Day 4: Lights, Camera, Action!

Well it's Friday, and today was the first day we actually shot live footage while working alongside studio anchormen to bring the public live feeds from the floor.... and it was awesome!!

However, one of the joys of such an occasion does not come without it's downsides, such as having to be at work at 3:45 am. I rode my bike through the city of Denver at an ungodly hour of the night and arrived at our CNN headquarters right on time. After prepping the camera's and checking the audio and sync, we headed out onto the convention floor and prepared our shots for American Morning. Probably one of the coolest things about the morning was that I got to meet and hang out with CNN reporter Joe Johns. We shot several live feeds for CNN International, and American Morning, and then followed it up with some "look live" shots where we imitated live feeds and Joe Johns simulated discussions with anchor people even though there was no one else on the end of the line. We had some down time so I decided to talk golf with Joe and we discussed clubs, scores, and our similar tales of not hitting it past the women's tees, and being forced to play with our pants below our knees. He got a huge kick out of that. I found his notes hidden under a table in the center and returned them to him later in the day, I think I got some "intern points" for that too. woo hoo.

The rest of the day was rather dull for the most part. We wrapped up the morning shoot around 7 am, so I biked home to sleep until about 10:30 because our next rehearsal started at 11 am. Some of the interns and I got suited up in reporter gear to test the lighting, sound, and sync, and then we sat for a long time waiting for the studio people in New York to get ready. During that time however, I got to meet one of my favorite political personalities for CNN, John King.

My CNN contact and cameraman, Jay McMichael, gave me a heads up that John King would be arriving soon, and that I should head over to the magic wall in order to possibly meet him. I went over there and was invited again by Josh (the wall engineer) to play around on it. People began to joke about how good I was on the wall, and before I knew it, John King was standing next to me saying "where's this intern that seems to know everything?" One of the cameramen motioned towards me and John turned and introduced himself saying "Hi, I'm John King, and I'll be retiring now since I hear you are going to replace me!" I introduced myself and then laughed, still slightly starstruck by the fact I was casually chatting with John King! We then proceeded to play around together on the wall and he showed me some more tips about how it works and other more interesting ways to access information. I learned from the master himself!

One of the crazy things about King is that almost all of his work on the wall is on the fly. He'll come up with an idea in the middle of the show, and then motion to the directors and cameramen that he'll be moving, and he just gets up and goes to town on the wall. I expected a little bit of freedom, but originally, I thought it was much more rehearsed. He's an expert at voting tendencies per county, and almost knows every county in every swing state because of his work there over the past few elections. It's amazing. He's a really nice guy, and he is unrelenting in his search to find out who Obama's VP will be. Seriously, it's the only thing he even thinks about, said his Producer Laura.

We then shot some live feeds with John for The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. One of the highlights of the day for me because I received a text from my friend from SU Steven telling me that he saw me on TV. I knew that I would possibly be in the shot because I was guiding the cameraman on the convention floor, but because John King walked down with us on the floor, the producers panned out to some wider shots which included myself and the floor cameraman. I almost got clocked in the head when our cameraman panned wide 180 degrees, but fortunately some volleyball drills have kept me agile enough to stay out of the shot.

We hung out the rest of the day rehearsing, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting. It sucked a little, but who can complain when they're meeting top CNN personalities and getting to learn from the best. This has been a tremendously humbling experience, and I'm thanking God everyday that I get to do this.

ps- Put your money on John King to be the first one to declare who Barack's VP will be. Trust me on it.