Making connections!

I had a great oppurtunity to make a connection with an amazing woman and also a very motivated sports Anchor\Reporter Tara Pachmayer. I was on a trip to visit my sister who works at Miami University and is the Associate Sports Information Director. Her main sports are Men's Basketball and Football although she pretty much works with every sport. They had a game the night against Akron University. Thats when I came in contact with the best contact every. Tara was also at the game covering them for her station WKRC Local 12. My sister introduced me to Tara and after that we talked for the entire game about sports. She told me about her station and what all the responsibiltes of a Sports Anchor/Reporter are. Through conversation I told her about myself and how I work in youngstown shooting news but also that I'm the Sports Producer of my own show Titan Town Sports. For a while I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue to do news or if I wanted to take the sports route and after talking to Tara for hours on end I feel I want to get back into to the sport side of news. Even though there are no positions open at Local 12, I met an awsome and extremly driven woman in the Sports department. I had a great oppurtunity that fell into my lap to make a new connection with someone six hours away. I hope that in the futue Local 12 will have an oppening but until then I will continue to stay in touch with Tara.

Long but fun day!!!

I had a great opputunity to go out with two verteran anchors, Ryan Allison and Bill Castroviche. We started our day at seven o'clock at the station and traveled to springfield high school. The reason we were there was because it was High school letter of intent day which means all the football high school allstars were giving up their John Hancock to whatever school they would be attending and be continuing their collegic career playing football. We went to 10 different high schools, putting 159 miles on our vehichle and also getting over 20 some different interviews with about a hunderd different cutaways. When I was told that I was going to be shooting this I didn't know what to expect but everyone said have fun with it and make it look MTV'ish. So I would go from a tight shot on the kid to a fast movement of him signing, to a logo of what school they were going to. We ended our day around 3 and I then traveled to YSU for a press conference with the Head football coach. It was a great day of experience and just a fun day in general. Not only did I get more shooting experience but I never knew that this day was as big as it is.

It's just how the business is!

You can either run with the flow of life or get left behind in the dust. That is how the business is and you better be able to accept that or get out while you still can. It's true that my company has called me in to work some odd hours and be in a stress induced environment but hey like my title says "It's just how the business is!". Ever since I started I've have come to realize that some people are just not cut out for the business. I feel so far that I am and I also feel that I have done what has been necarssy to get the job done. Yeah, I dont go out like I used and party with my friends but hey you got to grow up and respect your priortys and for me that is going to work when they call me in and missing out on all the sweet partys. The other day I was called in again to work an earlier shift than I was schuduled and that was fine with me. I ended up going out with a well respected reporter and it was a great experience. I shot a package and some vo/sots. When it came time to edit them it was crazy because I had the package which was really two packages because we have two stations instead of one and then a couple vo/sots plus one of the producers gave me a list of a bunch of national stories to cut. I didn't cut every story but I did a bunch. I was in the middle of cutting the one package and I realized I didnt have two of the reporter sound bites so while our 5 o'clock news was going on I had to have this person redo them and then finishing cutting the first package. Well it was really coming down to crunch time and I didn't get my one vo/sot in and some of the producers weren't thrilled with me but they said if you need help cutting stuff just say so. I thought that I would have been able to get it done in time but I didn't and I have to learn from my mistakes.

Inspiration

On Tuesday and Wednesday I had a chance to meet the most inspirational people I have ever met. These extrodinary men and women are blind and go through life just like any one else would. Myself and Paul Wetzel interviewed a married couple that was blind on Tuesday and another blind man who worked at the GoodWill in youngstown. The men worked in a radio news department while the woman worked in another department putting clothes on hangers. It was amazing filming them while they worked because you would have no idea they were blind. The next day Paul and myself headed to Akron to a Vision center to meet another blind woman and a blind def man. It was truly amazing to watch this blind and def man with his interperter. The first thing he said was that he was happy. I then also filmed him working, he put rubber malet's together and he was fast at what he did. He also found his own locker and hung up his coat. After meeting with these amazing people Paul and I were so happy that we had a chance to meet them and interview and also see what they do. They are just like anyone else and can do pretty much everything that you and I can do. These stories I did made me realize why I shouldnt take anything for granted and they truely inspired me to go out and appreciate all the good things of life.

Flying by the seat of my pants!

This week was a very interesting one for myself. Thursday night I recieved a call from my news director asking me if I could possible come in for work. And of course I said sure what time do you need me in by. I ended up working from 12:30 am to 8 am that morning after being up all day and getting about 2 hours of sleep before I went in. The shift wasn't that bad I drank a bunch of coffee and went out on a story that never happened and edited a bunch of national stories. Then I came in the next day for my regular 3 to a 11 shift. I covered a hockey game and shot some highschool basketball that night. Saturday I shot some more hockey and a few other local stories. Sunday is like my Friday and after the rest of the week it was nice that knowing that I would have time to sleep Monday morning. When I looked at the assingment board it had me down for a LIVE shot at this Fire Vigil. I was shocked to see I was doing a live shot but I knew I would have some help if I needed it. I did the live at 6 but it was alot more than just setting up a camera and standing there. There is a million things that go into a live shot and I quickly found that out. I had some help from my boss John Skolada which was huge. The only real problem we ran into was our IFB earpieces werent working and I was on a cell phone talking to our producer having him tell me when to cue our reporter. I had the cell phone in one hand a camera straped around my shoulder and was pointing the live shot camera at our reporter and her interviewe. While the live shot was going on I would lock down the tripod and camera and try and get shots of the Fire Vigil for Mandy Hackmans PKG. Needless to say I was very happy when the sunday was over with.

Getting my foot in the DOOR!!!

No matter what you do in life you must take advatage of the oppurtunites that are brought before you. I have figured out that one of the most important things in life in my eyes are when an oppurtunity is displayed in front of you, you better take it or you will miss out. At the end of August I recieved a phone call from D.J. Yokley asking me if I would be interested in a part time job filming mainly sports for Youngstowns channel 33 WYTV. I was curently in an Internship at channel 21 WFMJ in the sports department and I wasn't sure if I should accept the postion or stay loyal to WFMJ and stick out there. I talked with several proffesors to see what should I do. Each one told me something different and after hours of thinking about it I decided to go for the WYTV job. If I would have stayed at WFMJ I would have ended my intership in December and might have gotten a part time job or just ended my intership making some good contacts. But I didn't I took the risk and went after the WYTV job. Instead of staying in my confornt zone I breached out and put myself in a new environment. I feel the broadcast business is very cut and dry and if you don't jump at the opputunites in front of you might miss out on something great. I know I would be kicking myself right now if I never took the WYTV job.

Coming to an end!

Finally Christmas break is coming to an end and I'm definitely ready to have classes again. I never thought I would say I want to be back in school but ever since I started working last semester I never had much free time so now that I had free time I didn't know what to do with myself. So it will be nice to be back and have a crazy schedule again. Even though I only have one class this semester it is not a blow off class by any means and I will be just as busy. The main reason I will be so busy is because I will still be producing my sports show Titan Town sports. Monday through Thursday will be devoted to shooting, editing and writing for the show. Like I said in my last blog entry I hope to be doing a feature story each week on not only Westminster athletes but also young athletes around the county. Last semester I anchored once and I thought it went pretty good for my first time. I would like to try it out again on a rotating basis with Dave and maybe Chris Norris if he would like. I feel if I can make my writting and on air skills more improved I will really be able to put myself out on the market and hopefully get a Sports directors job someday.