Some people are inspired by editing works of Ken Burns… to much of my chagrin as much as I have made fun of him (good story teller, lousy filming), I didn’t realize where Walpole, NH is not that far away from home base at MNG.
Millennial aged media professionals – to be blunt are not talented. As the Boomers age, and shows critiquing the media are disappearing (Reliable was canceled last year on CNN) , I did this piece as an ode to the style of the old Beat The Press (canceled by WGBH-TV the year before.) In case you didn’t know Emily Rooney owns the trademark to BTP… I have my own style… I actually wrote the copy in the New Year (the ol BTP did it like the week leading to Christmas), I preferred to way after the New Year because some media events occurred.
My work can be seen below and was published in March on YouTube because I was putting every resource for Sweeps packages of Tuned Out.
The Editing Style and Format:
👋 I am one of those people. I take that back. Walpole is next to Keene and close to I91 in VT… competitor closer to home base than I thought! https://t.co/wH4IebfF97 pic.twitter.com/quX53CChZM
— Steven (@MinifigNewsguy) March 13, 2023
I’m a story teller, but within a very tight limit of 90 seconds (or close to.) Non Linear Editing is a unique skill, most YouTubers are notorious for just cutting long clips up instead of building them out. It seems to many young people aspire to be Burns, while I just want to kick their asses and go furrther. As previously mentioned about Beat The Press, I wanted to take the editing elements in the packages featured on the ol WGBH show and make it a semi frequent feature here. For this purpose, I took the editing style of the show to use for my Eat The Press: Rewind 2022.
A lot of news of the industry and policy collided. I wrote the copy that was four pages long, I then had to find the b-roll and match it to my voice over tracks. The next challenge was how much in the b-roll and how to segue from policy, to the industry, and then to the local media scene of Boston then to the passing. (And there was lot of people that passed in the Boston media, I felt was really necessary to include…the many passings were as multi generational you can get in a long time.) I also took New England One’s aircheck of Barbara Walters’ last day on The View in 2014 and felt closing out the piece would be fitting:
If you are familiar with the editing and Avid’s Media Composer, of which WGBH/TV has a large installed base since the early days of Avid; and Beat The Press (at least in the early 2000s used many of the effects used in Media Composer, things like Z spin (for a wild turn of events), push-effect (in the cognitive -dissonance) and the page-peel effect if the segue was about the local papers.
To avoid being too wordy talking about something that is visual, here’s an example from my collection, time coded specifically to one of the packaged pieces and how the segues went from one thing to another.
The effects are found on the Free edition Avid’s Media Composer | First, and you yourself without much money (a decent computer – specific to Avid’s demands) you yourself could be the next Beat the Press (we sure as hell need more people critiquing the industry and the news management!)
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