In the Edit Bay

At ABC4, there are about 15 edit bays throughout the whole station.The edit bays are where the videographers [mostly] and reporters/anchors [sometimes] edit video, sound bites, packages, and things like that. For packages in particular, the reporters and anchors have to write down all of the sound bites word-for-word to give to our closed-captioning person so that there are subtitles for those people watching at home who need it.

Since interning, I have been lucky enough to have been asked by a few of the reporters and anchors to basically do their job for them and write out their soundbites. It's really not as bad as you think -- I actually kind of liked it. For example, one day Nicea was super busy and she asked me to write out her soundbites for a package about peanut allergies. I learned more than I thought I ever could about peanut allergies just because I had to write down every word that Nicea's interviewees said.

I would say it was definitely a good experience for me to be able to do that because it really shows that there is more to television than just looking pretty in front of the camera. There is work involved and it's not always the most glamorous. Sometimes it's sitting in a dark edit bay, listening as closely as you can to every syllable someone says, and getting a hand cramp from writing so fast. But that is okay because it makes things a little more real.

My notepad and the computer -- ABC4 uses Adobe Premiere as their editing software.

Two computer screens at once -- what!

It doesn't have to be pretty, the words just have to be perfect -- no pressure.