I'm Published!

It's my fourth week interning at FATV and I finally have something to show for it! All the shadowing, infested with my endless questions on videography, have paid off and Joe has let me take a stab at editing a weekly 5-a-side feature. This week's footballer: Theo Walcott. The editing was pretty cut and dry, piecing together Theo's soundbites, back to back, coloring them with photos of his chosen football stars he'd put in his ideal 5-a-side team. 

I love this continuing feature for The FA because it shows consistency in viewership and allows England's thousands of fans to get to know their players. If there's anything I've learned from this internship, it's that football is part of British culture. Ask anyone. Chances are, they know football. They probably have a favorite team. If they have a favorite team, they're probably die-hards. They've been to at least one game - or too many to count - and know all of the team-specific chants/songs. Football is the headline of Sky Sports everyday. 

More to come!

Just for Kicks

Earlier this week, I asked the head FATV videographer if I could try my hand at video editing - just for kicks. I had been working on a few administrative tasks that I’ve dubbed “Daisy Duties” – responsibilities normally handled by the FATV producer currently on holiday (I'll go into detail on this later). Joe had me go through some tunnel cam footage from the England v. Switzerland game last weekend and edit together a "short" 2-3:00 min piece. It was a simple task, just cutting together a chronological snippet of the people who went in and out of the Champion's Tunnel at Wembley. After about an hour, Joe clapped his hands in exaggerated excitement and asks, "So what do you have for me, Babs?" After watching maybe 30 seconds of my masterpiece, he said I'm ready to edit my own piece. Thank goodness! I had been waiting to hear those words since my first day as the intern. 

My big moment was supposed to happen on Thursday for the FA Cup sponsorship announcement with Budweiser. Needless to say, I was stoked. Joe said that I, as an American, would be perfect to produce this piece because I can pick up on the quotes that emphasize this significant three-year partnership. Everything was going well as Matt, one of the other videographers, manned the camera throughout the whole event. I followed him around the entire time, making mental notes on what shots he was getting, how many cut-aways he had and who was interviewed. Unfortunately, some of the big names we waited to interview had taken too much time and we needed to turn around this piece very quickly - so Matt ended up cutting it together as I sat and watched. It was an understandable change of assignment, because I probably would have taken a longer time editing as it would have been my very first piece for FATV. Here's the final product: "FA Cup Budweiser launch" It's quite an upbeat feature. I hope I can learn to pick up on those motion shots, like this.

Joe mentioned later, in an off-handed, light-hearted manner, "No worries, we'll have something for you to edit next week." Sigh of relief. My time is still coming...

On another note, my administrative duties as the interim "Daisy" has been going pretty well - but my first big task ended up being a three-day ordeal. Essentially, two of our guys are traveling to Germany at the end of next week to cover the Women's World Cup and requested me to have our travel agency ATP send them confirmation emails of their flights. Easy, smeezy, right? Well, after a string of emails for four hours one day, I discovered that those flights had not actually been booked. One of the guys wanted to switch to an earlier flight, so the tickets had been cancelled and he, unknowingly, was supposed to go ahead and book the preferred flights on his own. This information was not relayed on to Daisy or myself, so another string of emails with ATP for a few hours the following day clarified this situation. The flights were not officially booked and the confirmation emails had not been sent until the third day, after the final string of emails and a phone call with the company. It wasn't stressful, per say, but more tedious and complicated. I felt like I was handling the situation gracefully and by utilizing my resources: I never raised my voice or rolled my eyes, checked through Daisy's previous emails pertaining to these Germany tickets and contacted all the parties involved to figure out the missing details. By the end of the week, this Daisy Duty was checked off my list and ended up as a success. Producing doesn't seem so bad.

Intern Gets Administrative

This week toned down a bit after a busy, exciting game day weekend. Daisy, FATV's producer, left for an extended holiday this week, so I spent most of the week and nearly all 20 hours going over her typical duties and troubleshooting protocol for those "just-in-case" scenarios: If one of the boys (videographers) needs to book a flight somewhere, this is the company you contact and this is what you tell them... If a shipment comes in and they need to drop it off, this is what you tell them... etc. It was actually pretty enjoyable for me, figuring out the production schedule, organizing shoots, learning to be that go-to person.

By the end of the week, I tagged along to the World Cup team announcement for the England Seniors National Team at South Bank. We interviewed several players and the head coach specifically about the announcement, the anticipation, who they told first, how they reacted, etc. Overall, covering the Women's team and seeing how much coverage they were receiving, was uplifting to experience. They got a significant amount of media coverage for a female sport. All the people I spoke with made it clear that U.S. soccer has better opportunities for female athletes, but coming from the States, that doesn't resonate. It seems that women's soccer just has too many professional sports to compete against.

Week 3: Can't Get Any Better Than This

Honestly, this week was somewhat a blur. It seems like a mixture between a dream and being star struck with my brushes with the England athletes. Regardless, I've learned a lot and experienced my first game with the England seniors, national team.

The beginning of the week was more of a waiting game than anything. The FATV team and I ventured to the Arsenal training grounds and The Grove hotel to document the England seniors as they prepped and bonded before their Euro 2012 Cup qualifier against Switzerland on Saturday. As the boys practiced, played golf and table tennis, we were there to document as much as we could to show the behind-the-scene experience of England's greatest footballers. All this footage will later be edited and used to create a long-form DVD about the seniors' team road to the Euro Cup. Between practices, pressers and interviews, some FATV-ers would edit packages... or find something to do. This translated into playing their own games of table tennis, eating or roaming the absolutely beautiful grounds of The Grove estate.

As usual, my role during this entire process was pretty simple. I shadowed the videographers, asking them question after question about their journalistic techniques: How do you shoot beauty shots differently than you shoot game or training footage? What's your motivation behind pans, zooms and focus changes? How do you decide the types of shots - wide, medium, tight - to get during situations where there isn't a lot of movement? I was a lot more assertive this week, asking to try my hand at filming in their style, making suggestions when editing and such.

Gameday was really when I felt useful, although I was doing a bunch of the typical intern duties. Three cups of coffee - one with milk and sugar, one just milk and one black - six bottles of water, four orange juices, and three Diet Cokes... I fetched them all Saturday morning before the game. I ran up and down eight flights of stairs at Wembley Stadium multiple times to fetch guests from the front office and help them through security. I carried cables and tripods, kept track of paperwork and even found and returned the hair gel of one of the guests. It sounds bleak, but it was all worth it.

New Indy band, Brother, takes Wembley Stadium, performing for the first time at the historic venue on Saturday, June 4.

Saturday morning, I helped set up equipment for the FATV recording of an up and coming UK indy band called Brother. I helped them through security, gave them directions and felt like I got ample time to chat and get to know them. During their live, acoustic performance, I took pictures of my own and assisted a videographer. The rest of the morning I was instructed to "babysit" the band, which basically allowed me to hang out with them for an hour before escorting them to their next appointment at Wembley.

The Switzerland national team leaves the tunnel to enter the field and warm up before kick-off.

The rest of the day, I was stationed in the tunnel where all the players pass to and from the locker rooms and the pitch. Words can't describe how incredible that atmosphere was. I assisted the videographers here by keeping an eye out for specific players and happenings within the tunnel. This seems mundane, but it actually required that I have knowledge of the players and key personnel of the England squad, things I've been able to pick up on in the past couple weeks. My time to shine came when FATV's producer asked me to conduct interviews with the child mascots for the day's game, getting them to show their excitement about meeting the team and walking onto the field for the national anthem. This was used for a very simple segment on the FATV YouTube site, but it was the first sign to show that they know I'm capable of more than just observing.

Check back for more blogs about the gameday atmosphere at Wembley Stadium!

As the England seniors warm up behind me as I cheese on the sidelines.

All 22 children are interviewed after taking the field for the national anthems of Switzerland and England, holding hands with the teams' starters. These lucky kids with such duties are called "mascots," and many of them won this opportunity by entering a McDonald's drawing. 

A Snippet of England's Training for Euro Cup 2012 Qualifier v. Switzerland

Joe Hart, Ashley Cole, Stewart Downing, Peter Crouch, Frank Lampard and the rest of the England seniors at a light training for the Euro 2012 Cup Qualifier v. Switzerland.

Coverage of the EU by "The Guardian"

The European Union is consistently covered in “The Guardian,” oftentimes appearing as major headlines in political and economic news. Everyday this week, at least one story on the EU has been published, examining internal affairs of EU leaders, EU agenda and upcoming issues. The articles I found most interesting were published on Tuesday, May 24, highlighting the state of the EU and the eurozone, specifically reflecting on the debt crisis in Greece.

On Tuesday, “The Guardian” analyzed the debate on Greece’s need to reschedule its debts. The EU Business Secretary Vince Cable pushes for the rescheduling because it is “the best option, or the least worst option…” and that leaving the eurozone would not solve the problem. The article continued, however, by pointing out that the eurozone has never been exposed to this kind of debt crisis before.  Overall, “The Guardian” only quoted one source who had a very clear opinion on the matter, therefore providing a very one-sided argument to the issue. “The Guardian” writer was the only voice that lightly touched on opposing, which were quickly combated with quotes by Cable.

Another angle of the eurozone was covered in the same day with a grave tone, titled, “The European dream is in danger: prepare for another rude awakening.” Here, “The Guardian” discusses an overlying feeling of apprehension and fear amongst the EU states about the unrest and instability in many major countries that could quickly break down the union and the monetary eurozone. Greece’s debt default, Germany’s rising borrowing costs, Spain’s mass protests and Ireland’s rise in emigration has the EU shaking. “What's at stake this summer is more than just the future of the eurozone, for which there are predictable outcomes. It is the future of pan-European solidarity, which has been implicit in the project of the EU and, recently, in short supply.”

This article had the most reaction of any of the EU articles of the week with 246 comments, 277 Facebook shares and 82 Tweets. This is significant because it shows that this specific topic and analysis is something that the audience wants to hear about. What’s interesting about this observation is when this article is compared to the previous, the straight news analysis is more popular than the traditional news coverage of a similar matter. Both articles discussed general instability within the EU and possibilities for improvement, but the second article, written more as an opinion/column piece, seemed to be more relatable and conversational. The majority of the comments agreed with a few points made in the article, but oftentimes included other opinions that slightly differed, or brought up completely different issues. It seems that the European public prefers a very democratic, checks-and-balances type of journalism that allows the journalist to act as an authority and the audience as contributing writers. 

Pet Peeve of the Day

In the UK, everyone clearly drives on the left side of the road... but on the sidewalk, it's free-for-all. I can see people coming at me from a distance, but no one ever seems to flinch from their pathway. When I choose to take the left side of the sidewalk, there is always walking toward me in my lane. When I take the right lane, the same thing. I've even began walking in the middle of the sidewalk and still find myself in the way. No one seems to move for you, either. It's like if you decided to play chicken and see who would dodge out of the way first, you'll lose. Rarely will someone move out of the way for you. This is the worst when I'm running outside, trying to get to the park where there's much more room for pedestrians. People will see you coming at them, clearly at a quicker pace, and still maintain the same course. It's a pet peeve, maybe my biggest pet peeve here. Regardless, I should be thankful if walking the sidewalks is my biggest nuisance of the summer.