Around 1AM, things were finally winding down at IUSTV, and I was getting ready to go home. G calls me, and apparently a frat house on North Jordan was on fire. Great. So I call Pat back, who left a minute or so prior, and Elliot and I grab a camera pack and hop in Pat’s Jeep. We’re on IUSTV news special assignment.
It was freezing. I had gloves and a coat, but it was SO COLD. Long story short, the vacant Sigma Alpha Epsilon frat house was on fire. When we got there, there were huge amounts of smoke coming out of the house, and a bunch of fire trucks, police, and spectators. IUSTV News Team assemble! Pat did the reporting, I did camera, and Elliot found some people to interview. I hadn’t actually worked camera in a long time, and I have to admit it was fun. The “journalist rush of excitement” was also there, although by the end of our 45 minute stint outside, I was cold, tired, and didn’t want to be there anymore. I’m no journalist, I’m a producer.
It was cool however, to see who else was out there. The IDS (school paper) had photographers and reporters on the scene around the same time as us. They have obviously done this in the past. We’re not journalists, but we’re TV at least. The IDS’ printing date is midnight, so they already missed the chance to get this in Thursdays paper. It will be in Friday’s paper (it’s already online though). IUSTV will be running the video footage package on the Thursday evening news update, so in that respect, we might have a bit of a head start. We’ll swing by the IDS office in the afternoon to see what kind of partnership we can work out. Maybe they’ll want to direct people to watch us to see footage. Maybe they won’t.
It was a long, funny day, much like that of a sitcom. Mainly because I was with Pat for a few hours, and I don’t know how he gets into some of these situations. I’ll elaborate later probably, but I was challenged to a lightsaber duel in the mall, Pat left his business card for a (likely) 16 year old girl, and then this whole fire thing. All this on my day off. I’m going to sleep!
