Good morning, Illini!
I’m Jose Zepeda and I am currently a junior majoring in broadcast journalism with a minor in political science and public relations. Besides working for Good Morning Illini, I have also worked for The Daily Illini and The News-Gazette as reporters. I also helped bring back the National Association of Hispanic Journalists – UIUC Chapter, where I am currently the vice president. Some of my hobbies include swimming, biking, running and of course, cars – not the movie, that is! I have come a long way from starting GMI fall semester of sophomore year, barely with any experience under my belt. A year-and-a-half later and the show has come a long way. It is great to be a part of the show as it continues to evolve!
Blog Post Entry #1 February 17, 2020
The season 4.5 premier of Good Morning Illini was on Feb. 14 and I was given the opportunity to anchor our new news segment on the show, Newsdesk.
As much as I was happy to be given this opportunity, the fact of the matter was that I had never done something like this before, and so there was a slight learning curve I had to get over if I wanted to be successful at my new position.
There was another obstacle, in the form of time. The way things worked out, I was presented with the opportunity somewhat later than expected. Meaning I only had three days to compile the stories I wanted to report on. That took a decent amount of time to do because there wasn’t much going on that particular week on campus, so I struggled to find stories in-and-of-itself.
I ended up focusing on the recently released sexual misconduct survey, a proposal to move everything the Undergraduate has to offer to the Main Library, and finally, a neat Valentine’s Day gift that the Altgeld Ringers was offering to students.
There was a specific reason I chose those stories.
The sexual misconduct survey was heavy on statistics, so I was able to make a couple of graphics that took the place of VOs, in order to save time. The Altgeld Ringers story was also simple to work on because I knew we had archived footage of Altgeld, so I was able to make a VO out of that, again saving me time. Finally, I realized that the Undergraduate Library story was a much bigger deal than anything else, so I spent my time focusing on that. I was able to get footage of the inside of the Undergraduate Library and interview a couple of people on their opinion on the proposal.
Although it wasn’t necessarily breaking news, it was still something that most local news outlets were not covering, so it felt great to be one of the first media outlets to be able to report on the news. I honestly suspect that it will become a big story once more media outlets start to pick up on the story.
I spent all evening Thursday working on my script and getting the footage ready for the show.
Friday comes along and I am a little nervous, even though we had practiced the show twice already. I can tell that during the live broadcast, I was a bit more nervous than usual, compared to the other times we practiced the script. Though all-in-all, I am pretty proud of the outcome of my report, however, it wasn’t perfect.
For starters, as suggested by my girlfriend and fellow crew member, Angelle Cortes, I shouldn’t have described the Altgeld Bell Tower as a “love jukebox.” It simply doesn’t fit my character and it sort of backfired, but hey, now I know.
After looking back at the footage, I also noticed I need to be a bit more expressive with my face. Throughout most of my report, I kept the safe serious face. I have to be happier with happy stories, and sadder with sad stories. Hopefully, this will improve with time.
Thanks for checking out my first blog post and thanks for continuing to watch and support Good Morning Illini. We’ll see you next Friday at 10 a.m.!
Blog Post Entry #2 February 24, 2020
The second show of the semester is now behind us and boy did it bring back some memories when I was apart of the original 199 class, exactly a year ago.
You see, there is a formula when it comes to working as the production crew on the show.
When working on the first episode, everyone is super anxious, excited and prepared to give it their all to make sure that the show stays on track and looks good. After the show is over, and we see how our product came out, we tend to believe that producing live TV is not as hard as it looks.
And then the second episode rolls around.
All of the 199ers come in confident, thinking it is only going to get easier from here-on-out.
Little do they know that it doesn’t.
Live TV is unpredictable. Each show is going to be something completely different. The 199ers learned, as everyone does, the hard way.
The show had an extremely solid A-block – nothing wrong to report there. However, just as the PSA began to play, an issue began to arise.
It appears that there was some miscommunication between the control room and the studio, as the camera were not ready to go back live. This created a stressful moment for everyone, but especially for the 199ers, who had never been in a situation like this before.
Luckily the team was able to get show under control within a short number of seconds. As Ken once told me when a similar situation happened to me, “That’s live TV.”
It feels awful whenever a big mistake occurs, however, we need those mistakes in order to improve our technique to prevent something similar from happening again.
Luckily in this case, the mistake occurred at the very beginning of the B-block, meaning we still had an entire B-block to make a comeback. And boy did we make a comeback.
Everyone did an exceptional job at their assigned role and the show ended becoming one of the most entertaining that I have ever seen. I was impressed by the comeback the team was able to pull off. I personally believe it was the best that there has ever been.
The 199ers passed the first major obstacle of the semester. Now, working on the show will become easier.
I feel a bit more nostalgia from my days as a 199er again this week, as I will be covering Illini Student Government’s amendment to officially make the kingfisher the official mascot of the University of Illinois.
For those not in the know, the kingfisher is a bird native to Illinois that features blue and orange coloring.
The amendment comes at an unusual time, as there hasn’t really been a debate on the issue this school year, so bring up the amendment out of the blue (and orange) seems a bit strange.
This couldn’t have come at a better time however, as exactly a year ago, I created my first solo package for GMI, in the form of a man-on-the-street about the ongoing debate between Champ and Alma Otter as possible mascots. While I don’t anticipate doing a man-on-the-street package again this time around, it will still be great to see how I have improved as a broadcast journalist and where the university stands on the issue, exactly one year later.
Be sure to check that out this Friday at 10 a.m.!
Blog Post Entry #3 March 2, 2020
Last week I created my first package as a Jour 480 student.
It involved looking at the latest mascot idea to be implemented into the Illini Student Government’s annual ballot, which this year is a kingfisher.
Compared to previous mascot proposals, the kingfisher idea had much more development, as the creator has met with several different organizations around campus, in order to see how legitimate this possibility could be.
It was fun to create this package, as I was making it exactly one year after I had made my first solo package for Good Morning Illini, which was a man on the street I made where I asked people if they preferred Champ or Alma Otter, which were at the time, two ideas floating around campus.
I started off the new package with a throwback to the original, showing that we’re back talking about the same issue. I then introduce Spencer Hulsey, who is the subject of the story.
Hulsey was the creator and designer of the kingfisher idea. She was inspired by the kingfishers around her home in southern Illinois, which are naturally blue and orange.
Hulsey had first published her idea on Reddit, where it soon gained a lot of attraction, including the Illinois Student Government. As previously states, the kingfisher idea had much more development compared to previous ideas, and so ISG concluded it made to sense to put it on their upcoming ballot. However, because mascots at the University of Illinois are such a hot-button issue, a lot of media outlets started to pick up on the story. Good Morning Illini was one of them.
Although it was fun to make the package, it also proved to be the most difficult thing I had created, as I only had less than 5 days to complete the whole thing.
Monday and Tuesday ended up being wasted opportunities, as I was unable to talk to anyone during those days. Wednesday and Thursday proved to be the most demanding, as I had two interviews throughout Wednesday, one final interview throughout Thursday and finally, I had to edit the package all Thursday evening.
I got to Richmond Studios around 4 p.m. Thursday, carrying along with me a Monster Energy Drink, knowing that I was going to be here for a while. I first had to write my script, in order to be able to tell Hulsey’s story and to know how to edit the package. Admittedly, scriptwriting is still something that I struggle with, and so it took me a long time to finish writing it.
Then, I had to record my tracks to be used in the package. There go another 20 minutes.
After that, I took a quick little dinner break. Burger King three times in the same week? Sounds about right.
Finally, I was able to start editing my package around 9 p.m., and I didn’t finish until 1:45 a.m… Ouch.
Although it may have been a long evening, I think my package turned out for the better. This week, I am back to doing Newsdesk, so I’ll see you Friday at 10 a.m.!
Blog Post Entry #4 March 9, 2020
As much as they are a nuisance, there is always a valuable lesson to be learned whenever something goes wrong in the world of broadcast news.
I learned that the hard way.
When news broke that the University was forcing students in Italy and South Korea to return home due to the ongoing coronavirus situation, I knew this was an opportunity we had to jump on. I thought it would be perfect to add to my report, as I was anchoring Newsdesk for the week.
I immediately began to ask around if anyone knew anyone that was coming back home from Italy or South Korea, as I didn’t. Luckily, my friend Acacia Hernandez, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Illinois Chapter (shout out to NAHJ), knew someone that had just got home from Italy. Awesome. I can go on with my plan.
We scheduled the interview for Wednesday night. Since she was back at her home in St. Charles, we agreed to do a video chat interview. I had envisioned this took look like something straight out of Inside Edition, as their reporters are known to film themselves whenever they conduct an interview via video chat.
I had hoped to use Skype, as Skype has a built-in feature to record the video chat. Unfortunately, my source did not have a Skype, so Facebook Messenger had to suffice. I knew that Messenger had a feature to conduct a video chat, but I wasn’t sure if it had a recording option. I quick test with fellow GMIer, and girlfriend Angelle Cortes, told me it didn’t.
No matter. A quick search on my laptop told me that Windows 10 has a built-in screen recorder. Just press CTRL + G and a button will appear to record whatever is on your screen. I did another quick test with Angelle, and ta-da, I was recording the conversation between Angelle and I. The interview was on.
I consider the interview itself, one of my greatest. The questions were good, and I was getting great answers. So, what went wrong?
When I tested the Windows 10 screen record feature with Angelle, I started the screen record after the call with Angelle had started, ergo, I started the screen record while on the video chat window. When it came to record the actual interview, I started the screen record before the call started, in order to look more professional and more prepared, ergo, I started the screen record on the messages screen.
See a pattern?
As it turned out, the screen record feature only records the current screen you are on and does not follow what is exactly on screen. Messenger has a default window showing all messages and people you have contacted with. A different window pops up if you start a video chat. Because I was still on the messages screen when I started the screen recorder, I was stuck on the messages screen the whole time, so I had nothing but audio. Great.
I determined that the audio was still very usable, but I didn’t know how I could make it visual. Eventually, the idea of putting the audio’s soundwave into a graphic came in mind.
That alone was a difficult task to implement because it required using Adobe After Effects, which I had no experience with. Luckily, with the help of both Conner Cieko and Liam Dwyer, I was able to make something out of nothing, and I learned a new way to make my VOSOTs stand out in the process.
Again, errors sure are annoying, but with determination, you’ll find a way around it. Good Morning Illini.