When we finished taping show one a few weeks ago, we immediately began pitching the story for the next show.
I had minimal work to do that weekend because all of my work had come the weekend before. However, during the week, I started gathering recent stories that I could use in case we were short on time after deciding on the show two rundown.
Cut to Wednesday with the reporter writing conferences, and it was a rinse and repeat of the previous conferences. However, it was a lot smoother because this was the second time the conferences were done, and a lot of the reporters knew what they were doing and should be on the lookout for specifically this time around.
By being present at the conferences, it also gave me a better understanding of their packages and if they made show that week, how we could put the rundown together in a cohesive way. At the end of the conferences on Wednesday, I had a show in my head that I was already piecing together.
On Thursday when the packages were due, a majority of them had been submitted before 4:30 p.m., allowing us to start the producer’s meeting an hour later. This works a lot better for me because at night, that is my time to catch up on other classwork.
In the first producer’s meeting, we didn’t hang up the Zoom until 12:40 p.m. That’s super late for me to still be thinking about schoolwork and anything involving my classes. This time around, however, we had decided on the lineup at 8:00 p.m., and I was able to get home to start working on the show.
Due to my busy weekend schedule, I made it a point that I was going to finish the show on Friday and hand it in well before my Sunday deadline. I would not have had time to write on Saturday because of the home football game I work for another job.
This show when it came to constructing the script, I felt that the process went a lot faster than the first time because I knew what I was doing, how everything should be formatted and other things that were pointed out in my initial fix sheet. In total, I spent 10 hours writing the script on Friday.
I broke it up at certain points, like taking a break after the A-Block, B-Block, etc. Breaking up the script and how long I was staring at the computer screen helped me tremendously and it even allowed me to catch some errors that I had not noticed the first time around.
When we recorded the second show in the studio, it was a lot bumpier than the first time around. We had to do four takes of the show because of small miscommunications and general unhappiness from the control room on technical aspects. At certain points, I was getting frustrated because I knew what needed to be done, but it wasn’t being communicated clearly. However, a lot of those mistakes are not things that I can control so I just let it go because it is not worth my frustration when I can use that energy to ensure the on-air talent are prepped and ready to go.
After three hours of taping, we were finished and able to head home. Overall, my time after the show is done being taped for the day is dedicated to refocusing on next week and making the next show better.