I tackled my first week as the video reporter at the News-Leader with more anticipation and excitement than for any other job (as I’m sure the photo above shows, that’s me in the parking lot).

Now a bunch of you are thinking “wait, what is a newspaper doing getting involved with video?” Good question — but when you think about how valuable an information clearinghouse that the Internet has become, the N-L has done a pretty good job of harnessing it and using the ‘Net to deliver all sorts of content. That would include video, something obviously you can’t see in a newspaper. Video and the paper go hand-in-hand and I think they feed off each other.

Anyhew, back to the main topic…

Of course, getting a new job also means orientations and procedural stuff you have to go through, but that was minimal and I was able to work more than train this week, which was great.

My first shoot for the N-L involved going to Millwood Golf Club — a gorgeous golf course out by Highland Springs and just down the road from James River Assembly — to shoot a few golf tips with renowned golf entertainer Dan Boever. The guy is hilarious and he had some pretty sound advice…the only problem with the shoot was, it started pouring just before noon, so we shot a few more takes then went into the pub to eat and talk college sports.

The Pub at Millwood has some nice tea, and their burger was absolutely ridiculously good. I’d recommend it to anyone who’s at the links for a grand ole time.

My next shoot was Thursday, and I went into work a little early to shoot a voiceover for a shooting at a car wash in the southeast side of town, a place that’s not normally known for gun crime. Of course, the news media here flocked to it — fortunately only KY3 was there, doing their noon live shot while I was shooting my B-roll.

I also had another shoot, but you’ll have to wait until next week to find out what it is. It’s in the can waiting to be popped open for next weekend.

Aside from shooting I made myself at home in the office, and worked at creating some Avid tutorials and some new templates for titles, lower thirds and all of that juicy goodness.

I’m looking forward to next week…and the week after that, and the week after that…it’s gonna be good.