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You know it’s been a long year when you come home after the final school day, sit down for a brief rest and wake up hours later with the sun going down. Whew.
Grades are in – the last referral written – campus is shutting down. For the weekend. On Monday hundreds return for summer school, trying to recapture those units lost due to attendance, lack of focus, hormones.
Not me. I have my own agenda this year.
First – foremost: finish writing the final two chapters of Basics of Videojournalism. That is slated or the first three weeks.
Second – with co-conspirator Larry Nance, shoot all of the illustrations and video needed for the book and DVD. Another two weeks.
Keep the blasted garden weeded – easy once the shade of the main plants kicks in.
Finally – do what summer is meant for. Rest and relax. If I’d been smart that would come first…but it would also last the entire summer. So goodbye NPPA Las Vegas confab. No no to extended trips with friends and family. Looks like there’s a one week window in July for a quick getaway with hubby and the youngest. Not that I’m complaining….with things the way they are, I’m glad to have a job, a home, and a stable life. And I’m wishing and hoping that more of you out there can grab some of the same.
Hmmmmm….
Glasses. Check.
Camera. Check.
Somewhat scruffy beard. Check.
I think what we have here is a mini lenslinger.
The “damn” above doesn’t refer to sending out bombs. In the case of my broadcasting students it refers to not creating them. Don’t create a script that I can’t read and is merely words on paper. Dammit. I want a real script.
Right now the advanced students are struggling (once again) with two column scripts. If they had their druthers, they’d just sit down and edit. I want them to learn organization….which will lead to more critical thinking and in the end a better script and story.
For more than a month we’ve been working around a story I call “Ground Zero,” about how the real estate meltdown has affect our community and school. Students had a press conference and interviewed the president of the local Board of Realtors. A retired TV reporter came in and talked about the thought process of finding information and interviews for a story. Students shot B-roll in their neighborhoods and interviewed students on campus.
All of this happening around other assignments (in the real world you don’t just do one thing at a time).
And now the reality check – scripts are due tomorrow. Four out of ten students either have them done or are close. A fifth showed me his script yesterday. It was a list: narration, interview, photos, narration. That was pretty much it. Literally. Those were the four words he wrote on his script.
So today I once again review scripting. The left column is what we see. The right column is what we hear. You must have visuals to cover everything you hear. There is a slim third column to the far right if you want to time out your narrations and interview segments since the story must run between 1:30 and 4:00. No music – this is a news story.
Scripts must include either a transcribed interview or the start and end time of the interview segment. They must end with a tag out using our school sign-off (For EagleVison News, I’m ——).
I suspect much of the problem is, while we use the two column script all term, I don’t drill them on it. That will change next year. Full immersion is the answer.
On the other hand, my beginning class finally gets storyboarding. Words and pictures. You don’t have to be an artist – but I do want to see whether you are calling for a close-up or wide shot. They’re working on their sixty second commercials right now and I see some zingers.
Time to go deep down again…only twelve days til the end of the school year and I can resume blogging in a more consistent manner.
Every day when I wander out into the front forty to pick up my daily dose of what’s happening, I weigh in on the future.
Each day around sunrise a small blue truck whizzes past and a small white bundle flies through the air, landing with a thud and a long slide.
The (Stockton) Record. I’ve read it since I was a youngster. Did a research paper on it in college. It’s chronicled my wedding and the births of my children. And the passing of my parents and parents-in-law. All the good and traumatic moments of life.
And now I wonder if this phoenix child – this born again daily bundle – will survive much longer. As little as a year ago I hefted its weight into the house without thinking. Nowadays I eyeball it as I approach it…gauging its size. Checking its vitals. What is the content/ad ratio?
Some days the bundle is wafer thin…aneamic…barely there. There is content, but not the life-sustaining balance of advertising. On those days I fear the worst.
Today is Sunday and i was greeted by a nearly old-fashioned log of a paper…or so it seemed. The reality is my perceptions have adjusted to the times. I know what appears to be a heathy, bouncing bundle is actually a somewhat average or less-than-average package.
Losing a friend this way hurts…there are days of hope and days of despair. You almost wish the end would come quickly, but fear that it might.
And you will be forever poorer once it is gone.
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