Observing the control room

Today at my internship, I got the opportunity to sit in with a producer and observe in the control room during the 11 a.m. news. I learned today that the 11 o’ clock news at my internship is geared towards a female audience. I observed how the producer makes sure to stay on track of time. I learned how crucial it is to stay on track of time because if they fall behind on time, the producer has to make a quick decision on what portion of a segment to kill so that they don’t go over the alloted time. I learned that depending on the anchor often times if they read through fast enough they are good on time and will not have to cut anything out.

I learned that certain producers have an entire day to plan out their show while others only have a half a day. I learned that if any changes need to be made for a days shoot the producer has to make those decisions upon arriving into work. The producer decides whether or not to keep an assigned reporter to go out on a remote shoot or to change assignments and send someone else out based on where their strengths lie.

While in the control room, the producer stays in communication with the studio anchors and remote anchors through an Interruptible feedback (IFB) system to give them standby cues. The IFB sends a program feed to earpiece worn by the anchors.

The producer also has to be able to multi task and still stay on track. He or she has to stay in contact with the studio anchors as well as the remote anchors, pay close attention to the rundown and look for any messages that might be sent, especially if there is any breaking news that comes in that the news team relays to the producer while on air so that last minute add-ons can take place immediately and message can be relayed to the anchors appropriately.

Today, I also learned how to cut multiple clips from the clean feed, which means the clips exclude chyrons, rather than cutting clips from FIFO (first-in-first-out) in Dalet. Placing multiple clips on the timeline takes a specific step-by-step process. After cutting each clip and placing them all on the timeline, I learned had to add a transition to the clip so that it flowed more smoothly. Once it was ready to be uploaded to the web, I had to target it to specific lists to make sure it gets placed in the proper section.