Sun Devil Television - A Blog

2008-03-31T22:25:00.001-07:00

My station manager is working on a manual for his internship about how Sun Devil Television is run and operated. Because without the two of us, the station would hardly exist in its current capacity, he has asked me to make several additions to his text.

The fist part I’ve been asked to contribute is a “how to” for news production. As I have mentioned many times, under my leadership, SDTV News was transformed form a daily 5-minute update to include Sun Devil News, a weekly half hour news show.

I will attempt to the best of my ability to outline what went into the process. Dan has asked for me to note even the simplest of details, so this may take several edits before it is finally finished.

The first and most important aspect of running a successful program (any program, not just news) is proper leadership. I have found time and time again that the only way to do this is to set strict scheduling deadlines. If the news continues to be shot and edited on Thursday nights, then this means package deadlines should be sometime near 5 p.m. on Thursday.

How does one accomplish this? This semester, Josh has tried to give a lot of creative control to his anchors. While this has saved him a lot of time, I found it was often difficult to avoid hastily produced packages this way. The best bet is to go over the packages early with your staff. This may mean having a weekly meeting on Sundays or e-mailing / calling your anchors on Sunday/Monday. Make sure to set up what each person is going to shoot by the start of the week.

Where to find good packages? The State Press is always a good bet. Many of their articles lend themselves to follow-up pieces. Ditto to the State Press Magazine. In addition, The Arizona Republic’s azcentral.com offers weekly entertainment guides. Try looking in The College Times and other local publications as well.

It is best to stay away from covering too many events on campus, but that is the nature of the beast. I have found that in a quick pinch, the best safety packages are profiling various groups and clubs on campus. You would be surprised how many interesting groups there are that most people don’t know about. Every now and then it wouldn’t be so bad to get involved with Greek Life, too. I’m not talking about covering all the sexual assaults (all though those obviously should be covered). Each sorority and frat does some type of philanthropy for a good cause. It doesn’t hurt to give them some positive press once in a while.

When running the weekly news show, you have two options, both of which are based on your own time commitment and availability. During my semester as news director, I required one package from every anchor a week. Obviously nearly every week there would be packages that fell through. Reasons can stem from legitimate illnesses to audio problems to interview cancellations. By assigning ten packages a week, I ensured that I would always have enough footage to fill my show to the full half hour. I also nearly went nuts.

This past semester, Josh and I decided to experiment with requiring only five anchors to turn in their packages each week. While this has certainly saved the news department a lot of headaches, Josh has run into a bit of trouble when packages fall through and reporters don’t perform properly. There needs to be some type of medium. With only two semesters under our belts, we obviously have not yet found it.

The best idea for the future may be to again increase the number of packages due. Another way may be to increase the news staff by hiring reporters. One problem with this hypothesis, however, is that reporters often see little reason to get their work in on time. Whereas the anchors see the ability to anchor the news as the reward for their packages, the reporters see nothing. It may be beneficial to entertain the idea of doubling the news staff, maybe filming news updates twice a day instead of once. Again, this is more work for the news director.

But back on topic. You should now have your packages assigned, and if its Thursday that means that many are edited or your studio is filled with anchors editing (more likely the latter). This means, it is time to get your half-hour show anchors prepared.

The easiest way is to have them write five stories each. During my semester, we often waited until The State Press finished editing their stories, and utilized them for the broadcast. This wasn’t necessarily the best idea, as it rendered our shoot time to sometime after 11 p.m.

Once you begin scripting there are important things you need to include. This is where the simple things Dan has asked me to include are present.

- There should be an opener and closer two shot

- Anchors should “throw” to the packages with an introduction sentence or two. Josh has often had anchors do a “thanks (name)” afterward packages run, though I find this tacky.

- For package throws, the shot should be a straight on one shot.

- For other stories, frame the shot as an OTS (over the shoulder).

- Script commercials. Trust me when I say this is necessary. Have a two shot where the anchors say “coming up after the break” and then point out a thing or two coming up after the break. You wouldn’t imagine how awkward it looks to simply cut to commercial. Plus, it adds another minute or two to the show.

I believe this accurately covers what precautions need to be taken during the news. Please, for the love of God, always make sure to check your audio.

Now lets say you’ve scripted your news, your stories are written, packages are done, but you are still short on time. Keep in mind that to produce a full half hour show, you want to reach upwards of 24 minutes, and no less than 22. Where can filler come from?

Sports are one great example of filler. I had a weekly sports anchor film three readers in succession. To do this, of course, you need an anchor that is good enough to read three straight stories without mistakes. From time to time, we had them throw to a package that was done by someone in the sports department. Between a sports intro, three readers, and a package, it is easy to fill up three additional minutes as well.

Another thing we also had produced was a weekly “State Press Minute.” Someone from The State Press newspaper came into the studio weekly to preview what new stories were on the budget for the following week. It’s a bit lame. But trust me when I say a minute is a big deal when you are short on time. And if you are running well, it can be the first thing to go.

So now that your ins and outs are shot, your packages are edited, and you’ve loaded your footage into Final Cut, it is time to produce Sun Devil News. What Josh has added this year, is an editor who comes in on Friday mornings to finish and make final edits. This is a great idea. Even call him or her assistant news director so they feel important doing lots of work for free.

Here’s a good way to lay down your clips:

Teaser – Video Intro – Intro to the show – reader – reader – package – etc.

Obviously the more important and timely the package, the higher it should be placed in the show.

On the intro to the show, where your anchors say something along the lines of “Welcome to Sun Devil News, I’m Anchor Q.” It is important to have a lower third. In fact, it is important to make sure every reporter filming a package gets into the habit of having his or her interviewees state and spell their names. Lower thirds add a level of professionalism to the package.

There are some old base lower thirds created as PNG graphics, but they have no opacity and are looking increasingly awkward on the screen. (Bear with me on the description, as I am writing this from memory.) The easiest way to make a simply, but effective lower third, is to add a color matte from the quick controls.

Select your color matte from the quick menu directly under your video screen. Lay the matte over your video. Double click on the matte and enter the controls tab. From there you can change the color – make it a nice ASU red. You’ll notice this red fills the entire screen. Go into the motion menu and click on the Crop drop down. You can now crop it form the top and bottom until the matte becomes a lower third backdrop. Adjust the opacity to something between 75 and 85 so that a bit of the telecast shows through the graphic. It’s also nice to edge feather the ends, so that they do not look so sharp.

From here, go back to the quick controls tab and insert text. One text layer for each anchor works best. Now after this, I have often added another color matte of ASU yellow. I lay it over the lower third as a thin line striking through the graphic directly under the anchors names. Follow the first directions to make this.

For inserting OTS graphics, grab images from google, yahoo, etc. Import them, resize them, and place them over the anchors shoulder. Please edge feather them. If you would like to lay them over sometime of OTS graphic (it is recommended to avoid a floating picture look) there are many options. Lately I have used a color gradient to lie over the corner of the screen.

By the time you have finished all this, you should be (finally) ready to insert commercials. The best advice I can say is to utilize all the commercials available to you. Don’t just copy and paste takes over and over again.

If you’ve undertaken all these steps, then you have just one final (and painstaking) step. You must now edit all the audio to make it equal for the production. Trust us when we say audial peaks are the worst sign of unprofessionalism in college television.

Make sure all your audio falls somewhere between –6 and –12 decibels. If you have properly executed your sound checks before filming and correctly trained your anchors and reporters, this should be executed rather quickly.

Make sure you add the SDTV graphic opener to the start and finish of every episode. The best way to add a few seconds to meet the thirty-minute time mark is always to stretch these openers out just a little bit longer.

Now that you have followed all of these steps, what you should be left with is a complete half-hour news show. Below is a take of a September 2007 newscast for SDTV. I believe this is a copy of the first half-hour news show ever produced at the station.

Good luck and go get some sleep.

-mm

2008-03-06T21:34:00.001-08:00

If new equipment does come in, SDTV should be in a decent position for the next year. The biggest problem now will be finding volunteers.

SDTV will have no presence at the downtown Phoenix campus. The most we can possibly hope for is a desk in the State Press newsroom. This won't be any bit useful to us.

The main problem with be with SDTV News / Sun Devil News. The News started in its current format in 2005. It got an overhaul last semester when I was named News Director.

The basic premise is a five to ten daily update Monday through Friday. I axed the Friday updated and created Sun Devil News, a half hour weekly news show complete with student packages. For the first time we were out on campus training students how to shoot, edit and put together a package.

These shows are in danger at the new school. The Monday through Thursday shows are filmed at either 9 a.m. or 10 a.m., which would be nearly impossible to do if the majority of freshman (our main source of anchors and volunteers). It would be unrealistic to expect freshman and even upperclassmen to try and make their way to Tempe when they'll be living in Phoenix.

With more problems arising in the Light Rail plans, it would be difficult to foresee if we'd even be able to get students into studio at another time of the day. The majority will lack transportation outside of the Light Rail.

One possibility is to move the shooing of the News to the night. However, it is unrealistic and even unfair to expect students and staff to come to the station after a long day of classes at night.

If the daily news show ends up being scrapped, it creates a problem for the weekly news show. One thing that allows us to get students in the field shooting packages is the 'reward' of being able to anchor a news show once a week. If this so-called reward was taken away, it would be hard to imagine any volunteer putting in the rigorous work of being a reporter with little benefit.

It is another hurdle that needs to be overcome, however it is very hard for us to worry at this moment. SDTV needs to try and live in the moment, producing enough on a day to day basis. What we need is someone willing to push for us for the future.

-mm

New Ways?

2008-03-06T21:25:00.000-08:00

Each semester, the Cronkite School hosts something that it likes to call "dinner with the dean." About a week or so ago, several students, including myself, sat down with the dean at a local Chillis.

Also present were the director of The Blaze, State Press and WebDevil and several members of USG organizations. Now it's long been rumored that our dean is not a big fan of Student Media - any meetings we've had with him over our operations have not been smooth.

But nonetheless, I felt inspired to ask him about our own situation. Evidently the dean told me that we would be getting new equipment - namely cameras, from the Cronkite School. Now this is something that comes as a shock (read: not believable) after we heard that the school sold some of its cameras not too long ago without even thinking of Sun Devil Television.

Later this week, however, I heard from my direct boss that the situation may be a reality. I was told that new cameras and mics most likely will be provided for us sooner then later. My staff has told me not to get too excited, and I'm trying not to. We'll see.

-mm

2008-02-06T22:11:00.000-08:00

After going over just what Sun Devil Television is, I now get to reveal all the problems and tribulations with the station.

(P.S. when I write about subjects near to me, I tend to rant. Get used to it.)

The biggest problem surrounding SDTV is that it was never meant to work from the start. According to our history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Devil_Television#History), we began as a text screen service from residential life in 1992.

In 1995, SDTV began showing programs in the form of two shows pre-recored and given to the station. That year, they also began to air movies.

It wasn't until 1998-1999 that the station joined student media and began with a set of officers near what they have today.

Here is where the problems begin. Sometime around 1999, the station "received donated equipment from various sources." This included two Cannon GL 1 cameras and it's first editing system.

Since then SDTV has purchased...well..not much. In fact, SDTV still uses the two Cannon cameras donated to us nearly ten years ago. The only other camera belonging to the studio is a very old stationary camera, which had to be soldered together by our station director.

Our second editing bay was added in 2002, which has lasted us until..well now. An expansion to third and fourth editing bays were finally made recently.

But in order to survive, Sun Devil Television volunteers and staff members have taken to purchasing cameras and even editing equipment of their own.

In the past year alone, we've had three broken DV decks, two broken cameras, and a broken editing bay. All because a lack of funding.

And again we see the problem. Sun Devil Television was never given a chance. It started out with donated equipment, and since then, few dollars have actually be put in.

By comparison check out some other student run stations:
South Carolina: http://www.sgtvonline.org/about.php
Student TV in Great Britain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NaSTA

So how do we make changes? By comparison ASU's State Press has dozens of staff members, each of whom is paid. SDTV has six. Each of our other staff members are unpaid volunteers. And if you have never compared a print story to a TV story, trust me when I tell you moving picture is much harder. I've done both.

In a print story you go out to the event, come back, write it. Or set up interviews for an in-depth story, and put it all together. For TV you go out, you film. Then you have to log your footage, which loads in real time (meaning for every minute you film, you spend a minute logging that to your computer). Then you must edit it, adjust audio, adjust color, and then print the video (again in real time) before you are finally finished.

What is SDTV? It's a failing student run station, with old hand-me-down equipment. More importantly no one cares. ASU has never hired a director of student media with any bit of television experience.

Whether we produce one show, or three shows, or 15 shows, no one cares.

This year, for the first time we have upped our production exponentially. Last semester SDTV produced only three series total. Two had my name as producer. This semester, we produced episodes for eight series in our first week of production. We produced an official weekly schedule, which runs daily in the State Press.

But for what? I was told by the higher-ups that my cause was a "noble cause." What does that mean? What should that mean? To me, it means I have no motivation to bust my butt trying to run our station like one really should be.

If my cause is simply a noble one, why does it matter if we produce eight shows or even one. In the end no one will care.

-mm

P.S. We were asked in this assignment to link to our favorite blog(s). While these links are sports related, they are certainly my favorite:
http://bostonsportsguy.com/
http://www.profootballtalk.com/rumormill.htm

So What is SDTV?

2008-02-02T13:08:00.000-08:00

How to begin. I'm Mike. And SDTV stands for Sun Devil Television - we're a 100% student run on campus television station at Arizona State University. If you're that interested on our background, someone once upon a time created a lovely wikipedia page. Here it is.

So for an upper level Journalism class, we were given the assignment to blog about something related to a multimedia package we were putting together, or to blog about the presidential race. Well I could care less about the subject my package is on, and frankly I'm just not that interested in the Presidential Race (I personally don't find much of a point in whole-heartily backing a primary candidate just to have to support one of his opponents in the end. I'll choose when they give me a two or three person ballot).

Which brings us back to the topic and the end of my first rant (there will be many).

I took over Sun Devil Television in August after a semester stint as News Director where I revitalized the position..seriously. I took the news from a daily 5 minute update, and added a weekly half hour show complete with student packages. By the end of the semester we had trained near 15 underclassmen how to shoot and edit video for news. So they gave me the job to run the station because, well, who else were they going to give it to.

First and foremost, we run movies. Three movies a night if the schedule goes to plan. That's originally what we were meant for anyway. They're pretty good movies too. Last week we showed 28 Weeks Later, Waitress, and Die Hard to name a few. We've got the Last King of Scotland coming in, and some other classics.

We also (are supposed to) run our own original programming. Last semester, only three series came out the entire season. Two of which I was a producer on.

Already this year, we have overhauled the station. Last week, eight new episodes of shows went out. Here is what we aired:

The FarceSide Comedy Hour
Barren Mind Improv
- These two are comedy hours performed on campus by ASU Comedy groups. We film them, we edit them, we turn them out. Fairly simple.

Dirty Oatmeal
- This is our "original" comedy show, in which we make total asses out of ourselves in various skits. Sometimes the show is funny, usually it sucks. But we write, act, and produce it, so it's always been a load of fun. Plus this show gets us celebrity interviews when they come to town.

M3 Short Films
- Once upon a time, this show was popular, and people sent in short films from all over the country...seriously. So now we have a cabinet full of old short films and nothing to do with them. We get together, we watch them, we make fun of them, and the result is an hour long TV show. Not too shabby.

The Basement
- In all my time at Sun Devil Television, rarely have I put together a show where I've said "I would actually watch this show on another station." That's how good the Basement is. And its a Radio show. Every week at our campus radio station, DJ Ashley Harris brings in a local music act, interviews them for a half an hour, which is followed by a 30 minute acoustic set. We film it, edit it, and its good to go. And best of all its good TV.

Student Spotlight
- Hypothetically, we should have an outlet for students that dont work at SDTV, but who still want to have their work aired,. That's this show. Kinda lame.

Firestorm
- An hour long political talk show produced at our campus radio station. Frankly, I think it's pretty boring. But it is an hour of filler that is desperately needed.

Devils on the Deuce
- Our flagship sports program. Somehow this show has been running for ten years. Somehow over 100 episodes have been produced. And somehow I run it along with our Sports Director. Basically its our version of Devils on the Deuce.

Okay, that's all for now since I'm all typed out. In the next entry, I will explain all the problems and tribulations of Sun Devil Television, and in return why it makes me want to blow my brains out.

Hows that for a cliffhanger.

-mm