Edit 11

It felt like going to work for my first day, when I joined Joanne for a day to experience her work as a producer in the ABC News Studio in Washington DC. It was the Sunday day shift and when we arrived around 10 o’clock it started rather quiet, so she used the time to give me a first look around. I got a peek at various IT systems in use, the archive and the edit rooms. Unfortunately, since the downsize of the ABC news organisation in 2010 no recording studios are in use anymore in Washington DC, so not much to see on this side of television.

When it was decided that she was responsible for a piece about the new housing boom in Florida the first steps were to start coordination with the reporter and producer in the field as well as gather some background information. The deadline was six o’clock in the afternoon and as the field team still had to do to the interview as well as drive back to the local news studio to transfer the recordings it was clear it will be tight. As a rule of thumb you can estimate one hour of editing for each minute of final aired video. The time for the transfer was expected to start around four o’clock for a 1:30 minute report.

The waiting time was used to coordinate the next hours with the editor as well as gathering b-roll material to fill up the report. A rough script was already available, so some minor preparations could be done. Nevertheless, the finalization of the main part was only possible with the filmed interviews in and tension rose as the clock was ticking.

Of course it took longer than planned to get the material in and so the last hour before the deadline got hectic. The relevant parts of the interview had to be identified and cut, several graphics were integrated and the unified layout of the news show was applied. The original script proved too long and so some “time-savers” had to be agreed on. A slip of the tongue of the reporter was just discovered in the last 15 minutes so some parts had to be replaced again. Till the last minute the editor was polishing video and sound and still right in time the final package was delivered at a heart beat finale.

For me it was impressive to see how throughout a day a news report was created from the scratch. For a final piece of 1 1/2 minutes four people were working a whole day, so it could be aired in time. It felt really exiting in the end to see the live announcement for the report by anchorman David Muir and know that millions of people are watching your work right now.

See the final report about the housing boom starting at 10:40 in the ABC World News, October 21 (viewing might be restricted in some countries due to copyrights)