Shooting  Stand-Ups First,  let  us  accept  the  fact  that  stand-ups  are necessary to a broadcast news show and must be shot. Many young military journalists are under the mistaken impression  that  stand-ups  are  done  by  civilian journalists only in an effort to reach stardom. It certainly is a factor in getting the civilian journalist noticed and known to the producers and public of the news show, but it still is not the only reason stand-ups are done. The stand-up will place the reporter as actually being there at the scene of the action. With a stand-up, the reporter can often convey vast amounts of information about the story with a few quick images. For example, a reporter wearing a Marine parka and shaking with cold as he seques  into  another  wonderful  sequence  of  shots, certainly  does  not  have  to  spend  anytime  describing  the terrain in which a particular Marine unit is working in. Likewise,  the  reporter  sweltering  in  tropical  dress whites does not have to mention the heat on Guam. Many times stand-ups help create visuals for an otherwise dry story. An example of this would be a stand-up outside the local school introducing the agenda before  the  school  board  tonight.  his  “created”  visual  is often  overused,  however,  by  the  lazy  reporter,  especially when most of the reporter’s sound bites are shot in the editing booth. One-Man Band Shoots Lugging around tens of thousands of dollars worth of  video  equipment  by  yourself  is  not  only  very  tough, it is an unnecessary risk to the gear. You should always have  two-man  news  crews  on  field  shoots.  However,  if there are extenuating circumstances and a one-man shooting assignment has to be made, the following tips may help your people deliver a good product. .   Doing an interview while you are also shooting the interviewee is best achieved when you do the following: set up the camera shot of the subject and then tell the subject to look at a designated spot that you will then move to while conducting the interview. Tell the subject exactly what you are doing and let him in on the process. This will make it easier for him to play along and hopefully not  shift  his  position. l    Shooting your own stand-up may sound silly, but it is possible. Take a light stand and place the white balance card on it at the same approximate height as your face. Do the white balance and also focus on the card, using the edge of it to exact the focus. Then move the stand back a few feet and stand exactly in its place. With practice, both of these tips can produce usable products.  But  remember,  they  are  to  be  used  in emergency situations only and not as a regular shooting technique. TALENT The on-air talent of any news production, whether that talent is the news anchor or the reporter doing the stand-up, is the final tool in the communication process. All the technical tools of the trade and all the good writing, editing and production will fail if the on-air talent  is  not  creditable  and  understood. THE  ANCHOR There  have  been  countless  articles  written  on  the phenomena  of  the  “news  anchor”  in  the  television medium. The debate on the pros and cons of media stars and the worth of an anchor will not be discussed here. It is accepted as a fact, backed by much communication research, that the public still demands to have a human face-to-face  relationship  of  sorts  with  their  news programs. As such, it is our duty as Navy broadcasters to supply such human contact to our audiences in order to better communicate our messages to them. The  news  anchor  of  any  program,  first  and foremost, must be a competent broadcaster with an appearance  that  will  not  distract  the  audience  from  the message he is transmitting. He must also be seen as the person in control of the news program. He must never seem lost or confined and must always appear to know how and where to go during a newscast. Examples of how to project such an image of the anchor follows. .   It would have to be a very unusual news day to prevent  the  anchor  from  opening  “his”  news program with his personal identification. Only a very unique story can start on-air without an anchor’s introduction, much less open the whole program. Such a story might be a “cold start” piece that begins with dramatic natural sound or the sound bite of enormous significance. The scene of President Reagan getting shot was a cold start on most television news programs. But even with such a major story, the news anchor came on shortly after the “cold start” natural sound scene of the Hinckley attack with the program’s identification and his own. Sometimes cold start 8-34