broadcast outcast

Alright, so maybe that’s an overstatement.  But it wasn’t fun for me for personal reasons.

Going into the final week of class, I had to file two stories, one of them being my video story.  Per our requirements for the quarter, we had to do only two A/V projects: a Soundslides piece, and a video.

I enjoy shooting and editing video.  For me, it’s sort of like doing a puzzle.  Regardless, I put in 10X the amount of work on my video story as I had for any other, and yet, had nothing to show for it by the final day of class.  My plan was to simply interview someone going through foreclosure–either having already gone through it, or currently dealing with it.  It proved a lot tougher task than I had ever imagined.  Even so, I knew it was the most compelling story I could tell on the housing beat.  To that end, I had exhausted every resource I had.  Realtors and non-profits could not give me names of people because of confidentiality agreements, and in general, websites such as RealtyTrac and Redfin proved hard to translate, as addresses didn’t always come with contact info.  Not to mention, it’s not like you can just get into a condo complex, which was the majority of foreclosures I was dealing with.

The path to my final video was difficult.  I modified my original idea twice, and still had nothing.  Instead of foreclosures, I was looking into pre-foreclosures.  Still nothing.  A lot of shame is involved in foreclosure, so it made sense.  Then I moved into short-sales, at the behest of my contact at the Woodstock Institute.  Still nothing.  No one wanted to talk to a student journalist.

My backup plans even fell through.  My contact at Woodstock said she’d be OK with an on-camera interview, only to inform me on Tuesday that she didn’t have time then, and would be out of the office all week.  That sucked.  I also had a crappy profile story I tried to set up several times with a couple that runs a home-improvement blog in Rogers Park.  They pushed me several times, and it became apparent that it wasn’t going to happen.  So even plan B and plan C fell through.

This all left me scrambling on the final day.  The last day we could file was Wednesday…and Tuesday was veritable hell for me.  I made something like 40 phone calls to various people involved in real estate.  I called some agents.  I called for sale by owner listings.  Nothing.  All this was happening as my complete bitch of a roommate was informing me she was planning to screw me out of over $100 she owed for unpaid bills.  WIthout going into specifics, I will say, she is far and away the worst roommate I’ve ever had, and I am glad she is (mostly) out of my life.  She is a bad person.  But that is a digression, and the point is, we were exchanging emails over the course of that morning, on top of my school work, so I was more than stressed.  I found myself smoking cigarettes–something I wouldn’t normally do, unless perhaps having a few drinks.

I thought I’d found my salvation when a guy I’d left a message for, a FSBO, picked up at 6:30 on Tuesday night.  He said he’d have to speak with his wife about being on-camera for an interview, as she wasn’t home, but that he was fine with it.  He said she might give him a reason to say no, but that she was a NU grad, so it would probably be fine.  He said he’d call back between 8 and 9.

I got no callback.

So at 9:15, I tried calling to no avail.  I had less than 24 hours to shoot, edit, and file a video with no current subject.  I was freaking out a bit.

I arranged to have my friend drive me around RP the next morning to shoot some B-roll.  That was a good help.  Unfortunately, it was also snowing and windy that morning.  I guess it added to the general demeanor of foreclosure.  So I held my camera out the window and filmed the neighborhood for a few minutes.  I then proceeded to walk around RP for about an hour in the cold, filming “For Sale” signs.  I figured I could do something with it.

The previous night, I’d left a message for the Rogers Park CDC, to inquire about a short interview.  Even 2 minutes would have been enough for me.  As it were, I was on Lunt, where their office is, and I stopped in at about 11:00 to see if I could set something up.

Caleb, the director, was my savior.  He set me up with a foreclosure counselor, who had time for me at 1:30 that day.

I whipped home, uploaded my B-roll, and logged as much as I could before having to leave.  I scarfed down lunch, then headed back north.

Once at the RPCDC, I talked as I set up my equipment about foreclosures and housing with the foreclosure counselor, Agustín.  He was so helpful.  And as luck would have it, he had been dealing with foreclosure in a personal way–he and his sister had to do loan modifications for themselves, and his other sister was being foreclosed on.

From there, I shot the interview, which was great, and flew up to Evanston.  I logged my video (which sucks, honestly) and edited the shit out of it.   I put together a 3 minute interview with transitions and B-roll, all by 6 p.m.  I didn’t get into the classroom until about 2:30, so the fact that I turned things around so quickly made me ever-so-pleased.  I had said to my professor that it would either be my finest hour or my darkest day.  It turned out to be one of my finest hours.

Moving forward, I know I am capable of doing great work on short time.  It’s not the best video ever, but it is palatable.  I also learned a great lesson: you may not always get the story you’re looking for.  Journalism can be tough.  You may do a lot of work and have little reward.  And even when you finally get something, it may not be what you were looking for.  But for all the crap I waded through to get there, I am proud of what I accomplished.

Plus, I know I do better work than my bitch ex-roommate who seems to think she didn’t need the training we went through.  I know broadcast work is where I belong.

Here is my video, without further ado.  It won’t be winning any awards, but I am proud of it no less.