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Spent the Day at the 905 Branch

I was shipped off to shadow Lucy Lopez of the ‘CBC News at Six‘ team.

Lucy is the face and story-maker of CBC’s new 905 Branch, the division that gets the stories outside the downtown Toronto area. Apparently there aren’t many people in CBC who are a one-stop-shop… as in produce, edit, write, be on camera, everything.  Lucy can too, and I was excited it was another girl.  march 6 2008

We covered three different stories and then we got “streeters”.  That’s what it’s called when you interview people on the street passing by.  Lucy let me do that part, and that was nervousness.  

She gave me instructions and her microphone while she operated the camera, so now there’s footage of me frozen in place with fear then Lucy giving me shove “Go Keri go!” and me asking people if they were worried because the region was running out of road salt during this slippery winter.  I was sad when she said we’d got what we’d came for because I got pretty into it… “Hi hi! CBC here!”.

Then back to the office to edit together the story and plan what she’s going to say live at 6 o’clock.  There we met back up with the 905 cameraman Oliver and producer Doug.  At this point I’m getting stressed because there’s not much time left before six and still so much to do, but Doug, that guy was unfazed.  Like, if you are ever in a serious crisis you should call Doug to show up with his calmness.  

I’m sitting with Lucy while she does the voice over work and edits it all together.  On this giant archaic machine, on tape.  Being a completely digital girl I found this too painful to watch and had to leave the room for a bit and organized their shelves instead.

Time to go on-air.  So the office has an antennae, which talks to one on top of the CN Tower, which is how the story gets fed in live. They let me wear a headset and talk to the crew downtown which I thought was pretty great (Oliver: do you get out much Keri?), and Lucy went live and I watched with saucer-eyes.

I Met an Actual Producer Today

I suppose I’m a producer too, but this guy is for real one.  Like, he’s had his movies and shows aired on TV.  february 11 2008

It was a motivating meeting because… he wants to buy my show!  

He said he’d give me $20 000 in exchange for all the rights and whatever else you screw yourself over by giving away, and in return he’s gonna take me pitching in Toronto and get it on TV.  No thank you.

Spent the Weekend in Toronto

Stayed at a friends and toured around to the areas I think I’d like to live, based on my research.  I even found a real estate agent, too.  

I was sneaking in and out of buildings by tailing people who have keys and came out of one place when I saw a woman standing by the door holding a bunch of papers.

Me: Hi, are you a real estate agent?
Her: No. I’m waiting for one.february 3 2008
Her: If you like, I’ll say you’re an old friend and you can come with me.
Me: Really, you’d do that? Sick, yes!

And that’s how I met Rory.