2009

Sep212009

Master Control

This weekend passed without incident. I was home throughout and didn’t do much. This morning, I arrived at Fox just before 11. Ms. DeCorte was not working today and it was a slow news day, like most Mondays apparently. Not content to sit in the newsroom all day, I went upstairs to the master control room and introduced myself to the people working there and hung out for the day. I met Debbie, a broadcast engineer with about 20 years at WVUE. I was here last week for a few hours but I didn’t actually learn much as all the equipment is a bit overwhelming at first.Debbie was kind enough to show me Florical Airboss, software which controls the programming and commercials. Generally speaking it’s programmed a day in advance so a lot of the work that the master controllers handle is for future broadcasts, although that changes when they are showing live events like Saints games. After two o’clock, Debbie’s shift was over and Rob, who I met last week, arrived to take over. He showed me a few other things although there wasn’t much going on in relation to the programming on screen. There were a couple guys huddled over a screen working on a problem after upgrading Avid Deko, software used for “bugs” in the corner of the screen.I stayed through the newscast at six. Although I knew Airboss was configured well in advance, I was still surprised to see that absolutely no intervention was needed in Master Control throughout the hour-long live broadcast. Control of commercial breaks is diverted to the director during the news. The news appeared to go pretty smoothly, at least from my seat. I left for the day at six.We had red beans for dinner, quite good. I don’t recall wasting the rest of the evening in any unusual way.

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Sep182009

Friday at Fox

I arrived at Fox just before 11 this morning. There was more than enough news to fill the broadcast this evening but I didn’t have a great deal to do. Early this afternoon Nancy suggested I observe some in studio interviews Val Bracy conducted. She interviewed a couple people working with the inspector general’s office which is part of an ongoing news story.Later on I accompanied Natasha Robin and photographer to a small press conference held by Danatus King, local NAACP head. He and a local minister were announcing that the NAACP were launching their own investigation into the current business with the inspector general’s office.I left for the day at four o’clock. I squandered the better part of the evening playing Team Fortress 2.

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Sep172009

Resumes

Work at the office on Wednesday and today was pretty uneventful. I did take some time today to go to the Ruby Slipper for lunch. I ordered an omlette. At six, Dad took me to Elmwood for class this evening. This evening’s practicum class was about resumes. We were all directed to e-mail one to Ms. Hart and we spent the class. We ended up dissecting about five of them. Class was dismissed at 8:30. We’re supposed to get to the rest next week.Early in class I asked around for a ride uptown for ballroom this evening. One lady obliged me although I deeply regret not remembering her name just now. Another friend was riding with her and she needed to stop at Wal-Mart before heading towards the city.With that out of the way we made it uptown pretty quickly but I was still about 10 minutes late. The turnout this evening was quite impressive at about 80 people, a drop off from last week but still quite remarkable compared to previous years. There wasn’t much new material this evening which was fine with me because I could hardly get what we were introduced to.After ballroom, I got something to eat with Andrey at Felipe’s. He told me about a table tennis tournament he participated in a few weeks ago and some other things going on in his life. At about 11, I caught a cab home from Tulane. I had the same driver as last week, Tom, and had another interesting conversation with him.

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Sep152009

Tuesday

Like Monday, there was not much going on at the station, being a slow news day. I spend quite a while at the assignment desk not doing much. I decided to give myself a tour of the engineering stuff upstairs. I took a seat in the director’s booth upstairs and introduced myself to the lady who was working there. Nothing was really happening since it was over an hour away from the newscast. After a little while I walked down to the master control room where I met a young man who was working there. All the screens and controls were pretty fascinating and I learned a bit about how commercials and syndicated programming are queued up. While everything is still rather complicated, the extensive automation makes things a lot easier than it might otherwise be.At five I walked back to the director’s booth to observe the director and producer conduct the broadcast. It was fascinating to watch all the talk and commotion that goes into directing a newscast. The director was calling out the shots and graphics, the producer sat behind the director and keeps the newscast on track, and keeps track of time. There is an assistant to play back all the video clips and sound bytes as well as a woman there to talk to the two live trucks that were doing remote broadcasts.At 5:30 I left for the day. The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful.

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Sep152009

Friday to Monday

Friday at Fox was not particularly interesting. It rained all day and I was on the assignment desk most of the afternoon. I did go with one of the photogs, Donny, to interview some AmeriCorps people that were handing out flyers on flu/disaster preparedness at Loyola. It wasn’t much of a story and I got nice and wet from the rain. I left for the day at four.The weekend was rather uneventful. I didn’t leave the house and spent a lot of time playing shoot-em-up games on the computer and I watched a couple of movies.I worked at Fox today from 11 to five. I would normally stay until six but Dad took Mom out to dinner this evening so my ride wanted to be home earlier. I was in the newsroom all day and didn’t go anywhere or do much of anything. I might have been more forward in finding something to do were I not leaving as the evening newscast was starting.This evening I watched Paris, je t’aime, a collection of short films centered around the City of Lights which was actually quite interesting. Later on I watched some of the Jay Leno Show premiere and the Raiders / Chargers game.

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Sep112009

Samba

Work on Wednesday was pretty uneventful. Dad seemed to be reasonably caught up on reports so I got around to some housekeeping work that’s been on my desk for a while. Several months worth of checks were waiting to be entered into the computer and I spent a lot of time doing that among the distraction of other activites. That evening I broke down and upgraded to Trillian Astra and finished watching Bringing Out the Dead.Today, Dad and I arrived at the office after 11. Earlier this morning I was watching the conclusion of an eBay auction offering a Sony VAIO U101. I would have loved to have it, but not as much as a couple other people, apparently. Work was not particularly eventful. Some of the data entry was yet undone but I didn’t get to it today. Instead I have a couple patient reports and records to prepare. I also made a couple calls to the Reily Center this evening for a club sports pass. The assistant director, Allison, was very helpful and I was able to buy a pass over the phone rather than having to take time off of work and appear in person and I have in previous terms. After work, Dad dropped me off for class this evening in Elmwood.Tonight’s practicum class featured another around-the-table update on everyone’s internships or lack thereof. We had a couple class presentations to get through including one by a familiar face, David, another student I’ve seen in previous classes over the years. After a lecture about personality traits relation to career paths, Ms. Hart played an instructional video from the 90’s on resumes.After class, Dad was waiting to pick me up. He was kind enough to wait for me and take me to Tulane’s uptown campus for the first session of Ballroom dancing this semester.This was my first time being at the Uptown campus since last term. The McAlister Place project appears to be in full swing, converting the street and parking to a pedestrian walkway. This pretty much guarantees Tulane will remain a perpetual construction site through the five years I have been a student.With about a half hour to kill before ballroom this evening, I sat in the LBC for a little while and typed most of this. I walked to the Reily Center. There was quite a crowd milling about on the top floor. Luckily we are in the larger lakeside room this fall which was more apt to accommodate everyone. There were several familiar faces to say hello to as well as a plethora of new ones. I believe the count was 139.Tammy Clark is back as out instructor as well and samba is the first dance style of the term. It took me a little while to pick up the basic step. I usually depend on seeing the instructor but it was rather crowded and I seldom had a clear view. Megan, who’s recently returned from Europe, had a grip on things and showed me the how it was done. Later on when we moved on to a promenade step I was a bit lost again. I should be caught up next week though.Afterward I caught a cab home and had an interesting conversation with a long-time local who has been involved with several business ventures.

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Sep082009

VO Patrol

I arrived at Fox shortly before 11 this morning. I didn’t have much to do at the desk this morning. This afternoon, Nancy sent me out with Avis to do a short interview with Roger Villere and photograph some “real estate” Kenner related to a double shooting last night.I was a bit nervous about conducting an interview per se but it was no big deal. The questions don’t go on the air if an intern or photographer is doing the asking and the subjects generally know exactly what you’re going to ask and already have answers in mind so I would guess they almost always get the sound byte they want without incident. We met Mr. Villere at his florist shop off Veterans Blvd. and the whole thing only took about two minutes.With that in the can we drove out to Kenner and Avis shot some voice-over footage of duplex apartments in the area where a shooting occurred last night. There was no evidence that anything had taken place last night, not even caution tape. Before heading back to the studio we had to drive out to Harahan for some reason so Avis could take care of something. As we started heading back, Ms. Decorte called and sent us to do another interview with Cedric Richmond who announced his candidacy for congress next year. This and the Villere interview would both be VO/SOTs, which stands for voice over/sound on tape. During the newscast, an anchor will read some copy, a soundbyte will be played and the anchor will wrap up the story before moving on. We interviewed him at a law office slash UPS Store on Elysian Fields. Nancy gave me a couple questions over the phone. Most importantly, I asked why he was choosing to run for office. I also asked him why he was announcing so early, over a year before the November 2010 election. He decried partisan politics and said incumbent Joseph Cao was merely voting on the party line and lamented his no vote on the stimulus package.After returning to the studio I sat around for a little while and eventually in with Avis as he edited down the “real estate” footage and later with another editor who was doing the interviews we shot. That didn’t take long. Most of the time I spent observing, he was working on the super open, which promos the upcoming newscast with snippets of the main stories.At five o’clock I left for the day. Dad was waiting to pick me up. The HOV lane was closed today and traffic was heavier than usual. It took almost an hour to get home. I didn’t do much later this evening as I developed a headache after work. I did start watching a movie before Krystle called.

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Sep042009

Script Running

Dad dropped me off at Fox at 10:30 this morning. Janette, the lone managing editor for the day let me in. After I got settled, John, a production assistant on the desk, gave me some press releases to enter in ENPS and later I did the better part of the beat check, which involves calling surround police precincts to ask if they are working any big cases. Apparently you almost never get a bite, and after 30 calls my notepad was still blank.Later on I went out with one of the photographers, Avis, to Marrero where governor Bobby Jindal was appearing to present 157 Louisiana Veterans’ Honor Medal at American Legion Post 222. A handful of local politicians and sheriff Marlin Gusman were also in attendance. Aside from carrying the tripod in and out there was not much for me to do outside of observing. The ceremony itself went smoothly with the exception of some excitement during Jindal’s address when one of the medal receipts had a fainting spell of some sort. He appeared to be fine but he was taken away by ambulance. Governor Jindal presented him with his medal before he left.Following the interruption, Jindal finished his speech and they began distributing the medals. Avis and I were there for about half of that process before heading back to the studio. When I got back I had lunch. Chick-fil-a left a bunch of food for the newsroom right before we left and I finally had a chance to eat. 15 minutes before I was planning to leave at four, Janette asked me to stay until six. Apparently the rest of the interns were leaving at four and she wanted one to hang around through the newscast. I called Dad to let him know and he didn’t seem to mind staying at the office for a while longer.I spent the rest of the afternoon helping one of the production assistants with the script printing and distribution. She showed me how she goes about printing script copies before the newscast. It would be a trivial affair but the process is complicated by late arriving copy. They start printing at 4:30, half an hour before they go on the air. As things come in closer to five o’clock and even later, those pages are run to the director’s booth, sound engineer and news anchors separately. A few minutes before the show started, the assistant I was working with went in the studio to set up and operate the teleprompter and left me to get the last remaining pages printed and distributed to everybody. Being my first time doing this it was kind of exciting even though the tone of the whole day was comparatively calm and quiet. I had to make four or five trips to the anchor desk and the booths upstairs.By the second commercial break, everyone had all the pages. I sat in with Claudia while she operated the teleprompter through the duration of the newscast. I had a headset to listen to the director’s and producer’s chatter which was interesting and occasionally amusing. Nancy Parker was the lone anchor this evening and I got to chat with her briefly during a couple of the breaks. She comes across as a rather pleasant person. I left for the day at six o’clock, just after the newscast ended. Dad was waiting for me outside.I don’t remember doing much of anything that evening outside of dinner and wasting time on the internet.

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Sep022009

Wednesday at Work

Dad and I got to the office at about 11:30 this morning, maybe sooner. There was no significant backlog from my absence yesterday and I didn’t have much work remaining to do by quitting time at five. This evening I spent some time working on my practicum class homework, an oral presentation on a career possibility. I picked sports telecast director, a rare job and not a good choice as far as potential research is concerned. There was a great article on the subject in January’s Atlantic Magazine, though.

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Sep012009

First Day at Fox

Dad dropped me off at Fox 8 at around 10:30 this morning, half an house before I was supposed to report. Travis, one of the PA’s, let me in and showed me the ropes for a while, mostly the ENPS newsroom workflow software they use and how to interact with it. One of the jobs interns sometimes do is enter information from faxes, e-mails and press releases into the event calendar. Certain items are pulled from the calendar and use for story ideas. I was shown the software during my station tour but I didn’t use it myself. That afternoon we got a handful of calls about the John McDonogh High School principle repeatedly canceling band practice. I didn’t pay the first call much thought but we received calls from a few parents and MS. DeCorte apparently made an inquiry and received a less than informative response.Later on I accompanied reporter Jennifer Hale and a camera man to get a brief interview with congressman Joseph Cao who was spending the afternoon touring points of interest related to the homeless problem in New Orleans. We were waiting at the abandoned St. Augustine High School which was to be one of his stops. We never did see him and ended up returning to the station empty handed, as the reporter also got a de facto interview cancellation on another unrelated story.After returning to the station I didn’t have much of anything to do, although just before five, the lady that operates the teleprompter and apparently works on the scripts invited me to help her out a bit and I went with her as she distributed copies of the scripts to the producers upstairs and the anchors in the studio. I was able to introduce myself to Nancy Parker and Jennifer Van Vrancken. I left not long after five but I got to sit at the teleprompter controls for the first few minutes in the studio. I was surprised to see the cameras are controlled remotely upstairs rather than having operators behind them. The only people actually in the studio are the anchors and teleprompter operator.Dad picked me up from the station just after five. I didn’t do much in the evening. I had a bit of a headache and laid down for a while and eventually went to sleep for the night.

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Aug292009

d.b.a. and BMC

This evening after work, Andrey called me and told me he was putting together an outing this evening to d.b.a. and points elsewhere. I got a cab to d.b.a. for 9:45, the prearranged time. My friends showed up a little later. In addition to the regular crew of Andrey, Patrick and David, Chelsi accompanied us this evening as well. Alex McMurray began his set not too long after they arrived.After a while we walked to the Balcony Music Club on Decatur Street where Sasha Masakowski was scheduled to appear there but it looked like only her band showed up. We hung around there for quite a while. We left there sometime after midnight to walk around a bit. We ended up at Cafe Bamboo at the Dragon’s Den. It’s a vegetarian restaurant by day but apparently by night it’s a dimly lit bar with a DJ spinning some sort of techno music.Following a round there we walked back to Patrick’s car on Esplanade and went to Rally’s and then to Andrey’s house. Patrick and Chelsi parted company after we got there. Andrey, David and I got to talking about movies and we watched a bit of Be Cool. I called a cab shortly before three and got home at about 3:30.

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Aug272009

Back to School

After an uneventful day at work, Dad drove to me Tulane’s Elmwood campus in Harahan for class this evening. The fall semester started this week and I only have one class this term, Media Arts Practicum with Katherine Hart. The class centers around an internship each student is required to have to complete their major. A couple weeks ago I had a meeting at WVUE and I will be starting there next week. During this first class we all introduced ourselves. It didn’t take very long as there were only seven other students. The instructor also went over the writing assignments that we will be doing. They include a journal we are to keep and a final report on the internship at the end of the term.Class was dismissed at about seven. Dad went to see some relatives in Metairie after dropping me off and it was to be a little while before he could pick me up so I walked to a strip mall nearby to pass the time. I browsed around at Guitar Center for a while before going to Nacho Mama’s for something to eat. Dad showed up sometime after eight.

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Aug262009

Evening Out

This Saturday evening I met Andrey, Patrick and David at the Balcony Music Club on Decatur Street. This was my first time there but apparently the rest of the “crew” has been there a few times. I regret I do not recall the name of the band that was playing but they were entertaining. It was a bit louder than necessary but not bad. After about an hour there we walked across the street to Checkpoint Charlie and played some pool with a rather mediocre band in the background. After a good while there we drove to Rally’s and on to Andrey’s house for a little while before calling a cab to go home.The rest of this week has not been particularly eventful. If it has I don’t remember much. I did update the VAIO wallpaper page for the first time in several months this weekend.

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Aug192009

Another Long Weekend

With Dad’s car in the ship through the morning we didn’t make it to the office today. I used the extra time to get ready and finished packing for a trip to Ruston this weekend. I was taking a train to Jackson this afternoon so I had to call a cab to get to the station. The train departed shortly before two this afternoon. The ride was reasonably smooth an uneventful. Unfortunately the train didn’t have a observation car to sit in.The train arrived a few minutes early. Krystle was still a half hour away from Jackson so I waited outside. The weather was cool and it rained sporadically. When she arrived we went to the nearby Mayflower Cafe for dinner before the drive to Ruston. It was a bit late to do anything when we arrived.Saturday evening, we went to the theater after Krystle made dinner. We went to see District 9, a sci-fi film with an interesting premise and less than stellar execution. I shared Roger Ebert’s lament that an otherwise intelligent film devolves into a firefight in the third act. On Sunday we got out of the house in the afternoon and went to Raising Cane for lunch and probably paid Krystle’s family a visit. Krystle’s roommate Sabrina hosted a party on Monday that made going home on Tuesday rather imprudent and inconvenient. Tuesday afternoon, we had a late lunch with Krystle’s roommates Sabrina and Thomas at Chili’s after dropping off Krystle’s dog at her mom’s house. The canine was sick with worms. We went to the movies again that night and saw Julie & Julia, a lightweight and inoffensive film about Julia Child and Julie Powell, who cooked through Child’s imposing Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. It was a decent date movie but I would have enjoyed a well-made biopic of Julia Child more.On Wednesday morning, we had to leave for Jackson early. We didn’t leave the house until nine in the morning which was later than we should have but I was able to catch the train to New Orleans, just barely. The train pulled away less than a minute after I found a seat. During the ride I listened to an audiobook, a reading of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and played with my laptop. The train arrived early at around three o’clock and Dad was at the station to pick me up and go to the office for the remainder of the workday. When I got home, the remaining parts for the Blackberry were waiting for me and I installed them to finally have a fully functional Blackberry 8800. I also put in an 8 GB memory card for music and videos.

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2009

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