Fingers Remain Crossed

Right off the bat it was a pretty good week because it was a day shorter! We had the Easter Monday off, which made for a welcome four-day week.

It was also a pretty good week, technically.

We slowly continue to beat back the technical mistakes on our show and there appears to be a more concerted effort on the part of workers in other cities linked to our technical equipment to be more attentive to potential oversights and glitches that could impact our show here in Montreal.

We dare not un-cross our fingers yet!

Is perfection in sight? It’s difficult to say. I see some sort of shapeless, sparkling mass way off in the distance. There’s no way I can determine whether it’s perfection! It could be a mirage. Does anyone have binoculars?

Over the course of this four-day week, I had the pleasure of interviewing more terrific people, including award-winning author and journalist, Sally Armstrong and documentary filmmaker, Rob Stewart, whose new film, “Revolution”, is getting a lot of international attention.

I also had a chance to chat with SebToots!

The snowboarding phenom just won the slopestyle competition at the Europe X Games in Tignes, France. We watched his big run at that competition and talked about his appearance at the Ride Shakedown competition at Mont Saint-Sauveur. Sebastien Toutant was happy to pose for photos with everyone!

You can check out the interviews at globalnews.ca/montreal

I interviewed Isabelle Charest, three-time Olympian, former short-track speed skater and Olympic athlete ambassador. She’s now a spokesperson for a product and came on to talk about motherhood and her career.

Aidan Burrows is an elementary school student who just headed off to the World Championships in Orlando as part of the Canadian Cup Stacking team!

During this week’s interview, I asked him to demonstrate his blistering cup stacking technique in slow motion so I could actually “see” what he’s doing, but, even in slow motion, it was all a mind-boggling blur! Aidan and his coach, Harry Antoine, kindly left me a set of stacking cups and a DVD, so I can work on my technique!

The week ended well since Camille got her groceries reimbursed! She told the story on-air about buying groceries and arranging for delivery. They never showed up at her home! She went back to the store, famished and frustrated, but was reimbursed and given a gift certificate. She bought a new batch of groceries and, this time, chose to carry them home herself!

Pack Your Bliss

After work Friday, we spoke at the English Montreal School Board’s "Career Fair". At 16, I loved music and what I thought music was all about. I already knew I was a performer, but wasn’t sure whether I’d be in a position to make performing part of any eventual career.
 

Camille, Jess and I wait to speak at "Career Fair"


The truth of the matter is, at 16, I couldn’t even spell the word, “career”! I wasn’t thinking about “career”, or any part of the rather ethereal concept! I knew I would stay in school, but wasn’t sure where it would take me. At 16, I didn’t really worry about it too much. At 16, I’m not sure you should.

At 16, the possibilities are limitless and infinite, more so today than when I was that age. Keep moving forward, listening, learning and exploring as many of the possibilities that stray into your field of vision as possible.

Always have fun. Work hard at what you like. Never forget what you enjoy. If you can’t follow your bliss, at least pack it and bring it with you as you travel life’s road; it’ll likely save you later.

I probably would not have predicted two of the basics of schooling, reading and writing, would become cornerstones of my career.

The three groups of students we spoke to Friday didn’t have too many questions. Some were more enthusiastic than others and some listened more attentively than others. I certainly listened attentively as Camille and Jessica spoke about their career paths, at this point, significantly shorter than my own. Both their career paths shine with promise. It’s kind of funny that our career paths intersected about three months ago.

Fate has been treating me well. Is fate, destiny? Is destiny, fate? Are destiny and fate the work of a higher power? Whoa! That’s a whole other blog; or series of them!!

At one point during Friday’s Career Fair presentation, Jessica turned toward me and said the live feature reports I used to do on Global’s former morning show every day, helped provide her career with direction. After seeing what I was doing, she said she knew that’s what she wanted to do in broadcasting.

Pretty cool.

At another point during Friday’s Career Fair presentation, I was handed an unopened bottle of water. I twisted off the cap and guzzled the entire thing. Some students noticed. I managed to convince my stunned co-hosts the bottle I had guzzled wasn’t full when it was handed to me!

There’s a career in there somewhere.

Frantic Floor Manager

This morning, for a refreshing change, the problem didn’t appear to be based in Vancouver, or Alberta. Instead, our technicians concluded the problem, more likely, originated locally.

For the first half hour of our show, we were off the air, but, in that half-hour, Camille and I practiced the show without audio to see whether we could go to air and still offer a viewers a sensible program. It seemed to work fine, so we decided to go on-air at 6:30 this morning.

Normally, we have earpieces that allow us to hear all the sounds connected to the show. Those include the music at the beginning and end of each half hour, the reports and sound bytes we use, live reporters, phone-in winners and all our cues for timing, as well as when to start and stop speaking.

We scrapped a planned pre-budget live and were unable to speak on-air with the winner of today’s Oprah tickets, Jen, in Prevost.

When we went back on the air, Jessica, who was live on remote, didn’t realize we had no audio in our ears. She only realized when Camille told her, off-air, later on in the show.

Our boss was in early this morning and acted as floor manager, giving us our cues visually, or verbally. Occasionally, the floor manager appeared frightfully frantic, frazzled and frustrated, gesturing to delinquent anchors who, in spite of clearly communicated wrap cues, went ahead and asked guests just one more question!

It’s the thought that counts, Karen!

This morning was hardly the ideal scenario but, as Julie, our Mosart director, declared, it was much better to be on the air dealing with the audio problem, than off the air with no show to offer viewers.

We like to think some viewers want to watch the show as much as we want to do the show!

KMF

If it’s a show you can’t depend on, why depend on it? The question is completely logical. We want to be the morning show Montrealers can depend on, which is why our absence for two hours yesterday morning, was desperately frustrating!

It was frustrating for us and for many of the viewers we heard from.

From our directors, to our producer, our microwave truck team, camera-people and on-air talent, we had worked hard to make yesterday’s show as special as every other we do. Granted, our shows don’t always go as smoothly as we would like but, believe it or not, many of the noticeable on-air difficulties are beyond our control. We sometimes find ourselves stranded in awkward, uncomfortable situations but, Camille, Jessica and I, just try to roll with the punches and keep moving forward.

As strange as it sounds to us and you, many key technological components of our show are routed through Calgary and Vancouver. Any oversights or glitches at those two locations have a huge impact on our show here in Montreal. Earlier in the week, another problem out west, meant we only had one of our two robotic studio cameras to work with, which explains why Jessica was at the desk with Camille and I. Not that we have a problem with Jess at the desk with us; on the contrary, she does an awesome job and, this week, went above and beyond, coming in to work, though drained, sniffling and coughing!

Yesterday's difficulties generated e-mails that travelled both far and wide, and high and low. It remains to be seen whether they'll lead to meaningful change for our show here in Montreal.

Yesterday was Pi Day and extraordinary math teacher Jean-Francois Deslandes showed up at the station bright and early, eager for his interview! Aidan Burrows, a student at Heritage Elementary and member of the Canadian Cup Stacking Team, was coming in to demonstrate cup stacking! Gary Masse of Expo Sante Manger brought in a variety of products for us to taste and talk about. We greeted them at the door with flimsy explanation and considerable embarassment.

The 8 to 9 o’clock hour we did get to air was a difficult one, technically, but, we keep moving forward. Today’s show was better and brought the promise of eventual, albeit elusive, perfection.

We’re looking forward to Sunday’s St-Patrick’s Day Parade and hope to see you there. We have direction in common with the parade.

What You See...

Nice.

Last week, we had a brand new digital clock installed in our studio! I tweeted about it a few times on the morning we got it. Now when I do time checks, they’re to the minute! Too often, I can’t resist making the time check to the exact second, especially if we happen to be on the air as the minute changes. Now, I tend to say stuff like, “It’s coming up on 8:56, in 3-2-1; precisely 8:56, according to our new clock!” I imagine myself at home, checking all my clocks to make sure they, too, have just switched to the new minute!

Thanks to our technical crew, Alain, Ziad and Richard, for setting up the clock. It’s been very helpful and I no longer have to fumble, panicked, for my iphone to check the time right before we go on-air!

I’m hoping we’ll soon be able to have musical guests in-studio. I know when I was hosting “Focus Montreal”, the station’s interview show, having live musical performances was always a highlight, both for viewers and performers!

Jessica bumps into us at a downtown bus shelter!

I’m having fun hosting Montreal’s new morning show. I know as a viewer, I enjoy seeing and learning about behind-the-scenes stuff, along with spontaneous, natural interaction. Whether I talk about their nail polish, or tendency to hog the dressing room until the last possible second before showtime, I often try to catch Jessica and Camille off-guard with the comments and questions I drop on them. They’ve been pretty cool customers, so far. I always urge them to do the same to me and some of our funniest moments have resulted from that spontaneous approach.

To me, there are many places to get information in the mornings, but I’m hoping what sets Global Montreal Morning News apart are the personalities of the people in front of the camera. Rest assured, whether Camille, Jessica and I are laughing, chatting, grimacing, riding high or falling flat, what you see is who we are.

Hey Nineteen

I’m delighted to say, our brand new Global Montreal morning show show is doing considerably better technically these days. My co-hosts, Camille and Jessica, are both pros and determined to offer viewers the best product we possibly can.

We roll with the ever-dwindling problems and keep moving forward! Today, we wrapped up our nineteenth show!

Credit to Julie and Jim, our stalwart Mosart directors, for keeping our heading true while faithfully steering us through the rough patches! We all hope the waters are calmer from here on out.

I’ve already had the opportunity to interview some interesting guests on our new show, including microbiologist Dr. Matthew Oughton talking about the importance of hand-washing, multi-Olympian Doug Yeats discussing the IOC decision to drop wrestling from the games, CHUM cardiologist Dr. George Honos talking about boomers’ lifestyle choices and, from McGill University’s Office of Science and Society, Dr. Ariel Fenster on the chemistry of love.

More great guests are inevitable!

Our columnists are terrific, passionate people. Jay Walker talks music, while Eric Cohen covers movies! Pearle Nerenberg and Vanessa Perrone are both highly-qualified nutritionists who’ve already offered me and our viewers a generous helping of dietary enlightenment! Pearle put a yummy oatmeal muffin recipe up on our website and Vanessa made sure I understood that while hot cereals are good for you, heating-up my favorite sugary cereals doesn’t qualify! Apparently, hot cereal is powerful stuff; Linda Staal, mother to Marc, Eric, Jordan and Jared, told me on the show today the secret to raising four professional hockey players was oatmeal!

Who knew?

Susan made Pearle’s muffin recipe and it is yummy!

We’ve been giving away some cool prizes, including all-inclusive sun vacations and, along with 92.5 The Beat, tickets to the Grammys!

Jessica Laventure really is an adventure! The self-confessed weather geek persuaded the morning show team to post our version of the Harlem Shake. It’s out there and it’s out there, if you know what I mean!

I’m looking forward to show twenty! I was hoping to have fun on our new show and, I must say, nineteen shows in, so far so good!

Low-Flying Birds

Perfection’s the goal and we hear the path to the goal is straight ahead, so we keep moving forward.

Our Mosart news automation system is a massive challenge and our Mosart directors, Jim and Julie, are the only ones in class who pay attention; thank goodness! They are Cirque du Soleil-worthy jugglers of terribly technical tasks!

On yesterday’s show, we said good-bye to Mike and Annie, two Mosart masters who flew back to Vancouver, leaving Jim and Julie to fend for themselves. Jim and Julie have been shoved from the nest and yet, thanks to their tireless and devoted flapping, they’re somehow keeping the entire morning show afloat!

Every little thing our robotic cameras do must be coded. Every time our microphones are turned on or off, it must be coded . Whether it’s a two-shot or a single, each and every camera shot must be coded and every time the camera shot is switched, it must be coded. Incredibly, even stomach rumbles are coded.

If any part of the regular morning pattern is broken, the crashing dominoes caused by sudden change don’t always allow for the smoothest sailing. It’s tough to code Mosart for flashes of chaos.

This morning’s Grammy Awards ticket draw was simulcast with Montreal radio station, 92.5 The Beat. Even though the logistical challenge was a mightily unfair assignment for Jim and Julie on their fifth day of nest-free living, we got it to viewers! It was exciting for everyone involved!

We also had celebrity chef, Chuck Hughes, on the show, as well as our Food Columnist, Na'eem Adam. Overall, our first week has been an absolute blast, made even more gratifying by all the positive feedback we’ve been getting from viewers, happy to see an English morning show back on the air in Montreal!

Jim, Julie, senior producer Rob, me, Camille and Jess, we try to roll with the punches! Again, perfection’s the goal and while we may not always look like we know what we’re doing, we always hope to look like we love what we’re doing, because we do!