Today was my last day working with Trailblazer Studios, and the last day of the Work Experience Program. I have super happy with my experience and am so glad I was able to do it. At first I was really worried about whether I would enjoy the experience or not, but I am super happy about how it turned out. Now. On to the more important stuff.

I spent the day with a few different people in the Audio/Sound Design department. It wouldn’t be a day at Trailblazer without a Review session. Today’s wasn’t as long as the one yesterday, mostly due to the fact that yesterday we were reviewing a two-hour episode compared to today’s half hour episode. The room was full of people, not that it was a large room, but there were about six of us in a room made to hold like three. This review was also a lot different from the other two I have done. This is because we were looking at it from an audio standpoint and not a visual or content standpoint. It’s not something I’ve done much of before. I wasn’t even able to pick up on a lot of things that these people mentioned, even after I heard it a bunch of times. 

After the review, I got a more in depth tour of the Audio Department’s studios. They have one review room, one smaller composing/editing room, one composing/ recording booth suite, and one room that had complete surround sound (Pictured on the right). The guy who usually works in there was sick, but he does the mixing for the bigger projects. Thus the surround sound studio.

After the tour I sat with David, a sound designer and avid guitar player. He does everything from mixing the audio on shows to writing/recording his own music. He was working on a song and he went through his process while creating these songs. He even whipped out his guitar and started playing the song he was showing me.

Once we had all eaten some lunch I sat in with Aaron, director of music and sound operations as well as a composer, and an intern who is working with the sound department for the summer. He showed us the programs he uses to compose and a couple of demos he has worked on over the years. The first thing he showed us was a current project of his, a SAS promotional video. He wasn’t too happy with the music and ended up making a lot of changes to it later in the afternoon. He also showed us some animated shorts that he composed the music for, one of which as a collaboration with another Trailblazer employee. Lastly he showed us the same video clip but with about four different audio tracks/composers. It really showcased how much music affect how one views a commercial and how the tone or beat of the music draws your eye to different parts of the shot. It was an aspect of movies and other kinds of media that I hadn’t really delved into much.

I have really enjoyed my time at Trailblazer Studios and met so many awesome people. I hope that I can work with them again in the future.

Today was my second day with Trailblazer Studios, and today I worked with the post-production department. I spent the day reviewing an episode of Sister Wives with a group of editors and producers who have been working on the show for a while. There were four of us in the room and one gentleman who called in from L.A. There was the editor/finisher, Alan, who does most of the final touches on the show such as stabilization, color correction, and brightness adjustments. There was also a coordinator from Figure 8 who is a producer of the show, as well as a woman from Trailblazer Studios. The specific episode of sister wives we were reviewing was a two hour special. The whole review itself took about three and a  half hours total. However, after the review the editor still had a lot of work left to do making sure the show was ready to send to TLC. Despite a few connectivity errors with the guy calling in from L.A. the review went very well, or not very well depending on the point of view. From what I was told there were more fixes than normal which would mean more work for Alan, but good that they were able to fix all of the them, so long as Alan had time. Alan talked to me a little bit about the things he was  trying to fix, and I learned a lot by listening to the kinds of things that were noted both during the review session and while Alan was editing. I will definitely keep those things in mind the next time I go out for a shoot, or sit in the editing booth. Ha! That rhymes. 

Today was the first of three days I will spend with Trailblazer Studios. Today I spoke to people in their production department. When I first arrived I met with Tom Waring, the CEO of the company. He game me a tour of the facility. They have one large sound stage that they can rent out to companies that want to use it. It is one of the largest stages in the Triangle area, rivaling that of a stage in SAS. They have another smaller one which they have converted into office space for some of their production people. They also have many edit bays, both online and offline, as well as two sound studios. One for surround sound and one for music. They also have a few rooms called “Finishing Rooms” where people do color corrections and other final edits as well as show the final product to the clients. The building had a much different feel than the news studios I went to last week. It felt much more relaxed and casual. Even so, the Trailblazer office felt much more closed compared to the open concept that most of the news rooms had.

After the tour, I spoke with the executive producer of the show Salvage Dawgs. She went through the process of planning out shoots and episodes. She showed me an episode and explained to me what sorts of notes she takes to send back to editors who make the final cuts of the episodes. She also explained how the channels order shows and how long they have to be. After I met with her, I spoke to the producer of Kate + 8. She went over budgeting and scheduling with me. She and most of the other people in production are in a “dry spot” currently because they are all between shoots. Either that, or they are out shooting on location.

After a nice lunch with some of the other employees/interns, I spoke with the producer for Salvage Dawgs. We sat in their main studio for a while talking about the film industry. college, job opportunities, as well as what he has been doing at Trailblazer. I then sat with the show-runner of Kate + 8. He went over how they handle shoots, how they plan them , and what his role is between the companies and the talent. Then, I spoke with a production assistant who works on promos and write ups for new shows. He was saying how he enjoys his job despite being on the bottom of the totem pole in this case because he can work with all the departments.

Overall, I really enjoyed the day. I look forward to working with their post-production team tomorrow.

Day 5 was an early one. I was scheduled to arrive at SEVEN in the  morning! It was a little rough at first, but totally worth it. When I arrived I met John Lindsey, a news director at WNCN. He gave me a quick tour of the building before we started doing anything else. After the tour I sat with John in the control room as he explained how they do the cut ins. Cut ins are, well, when the station cuts into the national programming to do local new and/or news. These happen at specific times in the program which are broadcasted to the local stations. The director of the cut ins will code the program they use before they begin. The director, the sound editor, and the camera operator all work together to produce the cut ins. I sat with John during the first cut in. Funny enough as he was trying to code the show he coded the wrong one so he pretty much winged it. It was a bit sloppy but it seemed to turn out okay. For the next cut in I sat with the sound editor. He control the levels of all the different sound inputs, such as microphones, any music, and sound from videos. He makes sure that nothing is too loud or too soft and that all the needed pieces can or cannot be heard at a given time. While they weren’t doing cut ins myself and an intern got to mess around with the sound board and coding the show a little bit. For the next cut it I sat with the camera operator in the studio. She controls where the cameras are facing and makes sure that they are in the right places at the right times. Earlier in the morning she also sets up all the camera angles for most of the day. She is the one who cues the reporters or meteorologists as well. She makes sure they know how much time is left in the spot which is fed to her by the director in the control room. She was a very funny woman who was almost always singing into the coms. For the last cut in I sat with the director in the control room again, only this time it was the intern who was doing the directing. She did a very good job, everything went according to plan.

Once I had spent about two hours in the control room/studio, I sat in on a news meeting. The reporters that were there along with the producers of the news shows that day were discussing what stories they had or expected to get that day. After the meeting was over I sat with the producer of the 12 o’clock show. He was setting out what was going to go when and picking out clips from footage for the editor to edit together for the packages he needed. I asked him a lot of random questions about things I saw int he room. I asked him about things such as the analytics system they use, it’s the same as the N&O, in what circumstances do they like using live shots vs. pre-recorded shots, what he does on a standard day,  and others.

After that I sat with an editor for a while. He was the one who was working with the producer of the 12 o’clock to edit all the packages he needed together. The editor had a tv in his edit bay that I ended up watching a bit, then suddenly the feed went down. For some reason, I never found out why, the channel began to experience technical difficulties. When the station first sort of came back online I was told that it was showing their old logos and color schemes. They were recently partnered with CBS locally and so they changed their look. The editor told me that the corporates probably wouldn’t be fans of the fact that 1)  The station went down, and 2) That they were showing older logos. After about 15-20 minutes the station came back on.

Then just before 12 I went back to the control room to observe the 12 o’clock news from behind the scenes. Coolest part was I got a mini job. I was tasked with pressing play on a live streamed view of the beach just before it was supposed to be shown live, so that we wouldn’t run into ad problems after the original feed broke down. The show itself was pretty standard, but really cool getting the back stage look at what goes down.

I spent my day riding around the triangle with Amanda Lamb, a reporter at WRAL, and Chad Flowers, her photographer. We started off the day at the Justice Center in Downtown. Amanda said that she started everyday there looking at all the arrest & search
warrants from the last day or so. She does this to see if any interesting cases come up that they might want to cover, or to see if any new leads on cases they are already working on. Mostly they look for cases involving people who would be a danger to the general public. Around the Justice Center the topic of interest seemed to be the arrest of two women who broke out into a fight the day before. Most of the reporters we spoke to were annoyed by the story because TVZ, or ABC11, was making a big deal about it because they had someone on the scene yesterday who was able to get video of the incident. I also got a brief tour of the building, I was told that things were pretty slow today as not much was going on. The highlight of the trip seemed to be the spotting of two women dressed in a Super Girl outfit and carrying a Piglet backpack.

After our visit to the Justice Center, it was time to start working on the story for the news today. After some debate, it was decided that we would follow up on a lead about a Good Samaritan from a motorcycle accident that occurred last night. It sounded much more promising than the story the station originally wanted to cover about a gym closing. Chad was a little worried about the direction of the story due to the fact that the driver of the motorcycle who ended up dying was the one who was at fault during the accident. So instead of covering the crash itself, it was decided to frame the story around what our Good Samaritan’s experience was.

Once Amanda was able to contact her we decided on a meeting spot out in North Cary. After a quick spot of lunch we met up with the young woman for an interview. She was very cooperative and I am very moved by her story. She got to the scene of the accident, she thought, very soon after it happened. She pulled over to the side of the road and made her way to the driver of the motorcycle. She explained that he was in very bad shape, covered in blood, as well as not breathing and no pulse. She began to give him CPR. She didn’t stop until the police and EMTs arrived a few minutes later. She noted that she was the only one who was trying to help the young man. An older gentleman had come over to her but exclaimed that he didn’t know what to do, while all the other people either just watched from afar or didn’t stop at all. She was very vocal about her opinions on that matter.

Once the interview was over we headed back to the WRAL studio. There the footage from the accident the night before and the interview from today were going to be edited together. While Amanda was writing the script for her story I sat in a planning meeting for the news shows that evening. After that, I sat with the women at the news desk. They are the people who monitor all the police radios and other news sources to determine if anything news worthy is happening. If there is something interesting happening they will dispatch teams of reporter to the scene.

Once Amanda was done with the script, I went with her and Chad to film the bridge in the
control room and then to the recording studios to record the voice over for the package. Then I sat with Chad while he edited all the pieces of the puzzle together. Then the story was done and all ready to be aired on the 5 o’clock news. I left before they aired it on television but I got home in time to watch it.

Here is a link to the story on the WRAL website: http://www.wral.com/good-samaritan-stopped-to-help-man-after-crash-near-rolesville/15730542/

-CJ

Today, I spent the morning at the News & Observer office in Downtown Raleigh. Despite initially having trouble finding the entrance to the building, I managed to arrive a few minutes early. Once there, I met Susan Spring the Director of Newsroom Operations.  I spoke to Susan for a little while before she gave me a tour of the Newsroom. She explained to me the basic layout of the floor and points of interest. They have a large screen on one of the walls that shows statistics from their website. She then showed me their research library, which houses a log of almost all the N&O papers over printed and other resources for the reporters to access for research. Then we met up with a group of 3 new hires and interns from McClatchy Co., their parent company. I walked around with them for a while as they were also taking a tour of the office. We also were able to sit in on the morning news meeting where all the reporters and other employees come together and plan out when their stories are going to be put up on the N&O website as well as whether they will contain video or not.

Once the meeting was over I met with one of their newer hires (she started Monday), Presley. She was hired specifically to work on a newer project of theirs called Collegetown. From what I gather, it is going to be used as a news outlet for the four major school in the Triangle: Duke, UNC, NC State, and Central. She was very determined to find new and interesting ways to get out the news out to people so that college students would be actively engaged in the content produced by the Collegetown site. She mentioned that they were planning on working with students who attend the college for articles since they would actually be there.

After speaking with Presley for a while I met two of the guys who handle photo and video editing. I had a lovely conversation with them about media and how people interact with videos. We talked about how videos are presented, what goes into them, as well as how&when people view them. We also spoke about video games a little bit, and how they have affected the media.

Lastly, I spoke with an investigative journalist, Daniel Kane, who was not a fan of his job title. He is a strong believer that all journalists no matter what they work on or where, they should all be investigating and asking “Why”. Daniel was the one who broke the story about the “Paper Class” scandal at UNC. He said it stared out as a different story but evolved when he found the discrepancies in the grade books. He thinks journalism is a good way to bring attention to things that are broken so that they might get changed.

Overall, visiting the N&O was a lot more exciting than I originally thought it was going to be. I found the varying opinions on the direction of the paper news to be very interesting, as well as the amount of both new and old technologies present at all the desks. I also got a t-shirt! AND A COOL PEN!

-CJ

Today was my second and last day with the folks from FOX50. I started the say trying to find my way to Kevin Kolbe’s office through the maze that is the FOX50/WRAL office. Luckily I found my way pretty quickly. This morning I spoke with Gayle more in-depth. She works with graphics mostly, but she used to do animation as well. We talked a lot about how art and composure is really important not just in graphic but in promos and ads as well. She works with the other people in the department to make sure everything looks goo color and composure wise. She reinforced the fact that the people she works with are all people who would never be able to work on an assembly line. They would be bored to tears and frustrated because they weren’t able to be creative. Not only would they be very slow, but nothing that came off the assembly line would work, probably because they were trying to see what would happen if they changed the way something was done. I also had a long chat with her about fonts and how to choose a font for every situation.

After I spoke with Gayle, I was able to accompany Glenn, who I met yesterday, out on a shoot. We drove out to Catering Works, who incidentally catered the Charger Derby at CA, so that Glenn could get shots of their food. We started out by interviewing the florist who works there. Then, we moved into the kitchen to get some shots of the people cooking the food. After that we went and actually got shots of the food. Watching Glenn work was mesmerizing. He would go from one shot to the next without thinking about it, just shooting what ever he could at the time. he was doing all this while he was giving me tips about shooting and explaining what sorts of shots he was getting. He was explaining how he goes about setting up a shot, how to keep the shots interesting, making sure that there wasn’t too much space, and more. Then we got to eat the food! And man was it good. Sadly because Glenn and I were the last ones to sit there were no chairs left at the main table so we got to sit at a different table in the corner. It gave me time to ask him more questions which was nice. After the lovely food was all gone we interviewed one of the women who runs the company. She was very nice, and Glenn made her feel very comfortable despite having a camera in her face. He is very good at what he does. Sadly I can’t remember her name, but she was the one who developed the program that they use to pretty much run their company. She doesn’t even have a background in programming. I was very impressed. After that interview was over it was back to the FOX50/WRAL studio.

I spent the rest of the afternoon with Marc. His official title is the Senior Promotional Producer, or that’s what he told me. He is the one who edits promos and other project that the group works on. He walked me though the process of creating one of their summer promotional videos. First outline what you want to include or see in the promo. Next create a rough script that lays out the promo. Then, finalize the script and story board the promo so that it goes from words to a visual layout. After that, create all the necessary graphic and other elements that go into the promo. Finally, Put everything to gether and make sure it looks good. Marc also gave me a lot of awesome resources that I can use for my own work. When it was about time for me to leave today, he asked if I wanted to go see the server room up in engineering. I said yes and we went on an adventure through the maze to find our way there. We found the room, but it turned out that Marc didn’t even have access to the room. Nonetheless it was still cool seeing the server room through the windows. It looks the same as it does in the movies. Finally it was time for  me to leave, and as I was leaving Marc said “Remember, free things and keyboard shortcuts”. Don’t worry Marc, I have all the sites written down. No way am I passing up free stuff.

-CJ

Today I visited the FOX 50/WRAL studios in downtown Raleigh. There I met Kevin Kolbe who showed me around the studios a bit. First Stop was the master control room. All of the channels run by this station are controlled by the people in these rooms. These are the people who change between the program and the commercials, as well as make sure everything is working properly.  After the brief tour of some the other facilities such as the small and large scale studios, Kevin took me to a meeting where he and his co-workers meet every Monday. There I met Sierra, Pete, Gayle, and Mark. I listened to a fascinating presentation about color and psychology. I spent the rest of the morning with Sierra seeing how she edits the website and how she goes about adding new pages and promoting the shows on the site, funny enough they use WordPress for their website. She also went over how she runs the FOX50 facebook page. I then worked with Pete for a while after lunch. He handles the some of the promo editing. He showed me how they go about doing their editing, at least for the Steve Harvey Show Promos. I also got an early look at the new season of So You Think You Can Dance: Next Generation. To finish off the day I met David Crabtree, an anchor for WRAL. He introduced me to a whole bunch of people in the News Room, from other anchors to editors and others in production.

Over all it was an amazing day, and I really look forward to going back tomorrow!

-CJ