By Symone Grady

Last week I was able to go out into the field with a reporter to cover a story. This was the highlight of my week. I was so excited to actually be doing field work. I went out with a reporter and another intern to respond to a call we got from a woman reporting that there was something going on in the house across the street from hers. We rush to get our camera, battery, and sd card, hop in the company car, and make our way to the address that was given to us.

Upon arriving, we see four cop cars and a woman observing. The reporter immediately rushes over to the officers to ask what’s happening only to be directed back to the vehicle. One thing that this reporter taught me was to always be persistent. After being directed back to the car, she set up her camera and began recording footage of the cop cars and of the officers going in and out of the building. Roughly thirty minutes later, a reporter from another news station showed up. Then, the reporter once again attempted to get information from the officers, in vain.

We ended up staying at this scene for roughly an hour and a half. The reporter’s persistence actually paid off because we were able to get someone of the appropriate ranking to talk to us. Come to find out, the cops came to this house looking for a murder suspect. However, when the officers’ knocks went unanswered and voices were heard from inside the house, they forced their way in only to find two men disposing drugs.

Going out in the field with this reporter taught me that you must be persistent. When it comes to getting your story, you cannot give up. People are not always going to want to talk but you must be persistent or adapt. It was also cool to see how fast her footage and pictures were displayed for the public. This was a very exciting experience and I cannot wait to go back out into the field.

By Connor Davis

(Week of 2/16 – 2/20)

This week was spent in preparation for the Youth of the Year dinner at the National Infantry museum held on Thursday night.  There were a couple different errands that we had to run back and forth between the office, clubs, and museum before the event.  My coworker Michael and I dropped off a podium, event materials, and posters to the museum all throughout the week.  On the day of the event is where I got the most hands-on experience I have had since my involvement at Boys and Girls Club.

I arrived at the National Infantry museum around 2 PM that day, allowing around five hours for set-up time.  We first met with the audio/visual technicians at the museum so that we could ensure that our PowerPoint presentation and music were properly working for the event.  Then we arranged all of our posters representing the Youth of the Year Finalists, set up our information and registration tables, and made sure that the banquet and reception rooms were ready for the night.  The museum was in charge of setting up the dinner tables, stage, and for providing the dinner and drinks.

The event was a complete success.  I was in charge of welcoming the committee chair guests to the museum and ushering them into the reception.  I was friendly and dressed in business attire so that I could make the best possible impression on our guests.  I also assisted in directing the banquet guests to their respective tables and managing the guest list.  During the banquet, I was able to enjoy dinner and appreciate the atmosphere.  There were over 500 guests in attendance and I had the chance of meeting a lot of new people.  After dinner, I waited with the four Youth of the Year finalists and directed them on-and-off stage during their awards ceremony.  I was able to be involved in crucial areas of the evenings proceedings and gained a lot of practical experience with event management.

This upcoming week, we will have the chance to debrief on the event and shift focus to the next task: the Women’s Giving Circle 2nd Annual Luncheon.

By Tiara Pickens

Videography

Photographers are known for using their creative expertise to visually tell a story. But what does it takes to be a news photographer/videographer, and what does it consist of?

Videographers have a job that demands critical analysis/ thinking, knowledge of communication, production, adaptation, research, and application skills.

Critical analysis/ thinking is applied when videographers decide which and what type of footage they want to capture that best explains the given story. They decide on what is important and relevant to the story. Knowledge of communication is critical for this field. Miscommunication could ruin a story. Knowing how to communicate the requirements with the producer, then deliberating the details to the reporter, will create a smooth and easy process of getting the job done as a team.

Application and research works hand-and-hand on gaining information and applying that information. Finding out information about a particular scene through interviews and then applying that interview to a news package, will award you a good production piece. Production is producing your own work. Videographers produce their work by conducting footage; interviews; and video editing. Videographers having the ability to produce diverse stories and broad events require adaptation skills. Being able to adjust to the given environment of a story, or being exposed to different situations to solve may be intense at times. Things change over time, and new problems needs new solutions. Adapting to change is a skill that all videographers must acquire.

There is a lot of work and skills that goes into being a good videographer/photographer. It’s not all about knowing how to use a camera. So when you see a news production on television, know that there were six components executed to help make that production successful.

By Sherale Booker

This week at NPACE I worked on a proposal for a short movie that I wanted to create. The subject was a bit heavy so I ran it by Ventrine and Jonathan Rome to get their feedback on it. Ventrine and I felt that it would be best it I scaled back a bit with the topic. After talking it over with Ventrine, I decided to switch my short movie topic to something a little more light-hearted, like a comedy movie. So what I plan to do this weekend is work on another short movie proposal on something that is more comedy based and work on filming that after I run it by Ventrine next week. The goal with this particular proposal that I create is to use fewer characters and also create something unique and funny. Will update later with more details.

By Emily Perry

This week was a bit funky due to the weather. I stayed home Tuesday and worked from home (which is something I’m thankful they allow) and had to leave early on Wednesday due to weather as well. Our office is located near Atlanta, but I live about an hour north of there, so the snow and ice was much more prevalent in my area than in others. I’m glad we have an understanding management team who realizes that making it home safely is the first priority.

That said, I continued with blog optimization and title writing this week. We just nominated a team who will represent the employees’ and interns’ views and relay them to management. It’s an exciting time to be working here because I think a lot of us have really cool ideas and it’ll be nice if management decided to implement them in our business practices.

Thats about it for this week!

Neil Entz

Blog Post

For this week for my internship, I have had the pleasure of doing more shooting. I went with Ben to shoot the Pasquan restoration piece. It was there were he showed me some things to keep in mind when filming. He said to film things that stand out or seem interesting to me. In addition providing valuable information on compositions of my shoots.  In addition, I see the importance of formatting various video footage.

By Ashton Merriweather

This week as an intern at WTVM was a very hands on experience. I had the opportunity to shadow Kim Smith, WTVM sports anchor. We travelled to three different high schools for the first round of the playoffs. We arrived at Callaway High School first, where I seen some familiar faces of some of the guys that signed for football for national signing day a couple of weeks ago. We recorded most of the first half and was off to LaGrange High School which was a 10 minute drive from Callaway. We captured the first quarter of the action and had to quickly travel to Manchester High School, which was a 45 minute drive from LaGrange. Luckily we arrived with over 6 minutes in the last quarter and got a chance to capture some key action shots. I had a great time this week and look forward to what is in store for next week.

Chelsea Person

NPACE Blog #3

This week in the CSU Athletic Department we continued to work on developing the brand for our upcoming women’s athletics event. If you have ever thought that creating a logo, slogan and pitch are easy, I urge you to think again. After much trial and error our planning committee and myself came to an agreement on a logo design. Because of my duty to protect client information, I cannot share the mock up at this time, but look forward to sharing it with the World Wide Web soon!

While I was designing the logo, I had many elements to consider: University Relations policies on use of the CSU brand, color meanings, font, and more. Once I did all the research, I had to decide how to apply the research. All this had to be done quickly. Creativity on a time crunch isn’t ideal, but it’s very “real world.” I’m hopeful that the logo and brand name will be approved and we can move on to the next steps.

No matter what I’m so thankful and excited to have this experience because it so mimics the Communication field and the work place. Deadlines are important, quality is essential and maintaining relationships with your coworkers throughout the entire process is vital.

By Sherale Booker

This past week as a NPACE intern, Ventrine and I have wrapped up filming and editing her campus safety video. It came out very nice and I believe we collaborated on some great ideas together to make it come out as amazing as it did. Ventrine is an amazing editor and I believe she did a great job with executing her campus safety video. It was a great project to work on and she taught me a couple of things as far as video, audio and certain editing tips. Now that we’ve finished up with Ventrine’s project, I’m going to begin my own video project next. Helping Ventrine with her project was super inspiring for me and it really got my creative juices flowing. Ventrine challenged me to create and film something that I was passionate about. I’ve already began working on my proposal for my project and I feel like this project will be something that I can proudly say that I’ve had 100% creative control over and it will be something that will challenge me creatively. I’m super excited about it. I will update later with more details.

Blog #2

By Symone Grady

My current schedule at WTVM is 3:30am-12:30pm Wednesdays and 9:30am-6:30pm Fridays. I began my internship February 11,2015. Since I am not used to waking up so early, I decided to go to bed at 7pm the night before to get at least six hours of sleep. However, my attempts to sleep were unsuccessful. My mind raced as I anxiously awaited my big day. Frustration began to build as I laid in bed trying to let my mind go blank and fall asleep. After getting approximately two hours of sleep, my alarm sounded at 2:29am.

Unfortunately, no one at the station was informed that I would be starting today so they were ill prepared for me to begin working. However, I was greeted with warm smiles and firm hand shakes. I was introduced to all of the early bird staff members. I was setup at a desk to familiarize myself with the software that is used to write, edit, and view scripts. I worked on this for nearly an hour and a half. Then, I worked in the control and production room. It was interesting to see what all goes into each show.

I got a chance to sit in on one of the team meetings. Overall, I can see that everyone contributes and helps each other. After this meeting, Janelle introduced me to Tanita, the Digital Content Director. On Wednesdays, I will be working with her on social media and page content. One of the first things Tanita asked me was to give her a list of all of my social media usernames so that she can “stalk” them. Instantly, I understood the importance of one’s social media presence.