Maine Channel Conclusion:

As the end of the semester winds down activities begin to wrap up. This semester was my first semester participating with the Maine Channel and it has definitely been a rewarding experience for me.

Although it has added a lot more to my plate in the busiest semester of my college career but it offers something you can't obtain inside a classroom, experience. Solving problems with students and no further help is a skill that is extremely valuable in the real world. Whether it's trying to figure out the evil switchboard, get audio through the cameras, or format a package you learn these things for the better.

This week I operated a camera and worked on a story for this weeks newscast. The studio camera was giving me a problem and would not play audio through the headset Me and other members overcame this problem and determined the reason for this was a faulty cable.

I would encourage all to participate in The Maine Channel with any interest at all. One of the freshman members that I talked to enjoys the Maine Channel so much he is considering a major change from engineering into journalism.

I made the switch from writing for print last year in the Maine Campus and new a member of the Maine Channel and have learned things and achieved experiences I never thought I would on a college campus, although this started out as a way for extra credit for a class, it has given me great experiences and knowledge that I will use next semester with the Maine Channel.

Rehearsal Attendance

After going through the rigors of formatting my three minute package for broadcast I attended the Maine Channel's rehearsal to make sure everything went smoothly.

I am glad I did attend because the story only came out to be a minute and a half and the wrong story was chosen so it was necessary for me to be there with my hard drive and to reexport the project.

The package will be airing live on the news at 5:30. I am fortunate to have the Maine channel pick this up because this is a great story here at the university of Maine and doesn't get the attention that it deserves.

My two interview subjects will be pleased at the press I am sure as I have already emailed them thanking them and letting them now it is both online and will air tomorrow night.

Working with the Maine channel is really beneficial due to the knowledge I have achieved. I have run into so many problems here and it is great to collaborate with my peers in order to find a solution.

For the love of format

Little did I know about the format needed for the Maine channel to use my package through final cut.

I was told that i would need to reformat my package in a format that is compatible with the switcher used in the studio. My immediate thoughts were "no problem this shouldn't be too difficult".

I was directed to firstclass to look up a document on the Maine channel's folder which provided step by step instructions to restructure a video in final cut to be used for Maine channel production. I did not realize just how taxing the reformatting process was.

The format called for you to go into final cut with your project and export it as a certain type of file. Next you had to import that file and export it again with very specific designations.

Now that my package is formatted I am crossing my fingers that it will be compatible. This has been a learning experience for sure and definitely another piece I can add to my final cut/Maine channel repertoire.

Preparing my story for Maine Channel

While working on one of my final projects for my CMJ 351 course I realized that this story could be used for the Maine channel. The story covers chytrid fungi in Maine and the nationally renowned research being conducted at the University of Maine.

Upon beginning my editing for the story I realized that the project would be more daunting for editing for the maine channel. I had so much good material and interviews while doing the story that instead of dreading the 3:00 minute final for my class I actually welcomed it. Now shrinking my story down and completely redoing it is actually harder.

I am shooting for about 45 seconds for the story. The story will have only one person discussing chytrid fungi as well as a stand up from me and hopefully as much B - roll as possible. It is difficult moving things around and deleting excellent sound bites that I really like.

It amazes me the story that are available in such rural areas in Maine that I am really advocating giving this story the press it deserves. I am pretty much done with editing the story down to 45 seconds, I was surprised at the amount of ours it took to get it where I wanted, I think the most difficult thing was editing a big story down to 45 seconds.