According to my new studio graphics generator I just did give them 12 stars

HOLY SHIT THOSE WERE MY NUMBERS! I WON!

The second time recently I've been mentioning my experience at a low-budget college TV station...

Oddness aside, I was actually in charge of doing these graphics- not the creation, but the on-screen manipulation of them. Now, our station was by no means..."HI-DEF" (wall mounted keyboards? It must be THE FUTURE!)...so I have no idea what kind of technology these folks are using.

But anyway, how it'd work was, I'd be given a bunch of graphic files and I'd have to arrange them in a pre-determined sequence according to either a script or the general agenda. Sort of like a playlist... one would select an image and it would show on screen as an over-the-shoulder when the TD hit the proper button on the switcher. The images would run in sequence...hit "next" and the next image in the "playlist" would be displayed, and so on.

It was possible to load/display them individually, in case something was accidentally done out of order. Being a low-budget college TV station, mistakes happened an awful lot. I mean, I did my best to be precise, but it was a little like trying to contain a tsunami in a Ziploc baggie. And not even one of those nice freezer bags with the "yellow + blue makes green!" locking zippers, but one of those flimsy sandwich bags with the zipper that was about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. We're now drowning in stupid similes, yay.

When mistakes happened, sometimes we'd just redo the whole thing...when these things were taped. Usually...at the most, we'd tape a ten minute program, so it wasn't a huge deal if we had to redo it (most of the time). Live shoots were a little different, way more hectic. Wrong graphics usually resulted in a bit of a stagger...then the yelling started and now I remember why I blocked out these years.

In short, I don't know why they just didn't take down the graphic and go tight, either.

Having been an assistant producer at a small-market local news outfit, I can say that half the time, the producer is so busy with timing, checking what's next in the rundown, etc. that if they aren't actively checking the Chyrons before they go up, shit is gonna slip through the cracks.

I'd guess the show I worked on had one or two chyron mispunches a week. I've seen major-market newscasts that had two or three a SHOW.

Part of the problem is that there are three separate people responsible for putting them on the air - a graphic operator (like Nuzzles) who puts them in the computer, the director, who puts them on-air, and the producer, who decides in advance what box goes where in the first place. (You could also say that the floor director, who physically moves the cameras, plays a role). The more people you have running a task, the more chances for fucking it up.

I think the short version is that it's tough and you have to be on the ball. I did some TV at college too, and I never screwed up any graphic overlays or sound effects. But people did. My point is that I'm better than those people.

Why did they step on that joke to include the actual wish? Come on people, editing!

four stars for your joke

THIS IS A SIGN.

OBAMA IS THE ANTICHRIST.

Several Florida numerologists probably killed themselves that very night.