Ok folks. For those of you who missed it, last week I was in Las Vegas at the Parallel’s convention. I posted some pics and some video, but the highlight of the trip was when I got to go to the Channel 8 studios with my friend Dave Courvoisier and watch him film the nightly news!
As you guys know, at Layered Tech we have some bad ass data centers. So, I’m very used to seeing a lot of technology. But when Dave gave me the tour of the KLAS TV station it was a whole other treat! I’ve never seen so much video recording, editing and broadcasting equipment in my life!
First of all Dave gave me the tour of the facility. It was nice because since I went during the late news the station was empty and we weren’t interrupting anyone. I gotta tell you, everywhere I looked there were rooms full of digital editing equipment. Dave said that KLAS was the first station in the country to go fully digital, and believe me… it was apparent.
After getting the tour of the place, Dave dropped me off in the production room where I hung out and watched the first half of the news. It was amazing to watch a live news broadcast because the amount of coordination going on was incredible. These people are truly, truly professionals.
At any given time the folks in the booth were having to switch between multiple cameras, coordinate with on the scene reporters, and queue in commercials. There were so many monitors that I almost had an epileptic seizure! But the folks at the controls were just sitting there like there was nothing to it. Cool as can be.
After the first half of the broadcast, I got to go out on the set and actually watch as Dave and the rest of the team delivered the news live. It’s something else to stand there and know that while I’m the only member of the “audience” who is viewing this in person, there are probably hundreds of thousands of people watching it all around the city.
And the whole crew was so damn calm and collected! Heck, at one point Dave even made a paper airplane and tossed it at me! And I was scared to pick it up and toss it back even though a commercial was on! I was worried that they would go live again and then my plane would come sailing through…
Anyway, I had a fantastic time hanging out with Dave both at the studio and also while getting a little snack afterwards. He gave me a ride back to the Mandalay Bay in his SSR – which was awesome by the way!
By the way, in addition to being a wickedly cool TV news anchor, Dave is also a voice actor with the coolest voice I’ve ever heard. You should DEFINITELY check out the recordings on his voice acting site just to listen to him talk! He is also an unbelievably skillful writer, so you should check out the articles on his blog. You should also definitely follow him on Twitter, because anyone this cool just plain deserves our attention.
Man, that looks like so much fun – I would love to have seen all of that!! And it’s interesting the way Dave put it on his blog – that our ‘everyday’ can be so cool to someone else! I love that – it’s so true!! Thanks for sharing all the pics and all the sordid details, especially the paper airplane part!! Really helped your readers ‘be there’!!