I popped my cherry...
...in a big way!
Above: Anchor Melissa Wright and Comedy Producer Cornelia Holzbauer on a segment for NYU Next.
Last week, I popped my cherry. No, not what you think. I was on live TV for the first time. Our news shows NYU Now and NYU Next aired on Thursday, February 10, and damn, we were shitting our pants. A team of 18 students put together two news shows with segments covering national and global news: from the Ukraine-Russia conflict to Prince Charles’ Covid infection.
Those are hard news. But I decided to go a slightly different route.
During our first class, the professors encouraged us to pitch our own formats and they said it could be anything: from mixing cocktails live on air to putting on a fashion show. So, because Late Night with Seth Meyers, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah are my religion, I decided to pitch a satire show.
With the Super Bowl just a few days away, I presented two segments: one on the hottest Super Bowl ad of all time and one on Prince Charles, the longest-serving heir apparent to the British Crown (70 years, people. In 70 years, my dad became a doctor, led his own practice, retired, and re-entered the workforce to become a vaccine doctor… meanwhile, Charles is twiddling his thumbs and waiting for his turn).
Now, as is true for all of journalism, producing a TV segment is a lot of work. Not only that, it’s a lot of work under an immense amount of pressure.
Here’s a quick rundown of how Thursdays normally go:
1PM: Kickoff. Our team of 18 meets in the TV studio, we quickly assign stories, and then scatter off to different rooms to start research.
1.30PM - 3PM: In those 90 minutes, the bulk of script writing takes place. Then, we get our scripts approved by the Executive Producer (another student) and either hurry off to the recording room to record the voiceover one by one, or we put together b-roll or any other video material we need for our segment.
Here are the options:
Voiceover (VO): A narrated segment entirely covered by b-roll that the anchor presents live on air. No recording needed.
Sound On Tape (SOT): Similar to a voiceover, but it’s pre-recorded.
Package (PKG): An entire news segment that includes narration, on and off-camera interviews, and video material.
Piece To Camera (PTC): This is what I do for my satire segments. I’m speaking live to the camera, here and there interrupted by short video segments.
Live shot: A reporter goes out into the field and reports from there, live on air.
Roundtable: Our sports team usually does those - scripted commentary between two or three anchors live on air.
Live guest: We bring in an outside guest (but they have to be part of NYU, otherwise they can’t get access to our studio because of Covid restrictions) to weigh in on a topic with an anchor.
… and countless others, but those are the ones that we usually do.
3PM - 4PM: We either start rehearsing our scripts on our own or we are still scrambling to put together packages.
4PM - 6PM: The entire team of 18 regroups in the studio and we start rehearsing with the Director, Assistant Director, Sound person (they handle the microphones), Floor Manager (they give the anchors their in and out cues), Teleprompter person, and anchors or producers.
6PM - 7PM: We present our two live shows, NYU Now (hard news) and NYU Next (sports, comedy, commentary).
7PM - 9PM: First, we take a 15-minute break (our only break) and have pizza together, then we head back to the studio to do a debriefing and learn some more stuff (PremierePro tricks, how to do on-camera interviews, etc.)
9PM: We head home. For me, this means taking the subway back to Willyburg and heading straight to bed.
There’s no doubt that this is stressful, anxiety-inducing, and exhausting (insert more adjectives). BUT: It’s also exciting, new, and, most of the time, pretty funny. I really enjoy the teamwork, the uncertainty, and the adrenaline that rushes through my body every time I’m on air or gotta handle microphones or cue in anchors.
In those eight hours, we are all part of something bigger: I can see the drive in everybody’s eyes as they’re nervously tapping their feet, cursing at PremierePro, sprinting back and forth between the TV studio, the recording room, the writers’ room, and so on. We help each other as much as we can and the professors are always there to give feedback, lend a hand, and help us overcome cold feet.
Last week, I thirsted over Isaiah Mustafah and encouraged the execs at Old Spice to hire Regé-Jean Page (the tall glass of chocolate milk from Bridgerton). This week, I failed No Vax Djokovic (sorry, Freudian slip: Novak Djokovic) in an integrity exam I prepared for him and predicted that China would medal in a potential new Olympic discipline: censorship.
Watch recordings of our live coverage at this link. And tune in every Thursday at 6PM for NYU Now and at 6.30PM for NYU Next (the segment I normally close.)
Do you have any ideas for next week’s comedy segment? I’m all ears.