she was reading.Xin Yu stumbled across anunfamiliar word in one of her scripts and she was researching its p.r.o.nunciationin the dictionary.
The anchors we see on tv exudesconfidence and fluency in their language but that comes from intensivebehind-the-scene research.
Se Cai realized this had becomesuch a force of habit among the anchors that they would flip out their phone tocheck an unfamiliar word in everyday life.
“It’s you?”
Xin Yu fixed a level gaze at SeCai as he walked in. She added coldly, “You left your hard-disc in here, takeit with you when you leave.”
She surrept.i.tiously kicked a bagdeeper into the shadows under her table.
Se Cai enhanced eye sight sawthat it was the bag he sat on that morning.
“It was really an accident whathappened this morning…”
Se Cai found himself explainingagain.
“Save your explanations. Give methe script, I’ll call you when I’m done.”
The rebuff annoyed Se Cai.
He had tried multiple times tooffer explanation but she refused to listen, plus at the end of the day, he didsave her once, couldn’t they just call it even?
He was indignant but replied as calmlyas he could, “Do you think I wanted this? Not everyone is like Xu Ran, ready atyour beck and call. I’m here because Director Bai wants me to supervise you, tomake sure that you don’t do any mistakes.”
“You? Supervise me?”
Xin Yu spat contemptuously, “YourStandard Chinese is barely presentable, I doubt you can pa.s.s the exam with B1grade and he has you supervise me? You must be kidding.”
Xin Yu wasn’t just pickingfights for no reason, her expertise was acknowledged by the whole station.
Previous anchors tend to slur,stutter or slip during tapings and they would have to conduct repeat takes tocompile a presentable reel. Xin Yu though was a consummate professional. EvenManager Wei joked she could be doing it live.
“Even a broken clock gets thetime correct twice a day. Who can really say I will not be of any use. Plusthis news is going to the central station so can you hurry it up?”
Se Cai dropped his civility and threwthe script on her table. He pulled a chair and crossed his legs, making a showof his impatience.
“Fine!”
Xin Yu’s temper flared inresponse.
However, her professionalism quicklytook over. She took a deep breath to calm herself. Scanning the script, shestood before the microphone ready to start.
“Be careful don’t get the nameswrong. Especially the commissioner’s. G.o.d knows he’s not someone our stationcan slight.”
Se Cai added.
“The new commissioner? Do youthink I would perform rookie mistake like p.r.o.nouncing his surname as Jie?Please.”
Xin Yu snorted in derision.
To her surprise, Se Cai tuttedand shook his head, “It’s not p.r.o.nounced Jie or Xie, but Sai.”
“Sai? I remember that’s asurname for a minority race northern-west side of the country, are you sure?”
Xin Yu frowned and she asked, “Thecommissioner has been here for more than half a month, everyone, including thecurrent news crew calls him Commissioner Xie. What makes you say it’s calledSai?”
“The fact that it’s common doesn’tmean that it’s correct. It’s in fact because people kept calling him Xie thathe had no choice but to accept it.”
Se Cai sighed, “I got all thesefrom his driver. That’s all I’m going to say, it’s up to you whether you wantto believe me or not.”
After that, Se Cai stood up andleft the room.
Se Cai was filled to the brimwith anger. It was out of the kindness of his heart that he gave Xin Yu the pointer.She not only didn’t thank him but suspect him? Se Cai tried to push it out ofhis mind because at the end of the day, it would not be him that will bequestioned on the p.r.o.nunciation.
However, when the voiceover wascompleted and Se Cai heard it, he found out she eventually took his advice bycalling him Commissioner Sai.
Se Cai threw himself into therest of his work and the little incident was quickly forgotten.
“Se Cai, the liaison departmentis rushing us, quickly send them the news!”
After some time, Se Cai picked uphis phone and heard Director Bai yelled at him.
His heart skipped a beat. Thefact that the liaison department was rushing them meant that the news wasdefinitely going through to the province tv station.
Since Xu Ran gave up on joiningthe script, this meant that Se Cai had full ownership of the writer’sremuneration.
If it was any other day, Se Caiwould be beside himself with joy since this was the first news of his career toget broadcasted on province news station.
However, their aim for thisparticular piece of news was the central news station. As long as the centralnews people didn’t arrive with a message, Se Cai knew it was still too early tocelebrate.
“I got it, Director Bai. It’salmost ready, rendering the film as we speak!”
Se Cai yelled while sitting athis desk. He was doing finishing touches on the newsreel’s editing.
With a background in computer science, Se Caihad no issue handling the different editing software.
The news producing processstarts with the reporters heading out to gather information, then script-writing,and amending. After that, it’s dubbing by the anchor followed by compilation ofthe newsreel by pairing cut footage with the dubs. The product is the renderedfilm.
Of course, the rendered filmstill had to go through the attending press supervisor before it could be usedin broadcast. Se Cai was on the last few legs of this process.
In bigger stations, there wouldbe clear segmentation of roles. The reporters handled the material collecting,while compilation was left in the hands of the editors.
However, since County S TvStation was so understaffed, they only had 2 editors. The reporters had to dothe additional work of rendering their films before the editors would startwith post-production like adding subt.i.tles.
“The film’s finished rendering!”
Se Cai let loose a long sigh.After copying the film into his hard drive, he ran as fast as possible to handit over to the editor.