A Good End!

My story this week was another chain in a serious of improvements that I have been making since early March. I did a story on the rise in consumers’ confidence during April which was seen by experts as an early sign of a possible gradual recovery of the nation’s troubled economy. The hardest part of the story was getting an economist and a store owner (grocery stores) in Columbia to talk to me for the story. I made phone calls to six economists at MU’s Department of Economics but none was ready to talk, mostly citing time restrictions. My attempts to talk to an economist at Stephens College and Columbia Community College were futile as well! So, I decided to talk to the head of Columbia’s Chamber of Commerce, though I knew he might not be the person with the most unbiased views toward this issue! But he was pretty balanced in his views anyway.

The next biggest challenge was to convince one of the stores in the town to allow me to shoot some video and talk to a manager and some consumers there. I called several chain businesses like Schnucks, Gerbs, Wal-Mart and a couple of small businesses on Broadway and around downtown and even one in Ashland, but none allowed me to shoot inside the store or talk t their managers and sales persons! I finally managed to talk to a clothing store called Envy in downtown Columbia.

I had nice shots, a good stand-up with excellent framing and good compelling story, although I should have talked to a consumer as well as nice graphics which helped me tell a better story. But I didn’t have good natural sound for opening my story!  I did a good job of being the first person to check out the camera and tripod so I would get the ones that work fine!

I was generally very pleased with the work I did but there are always things that one could do better! I should have talked to a consumer and used her or him as the central compelling character of my story. Setting up interviews is sometimes a very challenging part of the job. You call a dozen of people and places and nobody wants to talk. But, in some other cases, the first few people you call are willing to talk. So, you never know how it goes. Therefore, I believe one has to talk to his/her possible sources well before the story’s time so that no time is wasted during the actual reporting shift on calling people and hearing disappointing answers! Also, making sure that one has a headphone so that when you shoot b-roll you can get nat sounds perfectly.

Anyway, I am glad with the level of improvement at the end of the course and should say despite all the tough time that I had during this class, I got to learn things which I did not know about before and hope I will get to apply those learning better in my future work!

Getting To Do Better

Last Tuesday’s KOMU shift was quite interesting! I had a story idea about a bill in Missouri legislature about a new type of cigarette called fire-safe cigarette. This type of cigarette self-extinguishes if left unattended.

I was basically trying to have an angle on the impact that it might have on reducing fire incidents in Missouri once it takes effect. It did not turn out to be easy to get hold of the fire departments around Columbia and I decide to go to Missouri’s capital Jefferson City to talk to the lawmaker who sponsored the bill, a fire-fighter official and hopefully get some nice b-roll at a cigarette store. I got there sometime around 3:30 and had an interview with a lawmaker and then headed toward the fire department. I found the fire department without that much of a problem since I had located the place on Google maps. Then I headed to a cigarette store in the town. Unfortunately I got lost as I was attempting to find the place and then found myself on a highway leading out of the town. I had already spent like half an hour trying to find that place, but in vain. So I decided that since it only takes around half an hour to reach Columbia, a place that I know much better, then I drove toward Columbia. In Columbia it wasn’t hard to find a cigarette store and I got some b-rolls and talked to a smoker about the new cigarettes.

I got back to the station around 7:30 which meant I had only two hours and a half to write a script and edit it! I was pretty confident I will do it on time. And yes I did it quite well and was done almost 15 minutes before the deadline.

I was generally satisfied with the outcome, although you would always think you could do a better job, if and only if…

I have generally learned a good deal about television reporting during my four past shifts. I am now much faster in editing. I can edit a package in around 45 minutes, more or less, that includes voicing. If that can be called fast! And I have got to learn how to use the video cameras at KOMU more efficiently though I definitely need to spend some more time on that. And based on my recent talk to Greeley, our broadcast professor, I hope to get to improve my voicing this time. 

Click on this link to view my story:http://www.komu.com/satellite/SatelliteRender/KOMU.com/ba8a4513-c0a8-2f11-0063-9bd94c70b769/a7ece155-80ce-0971-00b7-08db2853e4ca

Meeting Sami

I enjoyed listening to Sami Zeidan, last week! I was very impressed with the range of his experiences and his ideas about international journalism were quite insightful and inspiring.

The moment Sami entered the class I was very shocked. I watch Al-Jazeera English quite often and know Sami as one of the channel’s faces well! I didn’t expect to see him as a speaker in our class, especially since we hadn’t received any prior notice about it!

I later met him in the evening alongside two other classmates at a local café. Our conversation was quite interesting and there was a good deal to learn from Sami’s experiences. The fact that he used to be student at MU and worked at KOMU and later taught at MU helped to establish a close connection and sense of identification between us, i.e. the students, and him!

His advice about trying to learn more about a particular part of the world and learning other languages was very worthwhile to me! Definitely, in order to get a job as an international journalist, one needs a relatively broad knowledge of the world and willingness to learn. Learning other languages would definitely help to further qualify one for the job!  

 

 

Disappointment and Joy

This week’s reporting shift was a mixture of disappointing and great times! Well, I want to start with the bad part. I went to Jefferson City for a story on a bill on religious freedoms in public areas which is currently being discussed in the legislature. It was my first time driving there and so I got myself into a bit of drama as I, sort of, got lost inside the town and had to drive around for almost 20 minutes before making it to the legislature’s building. But once there everything went well. I got to interview three House representatives on the bill from both the opponents and the proponents of the bill. And I got some good B-roll of the House in session and the legislature’s building, as well as a church nearby. But I spent a bit too much time there.

 Then when I got back to KOMU it was around 7:30. So, I downloaded and imported the video into Avid, wrote a script and started editing it. While I was not expecting at all to be late, I run out of time very fast and couldn’t finish the editing on time. Then when the producer came in to fast-edit everything, some of the audio and videos got screwed! I couldn’t be more disappointed. It was the fruit of hours of hard work of mine and I saw it turned into an unacceptable piece of work. Of course, I take all the blame for it and it was first and foremost my fault. That was the disappointing part! 

After it was aired at 10 p.m. show, I started re-doing the whole editing process again and this time, I managed to put together a much acceptable story. Here is where the great part came in! I made a good use of the shots I had and made sure my story line was clear and understandable. And with some exceptions I tried to write to the visuals! The good version was aired for the next morning’s show and I am glad that it worked out! I take it a good omen for the future!

 

 

A Moment of Discovery!

Finally the moment came! I went to KOMU. On Friday for my first VOP shift from 6p.m. to 10 p.m. It wasn’t the best time to have a lot of story idea. But I still had two and the first idea that I suggested was approved by Stacey and the producer.

I had to go out and shoot a fund-raising event for a woman who had lost her husband and son within the past eight months to cancer. It was at the farthest northern part of Columbia and took me quite some good time to drive up to there. Once I got there it took me around an hour to shoot and talk to people. I decided to have three soundbites from the woman, an organizer and a donator and had some pretty good shots. In fact, I was shooting for a package. All in all, by the time that I got back to the station I had around 70 minutes to finish everything: editing and writing. The producer said that she wanted only a VO and that there was no place for a SOT. I put together 30 seconds of video as the producer wanted. And it was aired, my first ever video to have been aired.

Here are a few lessons I learned from my first shift: Be economical with time, highly economical. Shoot as much as you need. And talk to as many people as you need. Do not over-shoot and do not over-interview. In fact, in a job like journalism with extremely tight deadlines and a good deal of pressure and stress, every second and its management count. And be at the TV station at least one hour before the shift starts, so that you can have your idea approved and the gear examined and checked out before the time countdown for the shift will start. The best case would be if you can manage to be on the spot for your story just by the time that your shift has started on the schedule. That way, you can have the advantage of time on your side and perhaps get away with overstaying a bit. Then try to have a draft script ready based on your research and possibly prior contacts with your sources. That way you will spend less time writing your script and are more prepared and organized in terms of what you want to say. However, that should not be interpreted as determining the content of your story beforehand. And shooting in sequence definitely helps a lot with editing. I did shoot in sequences which is what I have tried to get used to doing for a while. And having several detailed shots definitely helps a great purpose as well: avoiding jump cuts and introducing visual variety.

All in all, I had 21 seconds of VO for my first shift on air. I will definitely have to stick to my own suggestions above to be able to do a better job with time!

 

DONE!

Well, I went to KOMU last Monday and things went pretty fine. I had gone there the day before just to familiarize myself with the Avid functions on KOMU computers. And it helped to relieve the stress that I had before about the possible complexity of KOMU’s avid program and the whole process of importing videos.

On Monday I woke up a bit early, had my breakfast and then left home at around 10 a.m. I made sure that I was psychologically ready for it. It was a windy day and not the type of weather that you would like or expect to bring good things! But everything went pretty fine and I was done two or three minutes before the deadline was over. I was just pissed off by the shakiness of the video. It really made it hard sometimes to want to capture even two seconds of unshaken and usable video. So, it made me to examine a lot of the clips and make sure that I had imported enough good videos. I was especially frustrated why there weren’t some good detailed shots that would help as transitions between one setting to another and most importantly to help one avoid jump cuts! But anyway, I decided to do the best of what I could in that limited time of one hour with the b-rolls I had. And I was happy at the end to see that things worked out, again, as I said, despite the not-so-high quality of the videos available.  Once I managed to edit the package on time and get Randy’s approval for it, then I took a more relaxed approach to do the iNews and VO scripting. It also went pretty fine and at the end I was happy with the outcome of my efforts.

I know that one needs to be a fast, and yet careful, editor. And the key to doing that is practice. I am hoping that by the time I finish the KOMU shifts and my B2 class, I will have good editing skills and be hopefully, a fast editor. But don’t forget carefulness and preciseness! 

Let's see how my first shift tomorrow will go!

KOMU Avid Test Is Comign Up

I am going to take my KOMU Avid & iNews test tomorrow. I am kind of excited about it and hope things would go fine and timely! I haven’t used KOMU’s Avid program that much and want to go in today for a bit of exercise so I will be better prepared for tomorrow. I emailed Stacey about going there and doing some practice on their computers and he was very open to it.

Right from now, it would be perhaps a bit premature to say how I will do tomorrow. But I want to look at things that might turn out to be a bit challenging and problematic to handle. For one thing, I need to be more careful about my voicing and tone. I do also need to use keyboard shortcuts while editing on Avid. That would definitely make it go much faster. And flash frames need to be definitely avoided, which I think will not be a problem anyway, since I have now come to learn through my previous editings at B2 how to prevent flash frames from making their way into the video!

I, however, need to make sure that I will spend as little time as possible in transferring the video from the memory card to Avid. And also make sure I would avoid jump cuts in editing the video. Another potentially problematic area would be that of finding the shots that you need to put on your Avid sequence. That also requires fastness and decisiveness so I wouldn’t spend that much time thinking about “okay which shot I should now put here or there!”

Despite the natural stress that one might have before doing exams, I am confident things will go fine and I will be okay! At least, that is what I am telling myself to make sure I will be relaxed and confident when I sit on the computer to do the editing. I will leave all judgments on this for my next blog post!

Let’s see what will happen! 

This IS Mohammed Salih, Thanks For Watching KOMU8 News!

This week was a pretty much relaxed one for me. That doesn't mean there weren't any exciting experiences. In fact one came up just last Friday!

 For our Friday lab, we all went to KOMU to do some on-camera anchoring performance. Although, I am not nterested in becoming an anchor in the future, it was a very worthwhile opportunity to see how I would perform on camera. I’d say it was generally good though I appeared to be stumbling over a few words. I do also need to give my voice more energy. Another thing is I should make sure I do not move my body that much since it would look awkward on camera. But I think, I did a good job in that sense and kept my body movements under control to a good degree. And doing it with Greeley watching was a good opportunity to learn some good things about anchoring. One good thing I learned, as Greeley told us, think that you are talking to your best friend, or a family member, and are telling them today’s news. That made one feel much more relaxed and yet serious about it.

I also got to learn about tele-prompter and how it works. However, another important thing was that never fully rely on the tele-prompter since there are times it may stop working or other problems occure with it. So, an anchor has to make sure that she or he will follow the printed out version of the stories.

I don’t think I would want to do some cut-in shifts at KOMU but will instead try to focus on reporting. 

Avid-iNews test and Story Ideas

I am now planning to take my Avid and iNews test at KOMU on Monday, March 23.

I am hoping once I pass that test, I will be able to do some good stories, something that viewers will enjoy and I can use for resume tape. Right from now, I am looking for some good long-term ideas that can be both visually and content-wise strong. There are a few ideas I have come up with but still want to use the coming few weeks to find other, and hopefully better ideas. For my long-term ideas, I am looking more for feature stories. Stories that have a strong human interest element and a so-called central compelling character. I am positive a good research will pay off at the end of the day!

I am, meanwhile, doing more practices on Avid and iNews to improve my work speed, something which would be crucial for passing the test. 

Finally KOMU!

And finally the moment came: Greeley told me that I was cleared to go to KOMU!

After doing my fourth package I was hoping to hear some encouraging news. And based upon the improvement that I made in terms of quantity and quality of my work after my second package, I was hoping to hear some positive news. Despite being cleared to KOMU, I know well that this is the start of a very long journey. One in which I have to be open to learning and engage in a constant process of improvement. Generally speaking I am not so happy with my performance in this class so far. And I am not certainly that happy with the overall quality of the packages that I produced. But my last two packages were a significant departure from my first two.

In fact, a few factors were behind my not-that-much impressive record: First, the fact that I did not take B1 and jumped from my basic Convergence class right into B2 which left me with a natural disadvantage in terms of my knowledge and learning about broadcast journalism compared to other students around me.

Second, my very bad financial situation since the start of this semester and lack of a car hindered my intention to look for more exciting stories. With no car and bad economy, I had to confine myself more to stories around the campus and downtown area, which were not necessarily the most exciting always.

And, third, my lack of a deeper experience in terms of managing how to get and produce better visuals and strong broadcast writing had a negative impact on my performance as well. But now that I have a car and with my awareness of my shortcomings, I hope to do a better job in the future.

I don’t want to jump ahead of time and start to claim from now that my future stories will be necessarily much better than the past ones. That is something that only time will tell. But, at least, theoretically I am determined to do a better job and I hope to be able to achieve that in practice!

 

KOMU!

I went to KOMU on Friday, after a sleepless night! The purpose of the visit to KOMU was to get acquainted to the cameras which they use there in preparation for our real reporting shifts there! Well, for one thing there are many buttons on their cameras! And they are bigger than the ones we use at Journalism School! And this makes them look fancier! But this brings another thing to mind, while you have more options with KOMU cameras,  in terms of the professional  quality of the shot you want to get, it’s also a bit of challenge because if you want to use them ambitiously then you have to get to know them well! I believe the time and energy one would spend on learning how to use those cameras well, is quite worth it, because it upgrades your skills for shooting and working with more professional cameras.

After getting to KOMU, the thing that kept nagging at me was when I will get to starting doing my real shifts there and experience a more intense and real broadcast journalism! I know it requires some major improvement on my part. But I have already started that process for quite some time.  

Having gone from Convergence Fundamentals of Radio, TV and Photojournalism to B2, there was quite a bit of considerable gap in my learning compared with other B2 classmates. The reason is that almost everybody else who is now taking B2, had taken B1 and that set the foundation for them to get along much easier in B2. For me, it was quite different. Right from the first day I attended B2, I realized there was a considerable deal of stuff that I knew nothing about because I hadn’t been expose to them in my previous class. After having spent some time on learning those things, I am now definitely better poised to do a much better job in B2. And I am quite intent to do so and look forward to reap the results. 

After Recovery Comes Ambitious Improvement!

Doing package four successfully was a very critical goal I had to achieve at whatever cost. Well, I know successful can be a very subjective notion, but successful at least from my perspective. And if you want to know my measure for success in this case, here is a bit of explanation:

I hadn’t done that well on my first two packages. I believe the major reason was I hadn’t made broadcast “my main thing” as Greeley would rightly like us to! From package three, I made B2 my priority class, not only in terms of the time I spent on it, but also the importance I attached to it. I used to spend a lot of time on it even before, but mentally it was not in the center of my focus! Anyway, long story short, I spent a good deal of time, energy and precision to make a much better work for my fourth package and I can, at least, claim that I achieved my goals in the following respects:

1)      Quantity: I produced more videos. That’s to say I did my main package, with as much of a perfect iNews scripting as I could do. I did my sot/vob completely in addition to the required iNews scripts that should come with them. And, I did a good job on web extras by ambitiously setting a goal of gaining all 10 points for them. I did four videos and links and documents.

2)      Quality: I tried to have a clear storyline for this package which I guess I managed to achieve by sticking to the major point of my lead, which was the small number of female students in MU’s Engineering College. Then came the issue of having good visuals. I managed to get a lot of vivid shots which contained humans and actions. I tried hard to avoid having grainy shots in my package and other accompanying video pieces. I believe I must was able to achieve that to a very good degree as well. And, whenever needed, in the case of my interviews, I used light to get well-lit faces. When it came to edit everything on Avid, I tried very hard to avoid jump-cuts by mainly using tight-shots as transitions from one setting to another and using natural sound bridges. I hope these efforts have been successful as well. But, I need to wait for Greeley’s grading of our packages to see how I did on all these things.

I consider this package a major improvement in my performance in this class so far. And, hope I will stick to this rising curve. Of course, if I want to stay on an improvement course, I need to keep something in mind very well: keep “the main thing, the main thing!” 

Columbia and I on Recovery Path!

Doing my third package was a quite new experience in terms of the topic I was covering: housing situation in Columbia. I had little familiarity with all the complexities that have caused the current so-called housing crisis in the country. And terms like “mortgage” and “foreclosure” and other housing jargons were not the type of things I was most familiar with in my life. So, I had to spend quite some good bit of time researching and educating myself about all these little but crucial details. That was my homework part. After reading different sorts of stuff and talking to some people, I came up with a good understanding of those terms and housing situation in America.

During the research phase, I called various people to set up interviews. Some were unwilling to talk at all. Others, when learned my story was for a class project, declined to talk. I was highly interested to get hold of one or two persons or families who had lost their homes in order to humanize the story, so to speak. Besides humanizing my story, I believed such people might well provide for great soundbites and visuals as well. I managed to contact two people through a realtor in the town, but they declined to give interviews after they found out that it was not going to be aired on television. The reason: well, because they said my story could not help their situation. I understood that very well and respected their choice.

I then had to find foreclosed homes to get some B-roll. After talking to several realtors finally one did agree to provide me some addresses. I went to two houses and shoot some video. I did my stand-up in front of one of those houses as well.

Then it came to writing the script and editing the video. I had talked to my friend Angela about iNews format and got to make sense of how to do it. Having not taken Broadcast one class, I had little knowledge of how to do the iNews. But Angela was quite helpful in teaching me the things I needed to know. So, I was expecting to be able to do a much better job on iNews scripting which I did. Story-telling is for some reason the hardest part of the job. Especially, I find it a bit tougher to tell a story in broadcast medium! I have kind of realized that I am much more comfortable with words and doing print stories! My angle was that, as realtors and others told me, it was now a “perfect” time for people who wanted to buy homes due to falling prices and that Columbia is apparently on a recovery path in terms of foreclosures.

I had a strong feeling that I did a much better job with this story than my previous two ones. Although the final outcome was not still what I wished for, the improvement that I achieved and the amount of work I did for this one, made me hopeful that I am on a recovery path from my B2 shock as well!