Week 7 began on President’s Day, and as a federal holiday, courts and city offices were closed. That shut the door on a lot of story ideas, so Jason Marks reached out to a child psychologist in Virginia Beach, who agreed to talk with us about the flurry of threats received by local school districts in the aftermath of the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla (click here to watch Jason’s full story from that day).

WAVY photographer Robert Rizzo showed me how to use file footage when there is not a huge amount of video to be used, and the next morning I came in and put a package together. At this point, I’m starting to get more comfortable with AVID, but as I would find out the next day, there’s still a long way to go.

I was able to shoot a “look-live” in front of a school for the piece with Matt Gregory, and it was a crucial growth step for me. I started out trying to sound “newsy” and it came off as almost yelling, with over-emphasis and needlessly loud vocal levels. Part of that was the loud environment, but it’s important to be able to work in a chaotic environment in this business. I have a mch better idea now of how to deliver reporting on-air – now I just need to demonstrate it consistently.

On Wednesday I ventured out with WAVY’s Marielena Balouris for an interview she was doing as part of a special report on pet allergies. Rob Rizzo worked the camera and came back to the station with some impressive footage for such a brief time window, as well as the small examination room we were in. We headed back to the station, and I was determined to put a story together and build on my limited AVID experience thus far. The editing bays were packed, so I came back Saturday morning and put this package together (click here for Marielena’s on-air special report).