MSNBC Producer in Documentary Unit
“Our MSBNC group collected at a makeshift edit center. We were informed that we had actually rented this work space/studio which our group was accountable for developing an hour-long+ program for MSNBC– and they desired it to air ASAP. With all of what was going on, we required to get individual stories on air NOW. I keep in mind that we had field manufacturers purchasing individuals’s video footage off the street; I think we taped it on our own electronic cameras and ran it back to the editors. We didn’t have smart devices; we had flip phones, Blackberries, old-school electronic cameras, camera, even non reusable electronic cameras … getting raw video footage was difficult and the quality wasn’t great. The video footage– we chose– was going to inform the story.
That video footage sculpted the course for us. We had the ability to inform individual stories of those who taped what they did. That video footage became our historic compass.We were composing, modifying, talking on landlines with NBC, cops, healthcare facilities, city authorities simply attempting to make certain every bit of info was precise– which was near difficult.As quick as we might absorb all of this information/footage/stories entering into us– whatever kept moving. We’d compose something and scratch it. We’d modify a plan, and it altered a minute later on.
I saw video footage that would never ever, and probably has never ever and will never ever, make it to TELEVISION and the public. It was the most horrible video footage of death, damage, desperation by numerous individuals. I keep in mind sobbing where I could not stop. I could not type. I might hardly speak. We were not going house anytime quickly– we were going to exist all night, and we were going to be there for days and days.
Miraculously, we did develop an hour-long documentary that exact same night with all of these extraordinary individuals informing their dreadful stories. I do not understand how we did it. But we did. Our MSNBC group were a few of the very best manufacturers in business. We interacted. We consoled each other. We leaned on each other. We wept together. It was team effort at its finest … and honestly, that hour-long program that we did that night is work that I will continue to be most pleased with.”
