"Gee Crap, what are we going to do tonight?"
"Same thing we do every night Pinky"
"What's that Crap?"
"TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!"
How I do it? I manipulated the power of the media, so to speak, the all so powerful television broadcast!
Actually, this NHK(Japan national broadcasting company) came to my campus to do coverage of the things we do in the campus for a week. There's uhh, robot contest stuff, tea ceremony stuff and whole shitload more. Us foreign students got Thursday.
Well, I appeared on tv for about...umm, 5 minutes? maybe 6. All i did....or all i could do, was say "Hi, I'm from Malaysia. Name's Randy." That's it. yup, no kidding, that's it. And I've got to do 4 rehearsals, FOUR!, rehearsals just to say "Hi, I'm from Malaysia. Name's Randy." Sad case right? But got to be on TV...for the first time, so, it was quite an experience.
After being there, I got to know a lot about tv broadcasting.
You know what they say bout "Live" broadcasting...it isn't actually "Live"....it's a few seconds after the real shot. about maybe 2 seconds. It's really weird watching the few-seconds-after-"Live" video feed...like watching your own past. A little creepy I'd say. Anyway, "Live" as they may say, everything is rehearsed. In the studio, they ask us to do exactly what we are going to do when "Live" ...they time how long we will keep talking nonsense. Fellas, try to imagine the News guy reporting the day's news....twice. with the same intonations, same expressions and same exclamation...super funny. Me and my friend can't help laughing at the 'deja vu' news. Anyway, they then fix a schedule or flow of event, we weren't the only one featured on that days show. The time keeper then set a umm..."extra time" ...in case shit happens, and in tv broadcasting, shit always happen.
During the "Live" feed, the time keeper, armed with her stopwatch will manage the announcer. From time to time, the features get a lil' too long, she will use up the "in case shit happens" time, all the time holding a flip board showing, 1min 30s, 1min, 30s, 15s, 10s, 5s, then using her manicured fingers to do countdown. It's amazing how the announcer can stay soooo cool when pressured by Miss Timekeeper. I guess that's why HE got hired.
Bout' cameras though, stationary cameras are done remote controlled. Cameramen will sit at the control center using joystick and dials to maneuver and do zooming. The moving cam of course, moved by a homo sapien.
And oh, news are done with a blue background, the controller will single out the blue and add whatever background he wants. Anyway, ever wander how the news guys can stare at the camera, not look at the papers but able to deliver the news smoothly, but his hands will be flipping the papers? Well, the juicy lil' secret is that they have a scanner that scans the papers then project them to a screen. the camera is BEHIND the screen. I think the screen is something like a one way view glass. Anyway, the news guy just reads from the screen, and at the bottom line.....flips without looking away......
PS: Since i was on TV, had to refrain myself from jumping up and down, waving like hell and say.." Hey mom, dad, I'm on TV!"
