My "2010 Year In Review" Part 6

How was my first week of internship? I can say everything that I did there for the first time is unforgettable. My very first day working in CBS 5 "Eye On The Bay" was Tuesday, September 21. I arrived the station around 9:15am and went straight to the office. When I arrived to the EOTB office, I met other interns there. Justin, Raymund, (someone told me that he is in his 40s. :S If he were working at a TV station in my country, he would be the News Director or some managing positions, not reporter, not anchor, not intern!) Honeybee and Danielle. About ten minutes later, they all packed up and ready to go, where were they heading to? They were about to go out and assist the producers and cameramen in the field. Unlike other lifestyle TV shows, almost every EOTB segment is produced in the field rather than in a studio, like in a restaurant, at a park, or a place that interests people. EOTB is a human-interest TV show. All interns were going out, but I had to remain in the office. Now I'm not afraid to say it right here, at that time I was feeling very unhappy with that arrangement, my new fellow intern Honeybee was also on her first week of internship, she could go out but I couldn't?! Did she have any privilege? I really didn't understand. My jealous thought was burning in my mind. Later, I understood that everything has both its good and bad, so I chose to work more in the office rather than outside in the following weeks. And because I mostly worked in the office, I could have more opportunities to learn a lot of different things. General speaking, I think I was working hard enough for them, but unfortunately I was always being overlooked in the office. 

Let me continue where I left off. I said I was asked to stay in the office, so what happened then? Sure, I was feeling tense at first when I heard that I was the only intern who is in the office, and it was my first day! But later I found out that the pace and the mood inside the EOTB office is not that hectic, although the producers are busy to work on their segment, the pace in the office is generally relaxed.

What did I do on Tuesday September 21? I was doing two assignments on that day. First, I help the Features Producer Henry Kaiser (he is such an awesome, fantastic guy with a lot of humor, he taught me a lot of things and gave me a lot of opportunities to help him. I was very happy to work for him during my internship.) on researching some old pictures of a few Bay Area restaurants or hotels that have been opened for more than a century. It seemed like an easy work, but it turned out not that easy that I think. Because I had to search the pictures of the past, no the current pictures of the restaurants or hotels, another thing was the pictures should be large and clear enough to be shown on a TV screen because EOTB is produced in HD. I actually found a lot of pictures (I guess thousands) of those restaurants by googling their names, but only a few of them can be used, other pictures were either too small (like a thumbnail) or not old enough (like taken a few years ago). It took me almost 5 hours to get that assignment done. Later, I went to the internet and do some other researches for other Bay Area's restaurants for about 2 hours, and it was 5:00pm! Then I typed what did I do during the day, printed out the working report and put it into the intern folder. My first day of work was finished.

On Thursday September 23, I was working with another intern Justin, who has been interning since last summer. Both of us were in the office that day because we didn't have to go out and shoot. First I checked emails and voicemails at the intern desk, then Justin showed me how to log video using the "CAT DV Pro". After he showed me how to do it, I was assigned to log Liam's video footage, A-rolls and B-rolls. First, I opened "CAT DV Pro", then I navigated to Liam's folder and open the folder that contains clips. I watched each of them and grouped the clips by giving them names, then I had to determine whether it was an A-roll or an B-roll, after finishing the sort of the clips, I was about to give each clip a description by watching them all one by one. I have to say that was really time-consuming because I had to watch the clip carefully and give a best and clear description of what I saw on the clip. By the end of the day, I could only finished giving descriptions for 2/3 of the clips. Now, I remember what Cassandra told us during the interview: she said logging video could be very boring, but everyone in the office including the Executive Producers have to do logging... But who knew, the duty that I worked the most during my internship was video logging, even on my last day of internship I was doing video logging.
 

After working in the EOTB office for the first week, that's my thought during that time: I think even though we don't have that much of heavy duties like the news interns downstairs, it still takes us several hours to get them done.

My "Year In Review" will continue on next Monday, which is January 3, 2011! Yes! 2011!

Today is New Year's Eve, and there's only about 7 hours until the New Year, I wish everyone have a safe, healthy and happy new year, all the wishes come true in 2011!