Anything that can go wrong will

No doubt you’ve heard the old saying: anything that can go wrong will.  I mentioned that last week I was heading over to U Street to do a story on the new Visitors Center. Everything went well I thought until I got back to school to do my editing. Turns out that most of the footage, which was shot outside was virtually unusable. My partner and I forgot to tinker with the camera’s white balance thus causing all of our outdoor shoots to be brighter than usual. Being that I had a limited amount of time to complete the assignment I was forced to use the footage that we had and make the story work in the best way possible. It wasn’t until yesterday that I got the chance to go back out and do my re-shoots. Prior to going down I took the advice of my professor and made a mental list of all the shots that I needed in order to tell the story. Something I didn’t do the first go around. In fact I didn’t even have a story angle until I was in the editing room looking at my footage and something just came to me. If I’d  come up with the angle of my story initially, most of the problems I experienced would have been avoided. Doing this story made me realize that I really have to slow down a little bit when doing my reporting. When I was kid my mother always told me that before I ever started writing a paper that I needed to develop an outline, so  had some idea of what I wanted to address. I am finding more and more that the same school of thought applies to my reporting. Having an outline is like having a road-map ( or GPS) when traveling. Rarely do people go anywhere without their GPS system telling which direction to go, so why should I do my reporting without a road-map of my own. Something I plan on remembering the next time I get ready to produce a story.

U Street Excursion

So, I’m a little excited for tomorrow. My classmate Evan and I get to take a trip to U street and do a piece on the new Visitor Center that just opened. There is so much history in that part of the city, that I wonder what took so long to get an information set up in the area in the first place (that’s one of the questions I hope to get answered.) U Street has seen so much change over the last few years it’s pretty unbelievable. With the new restaurants, cafe’s, nightclubs and apartments the U street corridor has become the place to be it seems for people of all ages. But what really attracts me to U street is the history. I can’t wait to find out what places people can go on the tour and what new information tour guides offer to visitors. I one stop I know the tour is sure to make is by Ben’s Chili Bowl. You can’t visit U Street and not make a pit stop by Ben’s Chili bowl for some chili cheese fries! You can bet I’ll be there as soon as the tour ends for sure.