at the zoo a few weeks ago, for instance, was a kicker.