MAKING LISA SPENCER BREATHLESS

BY DAN MILLER
(posted August 24, 2004)

First, thanks for all the email. I'm answering them as fast as I can, and hope to use some of them in future blogs.

And a special thanks to my Mother-In-Law down in Laurel, Mississippi, who sent an email complementing me on my new "BLOB".
I'm pretty sure she was talking about this "blog". Goodness, I hope so!

Viewer Joe Beatty wrote to ask about Lisa Spencer.
Last Wednesday night Lisa got completely out of breath during our late news. She scared us all to death as she gasped for air.

Here's what happened... and I've attached a link to a picture below, so you can follow along.

Lisa, and all our weather folks, work in several separate locations in the studio. And those locations are not close together.

She starts at the news desk (where you see Lisa sitting in the picture)....
Then, as she begins her presentation, off-camera, she moves to the weather center, 19 feet away (that's the desk in the lower left hand of the picture)....
Then, again not on camera, she must scurry across the studio to that big green chroma key wall, a total walk of 42 feet. That's where she points to those electronically produced maps and graphics.

On this particular night, after arriving at the green wall, she had to run back (42 feet) to the weather center to turn a knob, or punch a computer, or make some meteorological adjustment. Then she hurried back to the green wall (another 42 feet).

Here's something every broadcaster knows. When you run that far, while talking continuously out loud, it's almost impossible to get your breath.
Try it.
Run about 80 feet, talking at full volume, and you'll experience what every broadcaster has gone through at one time or another..... the "late for the set, out of breath syndrome".
Lisa's fine.
Oh... and why is that green wall so far away? Uhhh