Deadlines and Banter

Coming up this week in my blog… (You always have to tease in media). Besides promoting the fact that regular DJ shifts have started on WMCR, listen at www.monmouthcollege.edu/wmcr and click on the live stream tab, or that MC-TV This Week has another new addition available on line or at the bottom of this post, I wanted to talk about two big ideas that media students have confronted this week.

First is the deadline. Not the fact that projects need to be done on time which I am constantly on their case about, but how deadline pressure can be a great motivator. I remarked last week about the video project we have taken on for Admissions. The students have basically had one week to go through the archives and pick through hours of news footage, pick and edit songs to go with them, shot additional video footage, and edit together a finished piece of work that will showcase the college to students at open house event. Even though students sometimes can’t image getting a project done in a month, the week time frame of a fairly complex project keep them focused and working very hard to have a rough cut ready today. And that cut is ready to show to Admissions later today. The entire crew did a great job.

The second relates directly to this week’s newscast, located below (plug number 2 finished). Going out of your comfort zone is hard and particularly hard when you are on live TV. This week our news anchors tried it and it worked well. One of the harder things for students to get proficient at what in the business we call “Banter,” when anchors are talking to each other or a reporter seemingly without a script. Haleigh and Gabi tried it at the end of one story and it worked very well. What is interesting is that once you can get students or anyone for that matter out of their comfort zone they tend to want to do more and more. So keep on the lookout for more “Banter”, on set interview and all sorts of things real TV people do.

So to end this week’s waste of web space, watch MC-TV thru the link at the bottom (final plug done) .