Set Up for Show

This blog I thought I would discuss the day to day ruteen that a Production Assistant (PA) goes through before every show. I generally work the morning shifts which consist of the 5:30 AM and 6 AM show during the weekdays and a 6AM and 9 AM show during the weekends.

Every day I arrive at WHAG at 5:15 AM. My first job is to set up the studio and prep for the show. When I first come in I immediately get to cleaning the anchors news desk. Generally we clean the desk before the show, so it can get very dirty and covered in greasy hand prints from the 11 PM show the night before. I Windex and buff out the finger prints until the desk is clean.

Then I gather the mics and IFB's for the talent. the news station has 5 mics that we check twice before
every show, although most of the time we only use two mics. IFB's are special little electronic boxes that allow the director to communicate directly with the talent. Which is unlike the headsets we use to communicate since it is a closed channel that does not allow anyone but the specific talent and the director to communicate. The talent has this separate line so they do not get confused with the crews communication during a broadcast.

After the mics and IFB's are laid out I turn on the 4 large monitors used during the broadcast. These monitors are for the CHAT SET, ORANGE WALL, and BACK MONITOR at the anchors desk. The monitors produce live feed and images at the directors will to correspond to the news stories during the show.

At this point I wait for everyone else to show up, because I'm always early, so we can do the first mic check.  Once someone is set on the audio board the PA will get on the headset and check each mic. The person on audio will communicate via headset if the mic is functioning for the show. Once that is done we distribute the mics to the proper talent then place the remainder of them in the charging boxes. Once this task is complete we are officially done set up and ready to film the show!