End

It’s all over. I’m done with my internship. I’m really sad, but happy I have a full time job lined up. I’ll keep these posts here so that you & I can read them later.

-Jeff

Semester 2 - Day 2

I started off the day doing a liveshot for Steve Brown, one of the reporters at Fox’s Chicago Bureau. It was my first one since last semester, and I needed less headroom. Oops. Since the show was an online show, the director provides almost zero feedback. I thought I should tilt down, but we were live and the director wasn’t saying anything. Like a good cameraman, I left the shot how it was.

Mark Jeter and I went over the process of archiving video. Also, Adam had me tag and import some photos that were coming in. As of right now, Chicago handles all of the photos taken by Fox photographers. 

I can’t wait for next week! The weather is getting better and I should have some footage to edit!

Start of Semester 2 - Jan 28

My first day back at Fox was a good one. I did a few liveshots for pre-taped shows like Cashin’ In and Forbes on Fox. It was really good to catch up with everyone.

We also went out to a hotel to interview some Rahm-stoppers. I took some pictures and they turned out ok. Dutch showed me how he would increase or decrease the depth of field on his camera. It works exactly the same on a still camera, but you have to add an ND filter or lower your iris. I’m glad it’s not too complicated.

Adam and I discussed what I wanted to do this semester. I told him I wanted to do lots of editing, take still pictures and work on the picture database, which runs on FinalCut Server.

I’m really glad to be back!

Day 16 - 24

Wow, a lot of time has passed. I’ve been really busy with school work, but I’ve learned a lot. I’ll start with today and try to work backwards.

Today, November 15, 2010, I went with Glenn “Dutch” Wargo to the Double Tree hotel in Chicago to interview US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. The interview was done over speakerphone with a producer in New York, but I was the “attractive young man” he got to look at, as he put it.

Dutch showed me how to do a basic setup for an interview with a boring background, and he taught me the “over under” cable wrapping technique. It took me a few minutes, but I got it down now.

Adam and I worked on a skype station so that Fox can do live shots for The Strategy Room, an online news show for Fox, using a tech cart over skype. This will free up the dedicated fiber lines for the news news shots.

Friday, November 12, 2010 was pretty busy. I got some cupcakes for Bob’s birthday (after dropping 1/3 of them). I did a few live shots and called it a day.

Monday, November 8, 2010 had one big event. Bob Lee and I went to a rally. Click here to see the video.

Friday, November 5, 2010 I met Rod Blagojevich. That’s about all that happened that day.

Monday, November 1, 2010 was crazy busy. The day before the midterm election, I was at Fox from 9am until 10pm. We went to the Mark Kirk convention at a bowling alley in Wheaton, then the Alexi Giannoulias event in Greek Town. Talk about a juxtaposition of events.

I haven’t had a chance to shoot more footage, but I’m in the market for a Nikon d3100! I got my new 16GB SD class 10 card today, too.

Some footage I shot in Chicago the other day

Day 15

I say my experience almost double today, at least when it comes to shooting video.

Adam sent me on a mission to work on sequencing my shots. The subject matter was transportation, just like on Monday the 18th. I went out to shoot with Bob’s Panasonic, and he let me use the wide-angle lens he has. This was my first time shooting with a wide angle lens, and it is very different. You’ll see it in the footage below.

My first take was 1 hour long, and I shot lots of clips. I tried to work on sequencing, but Adam and I agreed that it was a bit choppy and the sequencing was pretty weak.

My second take was 30 minutes long, and Adam told me to focus on just the buses. I went out and got some good shots, but the sequencing was a bit too loose.

On my last attempt I had 20 minutes to focus on just one bus stop. I felt really good about the footage I shot. Adam agreed that it was much better.

Over the course of 3 hours, I saw my footage getting better and better with every shot. My shots looked really good, but I still see room for improvement.

Days 10-14

With midterms on my doorstep, I really didn’t have time to blog after each day at Fox. Here’s what happened the past 5 days (2+ weeks) I’ve been at Fox.

Day 10 - Monday October 4, 2010

Today we did a few live shots on the street level with Mike Tobin. We set up a light, ran the cable to a patch on the first floor of the building which runs back upstairs to feed out, and checked the audio levels.

Doing a live shot on the street is very different from in the studio because there is no chair to sit in, and nothing is pre-setup. We had to make sure to not cross the power cable for the light with the audio cable, otherwise there’s some nasty interference that can be heard.

Day 11 - Friday October 8, 2010

Today I finally made it into a documentary piece. I was a hand model. I picked up a Newsweek magazine a few times for Bob, one of the camera guys. He used a wide angle lens to get really close in on the action.

Day 12 - Monday October 11, 2010

Today Adam brought a new challenge for me - creating an iPad app. I can’t talk too much about it, but I basically designed a photo app for Fox. We’ll see how far it goes, but I saved my original drawings just for fun.

Day 13 - Friday October 15, 2010

Today was kind of slow, but I went to a bridge dedication. It started at 10:30am and lasted until 12:30pm. Marilyn also interviewed Dick Durbin after the event. I did a few live shots in studio and called it a day.

Day 14 - Monday October 18, 2010

Today I was told to shoot some footage of transportation. I went out around the loop and got footage of cars, taxis, buses, the CTA trains, people walking, and some bikers riding. I did head-on shots, compression shots, wide angle shots, and everything I could think of. My footage looked great, and Adam agreed that it was good footage, but there was no story told with the footage. I need to work on sequencing my shots.

For example, I shot a bus driving stopping, then driving, then starting. It should be the bus starting, the bus driving, then stopping. The sequence of the shots needs to make sense, even before you start editing. Also, the subject matter should be closely related. I mixed all of my shots up, which may confuse myself or another editor once they import the footage. My goal is to improve my sequencing. I think I just need to think about what I’m shooting while I’m shooting it.

Day 9

On October 1, 2010, I met someone I never thought I would.

I started the day off by going to the streets of Chicago and doing some Man On the Street shots (MOS). What this means is that I was the “producer” and Dutch was my camera man, and we went outside and asked people questions about Rahm Emanuel. Unfortunately, I don’t have that footage, but it went really well.

I saw a few names on the board, and one was Divya Narendra, one of the Harvard students who was working on ConnectU, and unfortunately told Mark Zuckerberg about his idea.

Allegedly, Zuckerberg stole the idea and started The Facebook, later renamed to Facebook. That’s what Narendra was talking about, that and the new movie, The Social Network.

After that was over I did a live shot for Tamara Holder. I dialed in everything myself for that one. Also, just a note for myself, the FBN phone is on the left and the FNC phone is on the right. I went home feeling great.

See you Monday!

Day 8

Today is Monday, September 27, and today was much different than other days.

We had a few live shots in the morning, including Tamara Holder. Here’s the video that aired that day.

Later on, I went to the Chicago River and shot some footage of some water taxis for practice. It was amazing how much my work improved over the course of time.

Here’s the footage I shot:

See you on Friday!

Day 7

Today is Friday, September 24, and I finally did a live shot all by myself! I called in to the IFB, got that all set up, called into the PL, made sure everything was transmitting, sat the guests down, wired them up, worked the camera, and set up the studios!

I really felt good after getting all three live shots done today, nearly entirely by myself.

As with all Fridays, we had special guests Jonathan Hoenig and Stephane Fitch joining us in Chicago to tape shows that will air on Saturday.

Both shows that tape on Friday, Cashin’ In, and Forbes on Fox, have a forum style where there are 5-7 people on camera at once, all in different locations.

I didn’t do too much after lunch, but I did get to meet Glen Tullman, the CEO of Allscripts.

No editing was done by me today, but it was a good day.

See you on Monday!