Today was my final day at WYFF4, and I realized that by having it on a Thursday (instead of Friday) it really threw everyone off a little bit. I started the day by sucking up to several of my managers with coffee-related beverages. I then dove right into the arduous process of extricating all my random junk from every odd corner of the building; lockers, vehicles, closets, and my office. Eventually I arranged my gear neatly in my cage for the chief photographer to inspect.
No doubt, the vultures will soon circle my gear and eventually start picking away at various components of the carrion carcass that is my Sony XDCAM. By the time you read this, the contents of my locker will look quite different.
From there, I did some random work-related things before heading off to lunch with the Creative Services department. We all took turns recounting our “where were you when 9/11 happened?” stories over fried onion straws and sweet tea, before heading back to work.
Upon returning to work I rounded up all the discs and tapes, filled with footage I’ll never need, and released them back into the wild. At this very moment, the SP tapes are swimming upstream to spawn in sanctuary of a warm Beta deck.
Soon after that I received my first stalker letter! I was wondering when I was going to finally get one, so I’m glad it finally happened on my last day (mainly for personal security reasons). While the letter wasn’t filled with talk of “sorcery rapes” or DaVinci Code numerology, like many of the stalker letters other on-air people have received, I still found it amusing. Much of it was unintelligible, but I did like references to “cloud warriors” and weird correlations between things like Howie Mandel and whooping cough.
Anyway, I didn’t get to read much of the letter at the time, for I was summoned to the newsroom for a farewell speech from the News Director. After giving a short speech myself, I was awarded the silverish “farewell cup” and then promptly ordered to cut up my cookie cake for all those folks who impatiently waited through all the boring speeches for some frosted cookie parts.
Once the whole cookie thing was done, the rest of the day pretty much flew by. So much, in fact, that I’ll probably be going back tomorrow to tie-up a few loose ends. Hopefully I’ll see some tears tomorrow afternoon, I’m gave everyone 24 hours to rehearse.
I’ve been working hard at getting my anchor image campaign off the ground, so that we had some extra promos to air during the highly successful 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Here’s the four spots that start running tonight:
I shot them all in 16×9, and snapped B&W stills during the shoot as well. I got back to the station, edited them together, and then wrote instrumental pieces on my guitar to go along with each one (okay, I made that last part up).
Now that the 2008 Olympics are getting underway, I can finally start posting some of the station image spots we’ve been doing (since they start airing this weekend). We have about seven promos featuring John Cessarich, our Chief Meterologist, and here’s the two that I produced and shot:
I produced another one of these spots, and I embedded the video after the jump: [click to continue...]
That’s right: my office. I’ve been given my own workspace back in the Creative Services department, as I fill-in for one of our promo-producers while she’s away this summer on maternity leave. I’ll be splitting up my work week by shooting news stories the first half, and following it up by begging random photogs for the video I need to cut promos during the rest of the week. Enough about all that…back to my office…
It’s actually a small, closet-ish space, but I’m certainly not complaining. I’m loving it. And while today is my first official day working out of my office, I’ve wasted no time getting it all decorated to my liking. I’m keeping it mostly professional. Back when I had a mancave at home, my computer workspace was covered with all kinds of geeky memorabilia - making it look like a wealthy middle-school kid lived there. My place at work is much more tasteful. Here’s a quick by-the-numbers tour:
1. Dazzler (issue #1 -mint) - Who doesn’t love a laser-light superheroine on disco rollerskates? Dazzler might not be the most popular mutant in the Marvel universe (something the jackasses in the comic shop remind me of on a regular basis), but she did save the X-men from the Hellfire Club back in the day. So there!
2. Lost promotional poster – It’s signed by half the original castaways. I know it’s an ABC show and I work at an NBC affiliate, but they have yet to give me a Heroes poster…
3. Dolls Action Figures – The Punisher and Captain Kirk remain vigilantly at red alert over by my desk lamp.
4. Robot 2000 – I think it’s pretty obvious that I’d end up with one of these on my desk, right?
5. Top secret May sweeps plans - I probably shouldn’t talk too much about this one.
6. Photos – This is a bunch of cute photos of me and my wife arranged on a weird sputnik-looking thing I got at Urban Outfitters.
7. Cobra Commander – He’s a long way from his serpentine lair, but there’s important stuff in my office that he needs to oversee (meanwhile his subordinates plot against him in his absence).
8. WYFF Photog Staff Photo – This is so I don’t forget where I come from, even though I’m still slinging a camera and tripod half the week.
9. Flowers? – I got this lovely bouquet from my wife to place on my desk. I’m keeping it in front of the television, so that I’m not tempted to watch Rachel Ray and Judge Judy all day.
UPDATE: Due to a database error, I've had to reinstall 18 months of Wordpress posts - which are like 65% there, but without comments and trackbacks. I'm still working on getting everything back.
