Caitlin's Blog

This semester I took documentary as my elective course. It’s been challenging but interesting work. It allows me a lot more creative freedom as a videographer, which is what I’ve been craving after a semester of hard news.

My first documentary was on wine and how it’s viewed through the eyes of true wine lovers. I spoke to a sommelier, a wine lover, a wine maker and the owner of a wine kit store. All had unique perspectives and showed just how much passion a person can have for this thousand year old beverage.

The next documentary I’m doing is a much more personal affair. I’ve always had a passion for comic books and the heroes contained within the genre. Thus, I’ve decided to focus my piece on feminism and the evolution of female heroes. As a woman, I’ve been highly influenced by these characters. I was never a barbie girl. Instead I dreamed of running across roof tops, beating up bad guys and hanging out with my childhood crush, Dick Grayson (aka Robin).

 The genre isn’t a perfect one though. While the increased interest by women into comics has helped along some important changes (i.e. no more high heels while crime fighting) there are still a lot of costume choices to be critiqued and representations that need to squashed. This controversy is where I’m focusing my documentary. It’ll be a tale about the genre how its influenced my life to this point.

Putting together a demo reel is always a difficult task for me. Ideally you tailor it to whomever you’re handing it in to so as to show how your work you’ve done can apply to the job your interested in. But a general reel is so much more complicated. It’s like when people ask you to describe yourself. What are the traits that you feel best represent you? I’m more complicated than anything you’ll learn in two minutes but two minutes is all I have. In this case as well, it’s about showing the best part of you in two minutes.

It’s your first impression for the world of videography. As I look on my completed reel, I’m not that happy with what I see. It’s not that I don’t like what I’ve filmed or edited. I like all the pieces but I don’t always feel like it demonstrates what I can really do. My specialty is editing and I really like creating pieces with slow build. But you can’t demonstrate that with a two minute piece. I was half tempted just to throw on my one best piece and let that complete work speak for itself. Inside there you can see my sense of timing, story telling, attention to the music and ability to edit to a variety of beats. But that’s not how a a demo reel works and I needed to include shots of myself on camera as well.

Thus, my reel for the moment is compromise. It’s a decent first impression but if you really want to get to know me, you’re going to have hire me.

For my internship I spend each Tuesday on the set of “daytime”. My producer Karen runs a tight ship but always manages to make it a fun experience.

I’ve worked on several aspects of the production. Originally I spent quite a bit of time doing guest coordination. That involves greeting the guests, signing them in, directing them into the studio and being a representative for Rogers TV. For this role maintaining a persona of professionalism is very important. You don’t get put on the front desk if you come in in your jeans and hoodie.

In the control room I’ve been doing a lot of work on graphics and VTR. For graphics you’re in charge of putting up the graphics during the live show. There is a program they have tied into the switch board that does this. It’s laid out like power point where you have slides that are superimposed on the video footage. For VTR you’re operate the tapes. They have one with the bumpers, one with b-roll and one that they just use for audio. You’re constantly watching the clock for this job as you have to “wake up” the decks 30 seconds before you roll them. It’s all in the run sheets of course but it can be an intense hour.

My experience on this show has been very enlightening. It’s given me a better idea of where I want to go in the industry. The things I thought I’d enjoy more, like filming, I don’t necessarily enjoy. Working on the sound board though, which initially seemed intimidating, is a challenge I’m now looking forward to.

For my internship this semester I’ve been working with Rogers TV. The experience has been enjoyable but incredibly tiring. This past weekend is a prime example of that motto.

I spent Saturday and Sunday at the Dominion Tankard - the Ontarion provincial curling championship. In 48 hours Iearned more about curling than I ever thought I would in a life time.

“Go for a freeze.”

“Score a douse.”

“Hurry hard!”

It was a curling crash course. I spent the majority of my time helping out in the promotions booth. We had to be there an hour and a half before each match and stay until the end of each three hour game. Thankfully we had a TV with a live feed hooked up next to the booth so we could watch the game as we sat there. It made the booth a popular spot.

Sunday ended with a tense game that I was lucky enough to watch. It was a showdown between Howard and Corner. They fought it out in the Page match the night before taking it all the way to the eleventh end. Sunday they finished on the 9th with Howard taking the title.

Rogers TV had full coverage all week long. For the highlights you can check this link here: http://www.rogerstv.com/page.aspx?lid=237&rid=10&gid=91011

What is the Higgs boson and why the hunt for the ‘God Particle’ matters by Alyshah Hasham

I’ve always had a fascination with the sciences. Even though the math behind them bored me, the philosophy and the questions driving them grabbed my attention at every turn. Curiosity about the world is what drives most journalists after all.

Still, there are moments where scientist can make me a bit nervous. Scientists have recently discovered what they believe is a key link to explaining the universe. They found this in the Higgs boson, “a subatomic particle thought responsible for giving mass to all particles in the universe,” explains the Toronto Star article.

The reason this particular research makes me nervous is because it’s taking place at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. For those unaware, that is “the world’s largest particle accelerator: a 27-kilometre circular tunnel 100 meters underground.”

Particle accelerators are the things they use to smash atoms into each other. It’s fascinating work but incredibly dangerous. This is the same process they use to generate nuclear energy - by smashing atoms together. Also, a year or so ago there were concerns mention in the media about this accelerator having the potential to create black holes, which have the potential to consume the earth.

Scientists were quick to dismiss this issue citing that it was a miniscule risk but the fact that black holes were even an option makes me nervous. Scientific discovery is important. Understanding the universe is important. But sometimes you really need to consider how badly you need to know. Is it worth a black hole? That’s something to consider. 

I never thought I’d learn so much about light fixtures in my entire life. Yet here I am, doing a story about them. Not directly of course - the actual topic of my feature was light pollution but it somehow never occurred to me that doing my due diligence would mean learning the difference between high pressure sodium bulbs versus LED lights. 

I had slightly more romantic ideas going into my feature. The original idea was to do a piece on the Royal Astronomical Society but in order to introduce more conflict into the story, I switched the focus to light pollution and how it was affecting night observers. It’s funny how the reality of a story and the idea are so different.

One night of shooting b-roll reminded me of a) why I try to avoid night shoots and b) why I don’t take my telescope out in the winter. It’s bloody cold outside in November and it’s worse at night. It makes appreciating the beauty of the universe a bit difficult, especially when you’re hauling a camera bag around and can’t feel your toes.

Yet despite my complaints I have to admit, I did enjoy the topic. The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada was a complete joy to work with. They just love what they do and their president, Steve Holmes was really helpful. He does astrophotograpy and provided me with the photos I used for the opening of the video. The shots were stunning and exactly the high resolution content I needed.

Kitchener Hydro was also very helpful. I’ve never met anyone as knowledgeable or enthusiastic about street lighting as Tony Frensch. Granted, I don’t think I’ve met anyone in that particular field but I was very impressed by the level of thought that went into the urban planning. It’s something I’ve found refreshingly nice about the people that work in municipalities - they really do care about their jobs. You don’t always get that in other industries.