The County Line: The Art of Directing

Imagine this, fifteen people all waiting on your breath and cue; (Roll tapes! play sound! mice and cue!) Eveyone from the anchors to the floor director; Technical director to tapes and all the other moving parts of the show. Every word you say is final. A possible 35,000 homes could be tuning in. At this point the responsibility of the show is all on your shoulders. By 7:30 pm you are going live, and you are the director of The County Line. Welcome to my job, this is what I do on a weekly base.

Sometimes I am not to sure if people really understand what I do when I say I’m one of the directors of The County Line. When you are the director, you are the coach calling the plays; you are the one making the decision to go for it on 4th and one. When you are the director, you are the one who orchestrates the show. It is not an easy job at all, one that can come with a lot of pressure when you’re doing a live show. What makes doing a live show fun is the unexpected. Not every show goes according to plan, and when a show does go bad this is where a good director shines.

See, every show needs to be timed out for thirty minutes so when we go black (or off air) we finished all our stories and said out goodbyes until next week. But this does not always work like that. A common problem in doing a show is the balancing act between entering each block heavy or light. Through out a show you could be extremely heavy (meaning your show will run over the thirty minute mark) or Light (meaning you will fall short of you thirty minute mark). As a director you have to make fast hard decisions. You need to be able to think on your feet quick or else it’s too late. When a show is running heavy an easy way to fix it is to cut a commercial. Then the question is how many do you cut? Well this depends on how heavy you are. Now sometimes when a show becomes light and you’re in E Block (the final segment of the show) you can have the anchors read fill stories to balance out the time (fill stories are extra stories for back up). The whole goal is to run a smooth show with no hiccups, and when a problem arises find the best and fastest way to fix it.

Not every show will be great and not every show will be bad. But when you’re the director you have to take full responsibility for whatever the out come is. That is just part of the job. Don’t get me wrong either; it’s a tough job but a fun one too. When you work with great people and you take pride in what you do, it makes for a great experience. I hope now you have an understanding in what I do and what a director does. So here’s the headset, do you think you can make the calls?