1st Day of Internship

Picture 1: When I got there we took a long tour of all the stuff we were going to use. I saw the camera that they use to shoot the news casts and I couldn’t resist myself I had to mess around with it a little bit.

Picture 2: This is an editing work station that we are going to be using. There is around 10 of them in the building that are open to us. The program is a similar one to final cut pro. Its just PCatized.

Picture 3: This is the operations mentor Sherry Lou. She is in charge of the rundown (script) of the news casts. What the cameras are going to do, the angles, the order of the stories. That kind of thing.

Picture 4: The studio that broadcasts the news reports. This is the spot you see on TV, its a lot smaller than what I expected but all the equipment is really cool. It certainly caught my eye because I’ve seen it before but not in person.

Picture 5: This is the networking mentor Craig. He’s going to work with us on the transferring of files, saving, formatting and that sort of thing. He is wearing a standard polo and jeans which is what most of the workers at NBC wear.

Picture 6: This is my station where I help Sherry Lou with the rundowns and whatever else she needs me to do. The stations are pretty open, anyone can log onto any computer because they are all on the same server.

Picture 7: There is a room thats about the size of the main commons filled with racks and racks of expensive equipment. Servers, computers, routers, channelers, wires this room is the heart of everything. A lot of it is hard to understand but its really interesting to see it all.

Picture 8: How could I go to NBC and not get a picture with one of the news talents.

What are some of the larger things getting cut because of the recession?

NBC no longer has a helicopter flying in the air for traffic and other things. They have to share with news 8. They also had to let go of some of the workers working in positions where there were more than one person on that assignment.

Are all the news companies under the same kind of stress from the recession as NBC?

According to Bill (the broadcasting mentor) they are under stress but NBC is under the most because out of KUSI 8 FOX and NBC, NBC is the lowest rated news station.

The Day:

I woke up at 7:33 and realized that today was the first day of internship. I jumped out of bed and got in the shower. I then put on my nice button up shirt, slacks and a tie. My dad asked me if I wanted pancakes but I told he that we didn’t have enough time and we were out the door at around 8:11.

I arrived at NBC at 8:37 and continued up to the 3rd floor to meet my mentor. I was greeted by Sai, Osamah and Faith (student at international). We were taken by one of the workers to the picture room to have all of our pictures taken and turned into keycards to gain access to all the doors. Bill showed up to take us on a tour of the equipment, it took around two and a half hours. By then it was around noon and Sai and I walked across the street to Baja Fresh. They are really expensive. In the afternoon, Bill had left and I was under the wing of Sherry Lou. She showed me the basics of writing up a rundown which is basically a script of cameras, order of stories, which news caster says what. After that, I got my own personal account on the server so I could now log into any computer. Today was a rather easy day, it was more of a “show me where stuff is” day.

Until Wednesday I am working on broadcasting with Bill. After that the interns will switch roles. I am ready for anything they can dish out, some things more so than others. I’m really excited to see a news cast take place and what happens behind the cameras that you don’t see. I am also really excited to get into the editing room and make the videos off the rundowns that are made. I’m going to have to learn to use PC’s instead of my beloved mac because there are no macs on station. The only thing I’m nervous about is knowing that my work goes up on the TV where anyone can see it.

After work I got picked up at roughly 3:52 and went home. The rest of the night was mine to chill.