First Week Blast!

My first week as an intern in 'The Correspondents" was a lot of fun. Primarily, because the working environment in the office is really pleasing. My co-interns together with our bosses are really pleasant to work with. They give their instructions as requests rather than commands. Although still I can smell the scent of pressure and haggardness specially on the researcher that is in charge in the upcoming episode.

The working style in "The Correspondents" is kind of different than other offices. There is only one researcher that is in charge of an episode even though there are quite a number of researchers. The said researcher would be in charge of almost everything. From contacting the informants, researching about the topic, shooting the interviews and other needed clips, to getting and researching the needed videos from the archives and up to the post-production of the episode. The Executive Producer is usually just approving and disapproving the options that are given by the researcher and other key positions in the office.

After the said episode the researcher that was responsible for that episode will be given a day-off and another researcher takes over for the next episode. After the researcher's day-off she/he will just usually go to office with no particular time and just make 'tambay' there. Sometimes she/he assists the in-charge researcher of the week but often just does minimal tasks.

This researcher in charge of the week is the onthat we interns assist. For this week I was tasked to find past videos and news articles in the ABS-CBN archives. It was really

nice to see how their system works and have the opportunity to have an access to all this information. They have this certain kind of system somewhat similar to our OPAC but

a bit more complicated where all their news stories and videos from way way back are organized and complete with details.

After searching for your desired video you will need to get the materi

al number of the video which you will be putting in a borrowing form. We were tasked to borrow some tapes to their storage site. It was a really secured office where there are mainstream computers and it was freezing cold maybe it was for the preservation of the tapes. Upon borrowing some tapes we found out that interns were not allowed to borrow only employees are so we just ended up going

back.

After our boss got the tapes she tasked us to find some specific video clips from the several tapes that she got. Some of the video clips that she asked us to find are 'dinner of the Aquino family', 'Cory Aquino and the Times Magazine'. In order to find the tapes we went to the editing room there they have several booths where you can play the different kind of tapes that they are using. These booths also are used for editing news programs like 'Bandila'.

Aside from that I was also tasked to research for the episode for this coming Tuesday which would be about the speech of Noynoy particularly his promises. I was tasked to research about the current problems of the Philippines today particularly the one faced by the past administration. I was also tasked to get statistics data about education, agriculture, health, OFWs etc.. They will be relating these problems to the promises of Noynoy of what he will be doing in his term and if he will be answering to these problems.

After which we also do a lot of transcribing, not only transcribing but time coding it is really tiresome time coding each line in an interview but I know that it will pay-off. The transcriptions will be used by the editors for faster and efficient editing of the episode.

In general for this week most of what we do is in-office work. But my other co-interns told me that we will also be doing outside shoots and informant searching in the following weeks which I really look forward too.

Aside from the work I also had a chance to go around the station during breaks. My co-interns and I went to the different studios where shows like 'Wowowee' and 'Showtime' are being shot. Upon going around and taking some pictures we came by the studio of Sharon

where we learned that there will be a shoot at 9PM that day.

So after work we went to the shoot and watch the program, having an ID makes watching shows easy. It was fun to watch how they do recorded programs like 'Sharon'. How the Floor Director talks to us, the audience, to inform us of what we will do when the program starts like if we would clap or if we would shout Sharon. After the show we also had an opportunity to have pictures with some of the artists. Well in general my first week of internship was a blast. :)

TV INTERNSHIP FIRST WEEK (June 25, 2010- July 2, 2010)