I wanna be a Producer! (10 points if you know the reference!)

I am officially training at Channel 8 to be a free-lance producer!!!!

My progression at KLAS thus far has been intern to part-time assignment editor to now this. Hopefully when I graduate, I can become an associate producer full time. That's the goal, anyways.

So for those who don't know what a producer is, here's a little outline.

A Producer:

~writes the scripts for the newscasts. Anytime you watch the news and you see a story that doesn't have a reporter attached to it in the field, the producer probably wrote it.

~writes the teases. These are those annoying "after the break, we'll bring you....". We're actually not supposed to word them so obviously, so it's tricky to make them interesting without giving the whole story away. We don't want you to change the channel!

~comes up with stories. The producer meets with the reporters and brainstorm about what stories should be covered. The producer also scans national news to finds stories of interest to their region so they can localize it.

~makes stills. These are the full-screen charts, maps, graphs, and bullet-point sheets you'll see on TV. For more involved graphics, they tell the graphic designer what they want and then they get something pretty and photo-shopped.

~times the show. It is very important to make sure the show is timed perfectly in order to accommodate commercial breaks, especially when the show is live. The producer sets time limits for every story and makes sure everyone sticks to it. If the weather person talks a little too long and the anchors chit chat a bit too much, the producer must make the snappy decision to quickly drop a story. In reverse, if the show is too short, you have to egg on the anchors to talk and talk for 30 seconds, or find a story super quick!

~Choreographs the show. Should the anchors be standing, sitting, have a projector behind them, walk around, have an over-head shot, have a TV behind them, be talking to the reporter in studio or in field, etc...the list goes on and on!

~helps direct the show. The producer sits in the control room during the show and makes sure everything goes to plan. They work with the show's directer and make sure everyone is on task, especially the reporters who are out in the field.

~and above all, IS PREPARED FOR BREAKING NEWS!!! You could have a perfectly written script and have your anchors all ready in the field to do their live-shots...but then a plane crashes. Suddenly, half of what you spend the whole day on goes out the window and then it becomes a scrambling mess to get info out to both the reporters and the viewers and rearrange the entire show as it airs.

And in this town, anything goes when it comes to breaking news!

So there you have it! It's been an intense few weeks learning this job, but I love it. It helps that I work with some of the most awesome and talented people in the industry. Everyone has been super nice to me and willing to help me out!

I work weekends now, so with school on the weekdays, my schedule just got even more hectic. I just have to push through these next two months of school, then I can be done and really get this career going. I'm just happy it started before I graduate!