:: Earl Green - Freelance Television Writer / Producer ::

Just like we did during the last sweeps, 40/29 is once again checking school security. This time, though, we sent one of our producers (rather than recognizable on-air personalities) into various elementary school campuses with a hidden camera, and for much of the time, he got to just stroll through these schools, and even into heavily-populated areas like the cafeteria, unchallenged. Not surprisingly, that video makes up a lot of this spot. At the time I was editing, there seemed to be some genuine confusion as to whether or not our producer’s identity would be disguised on-camera, so with that in mind, I did show his face but tried to obscure it as best I could in case a different call was made before (or even after) the spot hit the air.

Election time means election coverage promos, and that means “make it look as stately and solid as the sign in front of a bank.” That’s actually a challenge I enjoy, trying to achieve something approaching a classy look like that. And it certainly was a challenge here: the spot was given to me as an already-written-and-shot piece that I needed to finish out, but the studio talent shoot was a static shot at the Fayetteville news desk. Since the background of that set happens to be blue, I decided to see just how good the Boris FX chromakey plug-in is. (Turns out it’s not bad - take a look! The only embarrassing artifact is that this had to be completed and aired on a timetable that didn’t allow for the kind of precision surgery that it would’ve taken to eliminate the news desk in the shot; as the only non-blue element in the scene, it’s just sort of incongruously floating in space.) No doubt a few more election coverage spots are lurking just around the corner…