them more likely to address you when they start speaking and that will give you the better looking sound  bite. . Most press conferences will have a microphone stand or a mult-box already setup for the public address   system. DO   NOT   SET   YOUR MICROPHONE   IN   FRONT   OF   THE PUBLIC  ADDRESS  SPEAKERS!  This will produce  over-modulated  sound.  If  you  do  not have a place for your own microphone stand to be  placed,  clip  your  microphone  onto  a microphone already in place. Your lavaliere clip should  clamp  nicely  on  the  cord  of  someone else’s microphone. l Avoid taping the microphone to the lectern that the speakers will use.  Most  speakers  will tap, grab or shuffle papers on the lectern surface, and  if  your  microphone  is  taped  to  the  same surface, you will get a lot of noise in your audio. .   Always   check   your   audio   on   the   VU (volume-units) meter and confirm it with an earplug. Never trust a dancing needle on the side of  a  camera.  You  may  be  just  picking  up  the rustling  of  your  own  jacket  from  the  camera microphone. Listening with an earplug will also let you check the quality of the sound and not just the volume. . Keep quiet during the shoot. Nothing is more infuriating in the editing room than having a great sound bite ruined by the giggle or gabbing of the news team. You may think a soft whisper will not be  picked  up  by  the  microphone  or  could  not possibly make its way onto the finished product, but it will and can. VIDEO  EDITING The  basic  editing  techniques  described  in  the JO 3 & 2 training manual give you an idea of what the pieces of the editing puzzle look like. In the following section, you will get a working knowledge of how to use those  skills  learned  earlier  in  your  career  and  an understanding of the editing process that will make your job of training fledgling broadcast journalists easier. Time Editors must be aware of two “time” concerns. The first is the journalist’s old nemesis, “The Deadline.” Much  of  Navy  video  editing  takes  place  within relatively  leisure  deadlines  of  days.  These  are  feature pieces that are timely within a few weeks of the event. However,  when  you  are  working  at  an  NBS  detachment or a large afloat command that produces a nightly news program,  you  will  know  what  the  word  deadline  means. Time is the demon on the shoulders of the video editor. If the photographer did not shoot in sequences or shot 20 minutes of tape for a 90-second story, the editor will have to search the entire tape for usable material. The second time concern is called filmic time. This is the compression of hours, days or even years of real time into a minute or two-minute story. The passage of time in the movie  Gone With The Wind  spans  the  entire Civil War, but of course, the movie only takes three hours to view. Again, with the use of cutaways and cut-ins  and  correctly  taken  shot  sequences,  compressing real time to filmic time is an easy and natural process for the editor. For example, the building of a bridge on your  base  took  eight  months.  During  the  construction phase you have done stories about the work and in the end  you  can  do  a  final  story  showing  the  entire eight-month construction process within a minute or so of filmic time. Time  Savers Most Navy broadcast journalists will act as reporter, editor  and  often  even  as  camera  operator  during  their own ENG shoots. This is also the norm for civilian news organizations   that   employ   “one-man-band”   news bureaus in various towns within their general area. When you are in such a situation and a deadline is to be met, the following story production process works best. You already know the gist of the story and the angle you are going to take with it because you have been thinking about it since you received the assignment, did whatever  background  research  possible  and  finished  the last interview. Now it is time for you to sit down with your notes you took during the interviews and decide what sound bites will best enhance the story. Determine the exact time length of these sound bites as well as your stand-ups and proceed to write the rest of the story. If you  are  working  for  a  newsroom  that  wants  intros written  by  the  reporter,  then  write  the  intro  last.  Intros are supposed to be the hook to keep the viewer interested in  the  upcoming  story  and  are  not  to  be  used  as  a dumping ground for information the reporter could not figure out how to put into the story. Once you have your narrative written, read it aloud and time it. This time amount, plus the lengths of your stand-ups and sound bites, will give you the length of your story minus any cold start video openings, the short 8-27