"The Package"

     Before I start writing about my job,the stories I cover,and the interviews I plan to post in this blog, I thought I would better familiarize you with some basic terms you might hear as we go along.
   Again this is for the benefit of the people who have an interest in the news business but don't work in it.
A Minute 30 story is called a Package in the news business and is made up of four smaller individual parts mainly. It is these four parts that my co-workers and I spend 8hrs a day , driving around,researching,talking on the phone,shooting video,writing scripts ,editing and then feeding in the finished product back to the station to be ran in the show, and somewhere in there try and get in a healthy meal and a bathroom break.ANYWAY!!!
The names of these four little darlings are:

Natural Sound
Track
Sound Bites
Vo
and my definitions of these are :
Natural Sound or "nats" for short are naturally occurring sounds that are captured on video  we use these sounds to enhance the story to give the viewer a sense of actually being apart of what's going on, for instance the sample video in my first blog has coins dropping in the meter,cars driving by,and a musician playing his guitar and singing, these are examples of how we use natural sound in a package.
Track is the narrative in the package and is read by the reporter. I think in the sample video Dave Malkoff''s first track in the story is "They're singing a new tune in "Ventura"
Sound Bites or "sots" are 10 to 15 seconds long and are taken from  interviews from people who are personally affected by what is happening around them or from an authority figure that is informed on what is going on like a fireman , police officer, doctor, or attorney
In the sample video the kid in the store is a good example of a sound bite.
Vo or "voice over" is video shot in the field and edited to match the track.
For example when the track talks about meters you see meters,when the track mentions the confusion the meters are causing you see a guy using the meter with a confused look on his face etc....
So there you go!
These are the four basic elements that makeup A Minute 30 Package.
I hope this was helpful!