Kat's Coming

I just got off the phone with my friend Kat. If you've been reading from the beginning, you'll remember her as the person who badgered me into writing this blog in the first place.

Kat is still in school. She expects to graduate at the end of Spring semester, but squarely between now and then sits Spring Break. She could spend her last Spring Break at the beach. She could spend her last Spring Break looking for a job. Instead, she plans to spend it in my backwater town, visiting me. She wants to see this place and meet the people who have appeared in my writing.

I am humbled.

And yet I am also apprehensive. For one thing, the house is always a wreck. I'm the only one who cleans around here. I've given up on the dishes, generally using and washing the same set of dishware over and over while leaving Suzanne and Emily's dishes in the sink. I've all but given up on the bathroom as well, although I still feel compelled to scrub out the shower floor so my feet don't stick to it. Before Kat visits I'll probably have to spend several days of cleaning.

Then there's also the issue of where she'll sleep. We have a couch, but I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I'm pretty sure Suzanne has used it. I figure I'll put her in my bed and sleep in my sleeping bag in the living room floor.

Probably the biggest of my fears is that the town and people won't live up to the picture she has in her head. It may sound interesting when time is compressed and details are all run together in these little vignettes, but the reality is that this town is boring. She's planning on staying for the better part of a week, and I have no idea what we'll do or how she'll occupy herself while I'm off at work.

Even so, I'm looking forward to the visit. She is still my best friend. Plus she's freakin' HOT.

Live Truck Part 2

So after Wendy's meltdown over the live shot I couldn't do because I hadn't been trained on the microwave van, CP Rick decided it was time to finally get my training out of the way. He had me scheduled for a couple of dayside shifts so that we could go over it.

For those who might not understand what a microwave van is, it's one of the vehicles a television station might use to get a live picture on the air from a remote location. It's usually a van or truck with a telescopic mast that extends 40 feet or more through the top of the vehicle. On top of the mast is a dish that sends a microwave signal carrying the live video back to the station. The van operator has to move that dish around to tune the signal. We usually plug a camera into a cable connected to the side of the van to get a live shot from a scene, and we also feed back video we have edited from editing machines inside the van.

Our van was actually bought second-hand. The previous owners had stripped everything out of it, including the mast, and our engineers turned it back into a live truck themselves using spare and second-hand parts. There are some interesting homemade assemblages in there I don't completely understand. I learned that much of it was put together by an engineer named Jake, who is a master of just rigging stuff up to work (at least temporarily). Jake loves cars and engines and maintains the station's generator, so they figured the live van should be his project.

It was raining the day I learned the van, but since there weren't any thunderstorms forecast for us Rick decided to go ahead with the training. The first thing that I noticed is that the van leaks. Rick says the water inside came from the hole through which the mast extends, where the engineers didn't properly seal it up. It's a problem, because water runs right down to the floor and gets the photographer's equipment wet.

The first thing Rick told me to remember is "Look Up and Live." He said I should say that to myself whenever I get out of the van to raise the mast. Most people never think about this, but if you're extending something up in the air, you have to make sure you aren't going to hit power lines. The first thing a microwave van operator is supposed to do before extending the mast is look above the van to make sure there are no power lines there.

"'Look Up and Live' should be your mantra," he said.

I won't bore you with all the technical details of my training. Basically the operator just sends up the mast, calls into the newsroom, turns on the transmitter and moves the dish around at the direction of someone back at the newsroom. Rick told me at some stations an engineer tunes the shot in back at the station by looking at a meter. At our station, however, the tuning is done by a producer or AP who simply observes the picture and audio on a monitor in the newsroom and tells us when it clears up. Rick said this isn't the best way to do it, but that our engineers are too busy with other stuff to tune live shots every day.

"Sometimes it ain't pretty," he said, "But it's good enough for the thirty seconds we actually use the shot."

Rick had me call into the newsroom and tune in a shot myself. It really wasn't that hard. Then we went over all the systems in the truck. That afternoon he gave me a written test on what I had learned, and I passed pretty easily.

But that was only day one.

The next afternoon Rick sent me out in the truck with Al (the photographer) and Mark (the reporter). Their story took us into a low-lying area on the edge of town, down a gravel road to a construction site for an industrial building from which somebody had stolen some concrete samples. When the construction workers had poured the concrete for the building's foundation, they had poured some samples into cylinders nearby to be crushed to test the strength of the concrete once it set. The cylinders are actually pretty cool and would make good supports for homemade shelving, and evidently someone else felt the same way. The problem is that without those cylinders, the construction company can't prove the building foundation is up to code, and they may have to scrap the work so far and start over.

Al was supposed to let me run the microwave van myself and stand by to help. I set up everything as I had been taught. I looked up (and lived), then sent the mast up. I called in to tune the shot, and...

"No good," said the AP on the other end. "I can see your bars, but it's barely there."

"What do I do?" I asked Al.

"Bring down the mast and move the truck," he said.

I had been given plenty of time to tune the shot before the afternoon show, IF there were no major problems. Unfortunately, bringing down the mast, moving the truck and sending the mast back up would take several minutes. But I had no choice, so I did it.

"Still no good," said the AP when I called back. "You must be in a bad area."

I turned to Al. "Still no good," I said.

"Let me try," he said, taking the phone. He went through the whole tuning procedure himself without success.

"Fuck this. I don't have time for this," he said. "I'll call you back in a minute."

He went around and jumped in the drivers seat of the van, leaving the door open. He grabbed the phone mounted in the front of the van and called back into the newsroom.

"Okay," he said. "Tell me if it gets good enough to use."

Suddenly a very loud alarm sounded and red lights in the dash began flashing as Al put the van in gear with the mast still up. I stood nearby and watched him slowly begin driving the van down the road as he hung out the drivers side door looking up at the mast, while holding onto the steering wheel with one hand and the phone with the other. I thought he was going to fall out any minute. He stopped a couple of times, backed up, moved forward, backed down the street past where he started, drove forward again and finally came to a stop.

"That's good?" he asked... "But is it usable? Okay, I'll leave it here." And the shot was tuned.

He was in a hurry then to get his video fed. I set up his camera for him while he finished his editing, and we got everything done just in time. I didn't get a chance to ask him about his unexpected tuning technique until we were on our way back to the station after everything was over.

"You did a good job with the truck," he said. "We were in a dead spot, so there wasn't much more you could have done to get the shot."

"What about driving with the mast up?" I asked. "Is it okay to do that?"

"YOU probably shouldn't do it," he said. "But I've been running this truck for a long time, and sometimes you have to bend the rules a little."

"I thought you were going to fall out a couple of times," I said.

"Yeah, I don't like hanging out like that, but you gotta look up. 'Look Up and Live,' you know."

Yes, Look Up and Live. It's my mantra. Later, CP Rick asked me how it went.

"Fine," I said, "But I couldn't get the shot tuned in. Al had to tune it by moving the truck with mast up. Is that really okay?"

His face turned serious. For a moment I thought I had gotten Al in trouble, but I felt like I really needed to know if that's what's expected of me.

"Listen," he said. "Al's been doing this a long time. He knows when it's okay to bend the rules a little. But I don't want to ever hear about you trying to do that, okay?"

"Okay," I said.

"The seals on that mast are already screwed up. The last thing I need is people bouncing down the road with the mast up to wreck 'em completely. Plus, it's dangerous to do it for your live shots at night, because you can't always see the power lines."

And thus, I am now officially trained and "certified" on our live truck. I can run Wendy's live shots now, so long as it doesn't require moving the truck with mast up.

P. S. Yes, before I get crazy hate mail over this, I know there's something wrong with this picture.

Live Truck Part 1

I finally got my live truck training. Is that a good thing? I'm not sure.

Several weeks back I was pulled from nightside to dayside so that I could get familiar with the microwave van, but unfortunately the old beast was in the shop with transmission problems. Even so, word of the mixup never reached Wendy, so she was under the impression that I had been trained on the truck. That's why, during the first week of January, she put a live shot in her show during one of my night shifts. Since I was the only photog on duty, I was the only one to do the shot.

We're down a reporter right now, so the reporters' schedules keep getting rearranged so that I don't seem to work with the same person from week to week. That particular week Mark was reporting nightside. Mark's a strange dude. He's blond, with very short hair he has cut weekly. He has bright blue eyes and a square jaw, but he looks... well, stupid. He may be an intelligent fellow (I really don't know yet), but he has this way of squinting and holding his mouth open, jaw forward, that makes him look like a dumb ol' boy. He carries a GIANT bag with him every day with a change of clothes, makeup and who knows what else inside. He likes to wear jeans and polos while covering the story, then change into his suit just for his standups or live shots. He also loves to stage video, but that's a story for another time.

Since Mark and I have hardly worked together, he had no idea I hadn't been trained on the live truck and didn't think anything about Wendy's instructions to plan for a live shot in the late show. We shot our story (a city government package) without incident. We went back to the station to put the story together. I thought I had plenty of time to edit, but about 45 minutes before the newscast one of the associate producers came back to ask me where our live shot would be.

"We're not live," I said.

"You're in the rundown as live," she said.

"Let me talk to Wendy," I said.

Wendy was in a mild frenzy, but that's not unusual. Evidently she was behind and scrambling, and the last thing she wanted was to talk to me.

"Hey Wendy, you have Mark live," I said.

"Yep." She continued typing without looking up at me.

"Who's running the truck for that?" I asked.

She stopped what she was doing and stared at me.

"I haven't been trained on the truck," I said.

"Yes you have," she responded. Um, I think I would know if I had been trained on the truck.

"Noooo," I said. "I was scheduled to learn the truck, but it was in the shop that day."

"So you haven't been trained on the truck?"

"No."

"Then... Who's gonna do my live shot?"

"That's what I'm asking you," I said.

"Well, I don't have anybody," she said. "You have to do it."

"Uh... I'm sorry, but I can't do it. I don't know how to run it."

"Well... Shit!" she said. "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

Yes, I thought. Shit is correct.

"You've seen somebody else run the truck, right?" she asked.

"Well, yeah, but--"

"Then you have a general idea how it works. Do you think you could figure it out?"

"Uh, no, I don't think so. Besides, I don't think I'm supposed to take it."

"Shit. SHIT! FUCK!"

"Can't you just put Mark in the studio?" I asked.

"No," she responded, "I need a live element in my show. If I put him on the set, I might as well just have the anchor read the intro."

"Well, I need to get back to editing," I said.

"Plan on being live anyway," she called after me. "I'll see if I can get somebody else to run the truck for you."

I wish I had been there for the next conversation. I heard it second hand from Al, one of the other photographers. He said she called him at home at thirty minutes before the newscast and asked him to come get the truck. He said she tried to make it sound like spot news going on over at City Hall, so he started to run out. But then he remembered that he was talking to Wendy and asked more questions. When he realized what she was doing, he went ahead and came in to get the overtime. But he didn't rush, and he didn't get the station to pick up the truck until the newscast was about to start. He wouldn't have had time to get the shot up anyway. At that point Wendy told him not to bother and put Mark in the studio, where the lights accentuated his squint to make him look another 10% less intelligent.

The next afternoon, CP Rick walked up to me and said, "I just had an interesting conversation with Wendy."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, she said that you refused to take the truck out last night to do a live shot for her--"

"Oh, now wait a minute," I interrupted. "How can I do a live shot for her when I haven't been trained on the truck."

Rick grinned. "No, don't worry about it. You did the right thing. You actually would have been in trouble if you'd tried to run the truck without the training. But I do need to get you caught up with that."

Thus was the impetus for my live truck training, which I'll describe in part 2...

I Have Returned!

I have FINALLY gotten my Internet situation straightened out. It's a long and complicated story, so I won't bore you with the details here. Let's just say that since my roommate Suzanne can't manage the bills, I'm the only one in the house with Internet access now.

I do have some old stuff to catch up on, so I'll start back at the holidays.


December 18: The Company Christmas Party

"Are you guys going to the party?" the weekend producer asked us Sunday evening as we were leaving for the night. My reporter and I had had a full day, but we actually got out in time to make it there.

"I can't go," I said. "I didn't know if we would be done in time, so I didn't return the RSVP."

"You can still go," my reporter said. "They always plan for a few extra."

I should say that I'm not really good at parties. Although my writing might give a different impression, I'm not really good with conversation, especially with people I don't really know; and I really don't know that many of the people at the station well enough to hold a decent conversation. Besides that, I have rapidly discovered that people in the news business aren't the slightest bit interested in the topics of conversation in which my weird group of college friends engaged.

On the other hand, there was going to be free food. I was running late Sunday morning and didn't pack my lunch, so I hadn't eaten all day. My stomach started growling at the thought.

My stomach won.

I ran home to put on a tie and jacket. I had heard various versions of the dress code for this party, from business attire to regular street clothes. I figured I couldn't really go too far wrong with a casual business look, something like a cross between a contractor and a college professor.

The party started at 7:30, but it was after 8:30 when I finally got there. Luckily there was still food, and it was good. I had a good dinner for the first time in a while.

There was also a cash bar. That's a cruel thing to do to television people. Let's throw a party for people who can't afford their own alcohol and then make them pay for their drinks.

Despite the fact that it was Sunday night and many of them had to be at work Monday morning, the folks who could afford the booze were enjoying it immensely. A couple of the sales guys were already well on their way to smashdom. By the end of the evening, the human resources lady was actually hanging from the general manager's neck, red faced and barely able to stand.

I didn't have to be at work until 2:30 Monday. But I still couldn't afford to spend money on the cash bar. Cruel.

I had missed some of the earlier festivities, including the general manager's speech to his assembled underlings. Still, he made his way around the room, mingling with the employees. When he got to me, he called me Mike and asked how I was settling into my new job.

"Just fine, sir," I said.

"That's great, Mike, great." Before I could decide whether to correct him, he had moved on to other underlings.

Several of the photogs ended up at a table together, but the conversation rarely drifted away from sports. I'm just not a sports guy, so I couldn't really participate. After some fifteen minutes or so of listening to football talk, I got up to "get another drink" and didn't return.

I tried to latch onto a conversation here or there with little luck. A reporter might introduce me to someone who works upstairs somewhere. There would be a polite interrogation concerning how I liked the city and the station. Then the conversation would turn to matters of which I had either no knowledge or no interest, and I would find myself outside some imaginary boundary even though I was standing right in their midst.

Suzanne showed up for a while. She had to work Sunday night, but the studio crew came over for a bit between shows. I tried to talk with her, but she was more interested in flirting with Brian, that guy I saw nailing her in her room when she left the door open.

I finally ended up where I usually find myself at parties, sitting off to the side somewhere just watching. That's when Wendy, the producer who screwed me over with the ND, approached.

"Havin' fun?" she asked. I doubt they pay Wendy much more than they pay me, but she wasn't letting that stop her from enjoying the bar. She wasn't plastered, but her face was a little red.

"Sure," I said. I was a little uncomfortable talking to her, considering that I hated her.

"Oh, come on," she said. "You need to have more fun."

"I'm okay like this," I said.

"You don't have a drink," she said. "You need a drink."

"Naah, I'm gonna pass tonight."

"Oh, good," she said. "You can be my ride home."

Great. Just fucking great. The last thing I wanted to do was spend time with Wendy.

"Uh, well, the heater in my truck doesn't work," I said. "It gets pretty cold."

"That's okay," she said.

"Uh, okay," I said. I'm such a pussy.

Wendy wasn't ready to leave just yet. But she also wasn't interested in the party, either. Instead, she sat there and talked with me. Oh, the joy.

"I don't really like parties," she said. "I never can find anything in common with people to talk about."

Wow. That sounds familiar. "Uh, yeah, same here."

So Wendy started asking me questions about myself, and college. She told me about her background. This is her first job out of school also, but she's been here a year and just signed another year's contract with the station. I was surprised to hear that a producer at this market level was under contract, so we talked about that for a while.

Before I knew it, I realized I was getting along pretty well with Wendy. Maybe it's just because she was tipsy.

Finally she decided she was ready to go home, so we left. As I walked out the door, one of the other photogs stepped up close to me and said, "Nice."

Ah, crap. Now what kind of rumors could I expect Monday?


Monday

Yes, I did end up fielding some of the rumors, primarily from Lizzie. I worked with her the next day.

"Sooooo," she said, once we were in the van on our way to our story. "I heard that YOU took WENDY home last night."

"I just gave her a ride," I said.

"Oh, I'll bet you did."

"Shut up."

"Ha! You're turning red!"

"Shut up."

"That's so adorable!"

I managed to convince her that nothing happened and that I had not the slightest interest in Wendy, but it didn't stop her from ribbing me the rest of the week.

The problem was that, as lonely as I have been here, for a brief moment I found myself actually considering Wendy as a possibility. Shudder. Lucky for me she showed her true colors again before the week was out.


December 22: The Nat Pack

I have discovered that not everyone reading this works in news, so a little terminology lesson is in order.

When you watch the news, you'll see and hear several reporters and anchors delivering the stories throughout the newscast. If you listen closely, you'll notice that the stories themselves are often pre-recorded segments with the reporter's narration (called the voice track), video and soundbites from interviews all edited together. Usually these segments are between one and two minutes long and are called packages, because everything is "packaged" up in a neat, cohesive whole. A reporter may introduce her package herself, live, or an anchor may introduce it.

The video that you see in these packages usually has audio with it from the scene. That audio is called natural sound, because it is the sound that occurs naturally when the video is recorded (as opposed to sound added later in the editing room). For example, if you see video of kids on a playground and hear them also, what you hear is natural sound. Natural sound usually gets shortened to nat sound when we talk about it.

I mentioned that packages usually have a reporter's narration in them. Sometimes, however, we can make what is known as a nat sound package, usually shortened to nat pack in conversation. A nat pack is a package without a reporter's voice, where the interviews tell the story themselves. One of the major networks used to do an "In Their Own Words" segment occasionally, where the big newsmakers of the week would tell their own story in one of these nat packs.

Back in college I took a documentary class that was offered through the film program, in which we had to make short documentaries. The first assignment was to make a three minute documentary without any narration. The major storytelling requirement was that the documentary had to have a beginning, middle and end, just like any other story; but we had to use the interviews to construct it. It was basically the same as a nat pack.

When I first started here, CP Rick showed me where he kept a stash of tapes of the winning stories from news photography contests sponsored by the National Press Photographers Assocation. On those tapes I saw a number of nat packs. "Wow," I thought, "These are just like shorter versions of that documentary I had to do." Ever since watching the tapes, I've been itching to do a nat pack myself for air.

The week of Christmas I found my chance. During one of my multiple holiday shopping stories during the week before Christmas, I noticed that the gift wrapping service at the mall was staffed by some entertaining characters. What's more, while the service itself was free, they were actually doing it to raise money for a childrens program and were asking for donations. Some of the kids were helping out, so it looked like I had a good story.

The problem was that I couldn't do that story by myself AND get my regular reporter package done during a regular workday. I decided instead to come in on Thursday before Christmas, which was my regular off day. I wasn't sure whether I would get paid for the day or not. I just really wanted to see how I would do with my first nat pack.

So I went out to the mall and stopped by the office. They were customarily rude, but I had already talked with the giftwrappers about the story and arranged the story with them, so the mall cops left me alone.

Personally, I think the material was very good. The guy in charge was a very vocal effeminate man wearing a red Santa hat. He kept running around cooing suggestions at people. I had a hard time keeping up with him, but he made for great sound. He was also a great interview, and I had no trouble using his soundbites to frame the story with a beginning, middle and end. Then, to fill in the spaces, I had interviews with one of the ladies doing the wrapping and one of the kids, plus a whole lot of ripping, taping, crunching and crinkling of wrapping paper.

It took me almost three hours to edit it. The end result told the story but had lots of energy and what I thought were pretty good visuals and sound. Santa Hat's interview really made the piece. I was proud of it.

So I went to Wendy, who was producing the late show, told her what I had and asked if she would be interested in running it.

"Oh, I don't know, " she said. "How long is it?"

"A minute fifteen," I said.

"What is it, like rollout video?" Our newscast isn't always full, so occasionally the producer will eat up time at the end of the show by rolling credits while the anchor just sits there and makes small talk with the studio crew. If there's extra video from the newscast, sometimes we'll run credits over video instead. That's what she meant by "rollout video."

"No, it isn't rollout video," I said. "It's a nat pack. A package."

"A package? Who did the track?"

"Nobody," I said. "It's a nat pack. You know, the interviews tell the story. I can show it to you--"

"Oh, that's okay. I'll use it as a kicker." (For those who don't know, the kicker is the last element of the show, usually a light or funny story.)

Cool! My first nat pack on the air! I could hardly wait.

It was pretty late by then, so I stuck around and hung out in the control room during the newscast to see it on the big monitor and hear it on the big speakers. Thirty five minutes never seemed like such a long time. Finally we came back from the last commercial break.

Anchor: "Finally tonight, we leave you with the sights and sounds of giftwrapping."

Director (in the control room): "And... music full."

What? No! No music! They're trying to use it as a rollout!

Sure enough, they blasted the music over the top of the opening sequence of giftwrapping sounds. I had a good five seconds off the top of paper rustling and Santa Hat encouraging the wrappers. Then his interview started.

"Hey, what? There's soundbites in this!" said the audio board operator. He dropped the music a little bit so it could be heard.

"What is this, a package?" the director asked.

"Yes, it's a package!" I said from behind him.

"No, this is rollout!" said Wendy.

"Kill the audio and bring music back full," said the director. Santa Hat fell silent in mid sentence, without explaining anything about what the hell they were doing there. It just left a talking head on screen saying something the audience at home couldn't hear.

NO! I thought, but the damage was really done by then.

"We're out in ten," said the director, after the package had only run for thirty seconds. Then he counted them down to the end of the show. All my hard work faded to black, not even halfway through.

The director, who probably had no idea that I was the one who shot it, took his headset off and said, "What the FUCK was that?"

I was shellshocked and couldn't even think of what to say. I was infuriated with Wendy and wanted to scream at her. Instead I just left the room, went out to the Hate Van and drove home. She didn't say anything at all as I left.

I was depressed through the weekend, especially having to work Christmas day and do another story about feeding the homeless that was almost identical to the one from Thanksgiving. We even saw the creepy plastic smile woman there again.

Monday morning brought a bit of redemption. The morning show producer came walking through the newsroom after the show. I don't think I had ever talked to him before, but he stopped where I was sitting.

"Hey, you're Max, right?" he asked me.

"Yeah," I said.

"Hey, I've been meaning to compliment you on your nat pack the other day."

"Oh, thanks," I said, "But it wasn't supposed to look like that. It was supposed to run as a package."

"Yeah, I know," he said. "That's how we ran it."

"Huh?"

"Friday morning. We ran it in the morning show Friday morning."

"Really? I didn't know that," I said. "It looked okay?"

"It looked great," he said. "Why? Was something wrong with it?"

"Uh, no. It's just that Thursday night they ran it as rollout video."

"Well THAT's stupid. Didn't you tell Wendy it was a package?"

"Yeah," I said, "But she didn't understand it."

He laughed. "That kinda figures. Well, we really enjoyed it, and I always have room for something like that in my show. Next time just bring it to me. I especially like fresh material nobody else has run."

I was happy to hear that. At the same time, I was still irritated with Wendy. She's been here a year and doesn't know what a nat pack is? If it were a matter of her not having time in her show, I would have understood. But she just made a train wreck out of it. There went any progress we made at the Christmas party toward any kind of mutual respect.

At least my hard work did actually air. Too bad I didn't see it.

Not Dead Yet!

Hi folks.

Yes, I know you want to read more. And I have more to tell you, about the company Christmas party, my first nat pack, Christmas, New Years, etc.

But unfortunately Suzanne hasn't been paying the bill for our Internet access (even though Emily and I been paying HER for it). I'm actually writing this from the station right now. It's no problem to use the station's computer for a short message like this, but some of my posts take some time to write. I really don't want to/can't/won't sit at the station for an extra hour to compose these tales of intrigue and horror.

Fortunately, my parents gave me the best gift of all for Christmas:

Money.

What, you were expecting something more meaningful?

Anyway, I was making the $6.25/hr thing work pretty well, but my parents felt sorry for me and gave me some cash. The first thing I intend to do with it is fix this Internet situation. Then the words shall flow.

And Suzanne can kiss my ass if she thinks I'm gonna share my connection. Especially after stealing my hot dogs. I had two left to hold me one more day until payday, and bitch ate 'em!

Happy New Year everybody!