As we’re doing the final prepartions for our upcoming show, I’ve realized how interesting this show is going to be. I’ll admit that I’m hugely biased, but I’ve always thought this Focal Point group was very talented, but as I look at the stories for this week’s show I’ve realized I still underestimated them. The stories that the group came up with are more hard-news hitting this week and I am so proud of them.
Erin O’Connor has piece about homeless people in East Lansing which looks just how many people are homeless in our community and how that affects us. Marty Berman has an interesting look into the graduation rate gap in Michigan and official’s reactions. We also have in depth looks at all of our major campus sports.
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I’m currently sitting in the control room waiting for the show to start taping (another late night at the office :/ ). It’s funny, I always knew that there would be stress involved in producing a T.V. show, but I never imagined it being like this. One of the things I love about being here is how opinionated everyone is, but at the same time, that’s one of the things I struggle with the most. We all know exactly what we want out of the show and work really hard, it’s really great. Everyone’s very passionate and work so hard at what we do. Focal Point is a very lifelike, simulated news room.
Our two anchors this week are Kelley and Paige. With a bit of a rocky start, they picked things up really well. We all make mistakes during the broadcast but one of the funniest ones all semester was Kelley’s tonight….”Focal Point’s Barney Berman has the story.” ….Barney? haha oops! We loved it though, we always need a good laugh in the control room.
Because of a lack of volunteers, our JRN 406 students who are typically just the talent on the show are having to pick up the slack in the studio. We have Anthony doing the audio, Jonathan doing the teleprompter and Marty doing graphics along with our normal volunteers. They’re doing a great job BUT if you’re reading this and you’re not already in focal point, PLEASE come to our next taping. We NEED you and if you do a good job, I just may be your best friend for the rest of your life.
We’ve started a new thing here at Focal Point: The Bob Stress-o-meter. Every week we’re going to take a meter of Bob’s stress level. On a scale of 1-10 (1 being happy as a clam, 10 being heart attack), this week started as a 4 but as we got closer to the show, he’s at about an 8 now.
We got all the way through the B block (our second commercial) and found out that our whole A block didn’t transfer to tape, meaning, we have to re-do the entire thing. FUN! (Hint: I’m kidding) It’s all a part of the job.
As we head into post-production, we have a lot of work to do. Just another day in the news business. Look for our episode airing on Saturday on WKAR. Our next show will tape on Wed. Nov. 17, if you have story ideas or are interested in getting involved in Focal Point, please let us know.
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