It’s is one of the hardest things to pull off as a producer: Making it to air, clean and polished, despite managers constantly changing your rundown and getting slammed with breaking news.
One time I had a news director reworking my rundown so much, I ended up having just two hours to turn an hour long newscast. I made it with help from associate producers and my anchors, but vowed never to be in that horrible position again. Many of us know producers who write during the newscast, printing scripts a block before they air. This is preventable. Here’s how.
You produce bottom’s up. No you don’t take a flask to work for your top drawer (as tempting as that can be). You literally produce from the bottom of your rundown to the top. It works for all newscasts. Here’s how to do it, using an hour long newscast as an example. Usually the final two blocks of your rundown are segmented and similar day to day. Format, assign the anchor reads & graphics and write these blocks first. Have these stories edited first as well. Next, work on the c-block and :45 block. Put these to bed. Then, do the :30 block and the b-block, except the block leads. Again, finesse what you write, and have the stories edited quickly. Now, in the last two hours, you can concentrate on the a-block as well as the b-block and :30 leads. This way when all hell breaks loose you can slam out any breakers that pop. You will have segments finished that look polished and are complete. So if a breaker doesn’t make it in time you have lots of finished content.
Now let’s talk about backups. Have plenty on hand, stashed throughout your rundown. These backup stories should vary in length to fit different timing needs. This will help make sure you can hit meters nearly to the second. You assign these backup stories to your associate producer (AP) early in the day, and whenever interesting stories develop. Some producers even make AP’s rework package scripts into vo/sot backups in case the reporter moves to breaking news and the newscast gets heavy on time. Again, you want these assigned as early in your shift as possible. That way you can spend the back half of your shift rolling with management decisions and breaking news.
Wait to assign which stories you tease in which spots in the rundown, until one hour before printing. You do this because if the bosses make you blow up your rundown, changing the teases can eat a lot of your precious time. Write those teases in separate scripts at the bottom of the rundown, so editors can put them together. Then move the individual tease scripts up into the rundown and assign anchor reads an hour before printing.
A final trick, put dummy scripts in your rundown that have basic formatting (i.e.- “take vo” cues etc.). If your shop allows it, you can even have these built into the rundown format so you don’t have to create them every day. Also, throw in anchor reads for the block leads the night before.
Here’s a summary:
How to produce it quick!
- Bottom’s up!
- AP writes backup scripts of differing lengths.
- Write entire blocks early.
- Assign teases to their spots 1 hour before printing.
- Format dummy scripts.
- Assign some anchor reads the night before.
