Where the magic Happens

You are in the presence of celebrity right now. I have become famous. Just kidding, the events of the day will probably not make me famous, but they were still pretty incredible. Today, I finally got to return to ORTV and Doris Brougham put me to work for the day.
I had to leave the apartment at 7:30 this morning, so that I could take a bus to Dazhi where ORTV is located. This time, my trip went without a single hitch. I looked up directions on Google Maps last night, and discovered the wonders of that particular application. Unbeknownst to me prior to this point, Google Maps has a function that will give you directions for public transportation. You push the button, and this magical little website tells you which buses you can take, the relative times for each bus with traffic factored in, and how to walk to and from the bus stations. I spent about an hour scouring the map and completely researching my route. I looked at the bus stops with the street view function that shows you the ground level view of the area, and followed my walking routes all the way to each location. I wrote down all of the names of the streets that I had to walk down in both English and Chinese. I wrote down the names of both my stop and my penultimate stop in a similar manner. I was thorough to the point of obsession. Here is a picture of my little "cheat sheet" where I wrote everything down:

The Chinese characters are written horribly, so it is a very good thing that I didn't get lost and have to show someone the paper. It might have been enough to make a person cry. I know some of my previous teachers might cry if they saw my English handwriting on this note.

Disclaimer: my writing does not always look like chicken scratch. I am going to blame an earthquake that may or may not have actually been occurring at this time, (you don't know, so you can't prove that it wasn't happening, HA!).

All of this research and furious note-taking proved useful, because I actually arrived earlier than I had expected to. Upon my arrival, I got to go listen in on a recording for the radio show. The radio show that they do is based off of a passage in their magazine. The passage is a random news article that was published in another publication and bought by Studio Classroom, (the name of ORTV's magazine and radio branch), to be used in their Advanced magazine. The student can read the passage, and then tune in to the radio show to hear the teachers dissect the article and define words, phrases, and idioms that appear in the piece. They also provide relevant background information on the topic as well. The teachers generally record several in one sitting, especially since everyone is getting a break for the holidays next week. I got to listen to two of the recordings from the sound booth, and watch Marcus, the sound editor, work. It is a very fascinating process, he has to play pre-recorded sound bytes and then switch the feed over to the recording studio. Then while the teachers were talking, he had to listen for any mess ups and mark the spot on the recording for editing later on. It was very cool.

There are the teachers recording

Marcus' workstation

But the fun didn't stop there, for the third and final recording with that group, I got to go into the studio and join the team as a guest on the air.

I was so excited. I have always wanted to be on the radio, record audio books, or do voice overs. This was the experience of a lifetime. I got to contribute to an explanation of Route 66 from the previous article, and I also got to define a few terms from another article about new HIV testing breakthroughs in sub-Saharan Africa. No joke. They cover all kinds of articles. The first article of the day was over Weight-Watchers, the second was over the new Disney and Pixar's Cars ride at California Adventure Park, and the last was about AIDS. The articles are very eclectic because they cater to such a broad audience. The teachers do research to prepare interesting tid-bits of information to share on the air with the viewers. I wasn't able to contribute a whole lot, but I still got to talk a little bit, and I was even introduced on the air. It was nerve wracking, but fun. I was even told that I have a good radio voice. Who knew?

The teacher's table in the studio

The articles from the magazine

After this, I got to go downstairs and record some more. This time, I was reading test questions for another magazine. This magazine, called "Let's Talk, in English", is for less advanced students, so it contains short tests that are designed to teach vocabulary. The students can listen to the test being read as they follow along. I joined a woman named Lois in recording these tests. It was a completely different experience from working on Advanced. I had to speak slowly, and do a little bit of voice acting to read the different parts. For instance, when I read "Read the conversations and answer the question" I had to read that part in a monotone to differentiate it from the actual conversation, which I would read with intonation that helped convey the meaning. It was an interesting challenge.

the recording studio

Here I am reading the tests

After lunch, I got to watch a team film a TV show. First, I got to watch from behind the scenes:

It was a really eye opening experience seeing what goes into the making of TV shows. There is so much that has to be done to get it just right. There were five people working in the back room here. One person was running the clock and making sure that the actors were giving every segment adequate time. Another was listening to make sure that the actors said all of their lines. Another person switched between the different cameras, while another person took care of the computer graphics. The last person made sure that everyone both behind the scenes and on stage was on the same page. It really makes you appreciate all of the work that goes into filming for TV. During the filming of the last segment, I got to watch from inside of the TV studio:

These are pictures of the various cameras, there were four different cameras, and each one was outfitted with a teleprompter. It was really something to see.

Thanks to Doris, and many others there at ORTV, I had a fantastic day. I hope that I get the chance to return someday.