A Visit to KHNL Studios, Honolulu
On Tuesday, November 13, 2012 the students of MULT 2060: Modern Media Systems had the opportunity and the privilege of visiting a live broadcast of Sunrise Hawaii News Now which airs on KGMB, KFVE, and KHNL from 0530 til 0930 daily. The show airs for 3 hours on KGMB, one hour on KFVE, and one hour on KHNL.
During our time at the station, we were able to visit the Control Room, the Broadcasting Room, and Studio B. The great thing is that the fine folks behind the scenes were very informative and shared anything we wished to know. They were constantly asking if we had questions and were willing to share all the information they could.
The first room we were taken to was the Control Room. This is were the director, producer, and control board dude (sorry, lack of title) sit and manage how everything is seen on the television.
There were three screens, each showing virtually the same things only in different layouts. Supposedly, the layouts each of the respected three preferred. The screens were broken down into what looked like one massive blob of PIP (picture in picture). each screen bore a total of 13 different feeds. On these screens were feeds from 4 servers containing pre-edited material used for "spots" during the broadcast, feeds for live shots, three cameras from the broadcast studio, a camera from Studio B, and the broadcast and "waiting" screen. The "waiting" screen was a screen were something was preloaded before broadcast on television. Kind of like making sure the shot or next shot was correct before put on the air.
The director, Mark Platte, was a very busy person. He was constantly dealing with live "on-the-scene" newscasters, six people in the broadcast studio, the producer, and the control board dude. All the spectacular transitions, i.e. fades, dissolves, quick go-tos, dual screen and quad screen formats, seen on the air is all coordinated seconds before it happens. While managing everything going on from weather to finance and the shots for live broadcasts from the studios, he constantly keeps watch on the countdown monitor. This monitor informs him of how long they have on the air, how long the commercial breaks are, and how much time is left broadcasting on one station before switching to the next.
During the course of the program that day, the producer came in with a breaking story about a horse trailer toppling on a freeway, and within what seemed to be seconds, the story was on the air with live footage from a satellite feed.
The control board dude had lots of things to manage. The board is constructed with buttons and dials linked to everything server, feed, and preset transition at his disposal. There are presets for the dual screen, quad screen, transitions, fades, dissolves, quick changes, and servers. Being the very skilled person he is, and also working this setup for a number of years, he pulls off everything the director wants to have happen almost exactly when he says it should happen only seconds after being told it is going to happen. (you follow?)
We were then taken to the broadcasting studio where, Tannya Joaquin, Howard Dicus, and Dan Cooke put there faces on television for everyone to see. The floor director, name, manages which cameras the newscasters need to be looking at for the shots and positions the director wants to have happen. We also met the man who controls all the cameras. Being an all digital studio has its advantages. All three cameras in the studio have presets for each newscaster throughout the day, so with the click of a few touch screen buttons, he can get the desired angle and pitch from the camera that shows the person on the television as it should be.
I am very pleased to have had the opportunity to have been a part of this field trip and learned that so much happens behind the scenes of a live television broadcast almost simultaneously. The people on and working the Sunrise edition of Hawaii News Now are very good at what they do. To, name, the cameraman, to the weatherman, the director, the control board dude, and everyone else at KHNL Studios, thank you for the opportunity to let us go behind-the-scenes and catch a glimpse of the organized madhouse.
