There’s nothing worse than getting an assignment in the morning that consists of the following:
- It’s cold outside – do a package and live shot on that.
- Go see if there’s a run on snow shovels because it’s supposed to snow tomorrow night – do a package and a live shot on that.
- People are tired of potholes – do a package and a live shot on that.
Photographers like stories we set up (so we can make sure all the necessary parts of the story will be available) or stories that offer one-stop shopping. Sadly, we usually get the opposite, which actually can be fun if there’s time. That’s when the photographer -reporter team must be creative in searching out people that are affected by the issue. Then we have to tell their story in a visual way. Here are 2 examples of what could easily be a VOSOT. We could have shot the school ceremony, got a principal sound bite, and headed back to the station. Same for the water story – a few shots of the lake and an official sound bite.
The last story, about the father and son, happened because I struck up a conversation with the dad while out on another story. It was a stretch to come up with video, but I felt that both were pretty compelling when on screen. Of course, I didn’t do these by myself. The reporters (Meredith Welsch, Susan Barnett, and Jennifer Roscoe) and I put our heads together before, during, and after the shoot and edit.