A behind the scenes look at TV election coverage

It was a busy day for me yesterday but not like Tuesday which was of course the midterm election. I have been through many of these as a newscast director and they are always chaotic. If people could only see the craziness that goes on behind the scenes. It doesn't matter how much you plan or how prepared you are it's going to be nuts. News people stress themselves out just at the thought of an election. Not so much for us production people. Sure we acknowledge that it is big day and we go through what ever preparation necessary to get the job done but the mentality stays the same. Get on as nice a show as you can but don't sacrifice the overall look of the product. You can't get bogged down with the hype of a big show. Every show should be a big show or your in the wrong line of work. When I was a young director I let myself get caught up in the hype and got myself all nervous before a "big show". I completely bombed it. I learn this lesson that day. Do your best on every show and there is no reason to try harder because you are already doing your best.

The craziest times are usually when we are in un scripted coverage. Fly by the seat of your paints. I have to admit it is a nice change from doing newscasts. It's like doing breaking news. You manage newscasts but you direct breaking news situations. There are 2 to 3 producers in the control room and the phone is ringing off the hook. Everyone would love to be in the room giving their input they can't it just makes the situation worse. As much as it makes them mad sometimes as the director you have tell people to shut up and possibly to leave the room. There should be one main spokesperson as far giving instruction to the director. Interaction with other producers should be kept minimal. This cuts down on getting contradictory information as well the noise level.

Tuesday we had two major changes the made the night more challenging. That afternoon I found out that we would periodically be adding a fifth person to our set that was built for 4. We came up with a quick plan that we thought would work. We didn't have the luxury of getting cameras and talent in place to test our plan as we were close to news time. As luck would have it when we got into coverage our plan didn't work. Our fifth guest was hid behind the host on the group shot and we had to shoot between heads to get his close up. The guys on the floor made some adjustments and it finally worked it's self out. Another change happened in the middle of coverage. As you probably noticed that on election night programming is squeezed back over poll numbers. It's called a ticker. This all happens independent of the control room. There are three people in two different rooms that operate that. One person compiles the numbers. Another puts them in the computer that runs the automation and then master control puts them on the air. We were broadcasting on the web, radio and the government channel. With cut-ins on our main channel. The ticker only airs on our main channel. In the middle of coverage management decides they want to see it everywhere. So, engineering had to scramble to make it available to the control room and we had to build and adjust effects to compensate. We had to sacrifice some things but this goes back to what I said before about preserving the overall look. Those things were just window dressing.

It was a long tiring night. Overall things went well and I think everyone did a good job.