High Levels Events... Everywhere!

As April flowers, bring May showers... the United Nations TV department gears up for the Paris Agreement Signing Ceremony at UNHQ - with a record number of nations expected to sign on the opening day of any international agreement! In addition to the record-breaking signing ceremony occurring on 22 April, there have been multiple day-long dialogue sessions prior to the formal election of the next UN Secretary-General. With both of these high-level events, our television crew is starting to work early mornings and late nights again, making sure all the extra cables are laid and new temporary stake-out cameras are ready for broadcast.

Down in Brooklyn, at Barclays Center, the Nets/Islanders regular season games have finished and now tons of concerts, boxing matches, shows, and Islanders playoff fill the schedule!! While working as the TV Systems Technician for the sporting events require more attentiveness, since there are so many different camera feeds and live programs to broadcast onto different video monitors - on clubs, suites, bars, concourses, and the big-screen center hung! During concerts or low-priority shows, specifically those with few feeds or cameras, us part-time crew are given the opportunity to work another position - camera, or LED graphics, or technical directing, etc!

At the end of the day, summer is near and while stressful at times, working in media is incredible and with more experience under my belt, more roles/responsibilities comes by way!

Back Into the Swing of Things

Whoa... It's been a few months since my last post (back in Feb) and I wish there was more to write about since then, but nothing really is new! Spring has sprung and summer is heating up; here at the United Nations, meetings and events are becoming less frequent because summer is near.

As any aspiring media professional, I am constantly searching to advance my career and develop my skills and expand my network thru freelance gigs on nights/weekends. Throughout the winter, I worked as general production assistant for a new Showtime docu-series, 3AM. The show premiered 28-May to great reviews as it follows "the bizarro world of late-night New York City."

Otherwise, I have been trying to take advantage of my Paid Time Off days and throughout late winter/spring, I traveled all over the East Coast, as well as Italy for a long weekend.

Working full-time and some freelance can be extremely tiring, yet genuinely  rewarding.

Finally Spring!

Time is speeding by this winter and it's finally spring! Lots of things have been happening with my work - most notably, I operated the robotic cameras / switcher for a UN meeting AND was the technical director (TD) for a short time one evening recently.

My boss(es) have been trying to spread me around to do different jobs for various UNTV programming. The opportunity for operate robotic cameras and switch between feeds for one of the meetings was awesome! At first, it was overwhelming but slowly began to realise it is not as difficult or complicated as I once thought; sure I sometimes turn the joystick the wrong way, since the controls are reversed (moving stick right, aims camera left), but overall fun and intriguing! The second time I was running the whole switcher for different UN program feeds; since it was after "regular" hours, I was simply switching between a playback deck, bars or black, and live press stakeout camera - still was pretty sweet.

As less high-level meetings are happening and spring / summer rolls in, I will have many more chances to take roles in the control room or in the field, shooting b-roll / secondary footage. Ambition and time will tell what positions I ultimately with be ... check back for more update.

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Right before taking over control of the TD position