That’s IT Edition IX
Traveling for work can be a fun adventure. And for That’s IT, it’s always a new experience.
Tuesday’s Season 9 premier of That’s IT took us to the US south-east coast, a place so far away that I don’t think any man, woman or child should even attempt to venture without at least a 24 hour stop-over or two.
My flight took me from Singapore to Hong Kong to Toronto and then to Orlando, total travelling time being 28 hours. And this I calculated based on the moment I stepped onto the plane and out at my final destination - transit lay-overs included.
But seriously, by the time you get to your hotel, you won’t even know what day it is. Still, it is not so bad. 20 years ago, such a trip would have probably taken 40 hours. come to think of it the guys travelling with me spent about that much time because they just chose a bad airline with bad connection timings and they missed a few connections.
So I arrived in Orlando at 1AM EST. Checked in, tried to unwind and unwind and unwind but I just couldn’t sleep. I was seriously tired and in need of sleep and there I was watching the news because I couldn’t sleep. And I had interviews and meetings to attend bright and early in the morning. I was like a bad PC that wouldn’t shut down.
When I finally shut down for the night — the sun was rising in the east.
I’m usually not one of those who would get jetlag so I got up at an appropriate time and got dressed for the series of meetings and interviews set up for the day. It was alright for most of the day but half way through the media dinner that night, I was falling asleep.
The hardest part for these trips is having to look good and awake for the cameras when deep inside all I really wanted to do was crawl back to bed.
When we wrapped up in Orlando after 3 days of interviews, media sessions and on-location shoots, it was time to pack up again for another journey west — to Seattle.
That trip took all of 6 hours, but on board any US carrier, it felt as though it went on forever.
We were in Seattle as guests of Microsoft for a learning tour of its mobile OS operations.
It is also where I met my “rival” Spencer, from the BBC’s IT show Click. Rivals we may be but he offered us some of his footage when he learned that our camera died a sudden and unexpected death in the middle of an interview.
We had an interesting talk about how small our teams are. He says his small team consists of 8 full time producers and reporter putting the show together.
I told him my small team consists of one semi part-time producer and me working on That’s IT. And sometimes we are lucky to get one or two more producers helping us out.
Still, we always manage to have fun putting our show out!
That’s IT’s new season begins, and it is on every Tuesday at 20:30 and 23:30 SIN/HKG/MNL
Check your TV listings for repeats throughout the week.
July 11th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Traveling is always tiring. So one must make sure to have enough sleep.
Ask CNA to give you more assistants. Garbage in garbage out. You get what you pay for.
July 15th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Hi Tim, I am wondering if it is a compliment or ‘ sarcastic remark/ insult ‘ that CNA ( under Mediacorp ) is struggling with a small team of 2 or sometimes thankfully 3 headcounts to shoot IT series…whereas BBC has a similar small team too..of 8 full-time producers.
I think we are just a drop in the ocean !
Nonetheless, you have our viewers’ support…BUT where is your management’s support?
Keep it up !!
July 16th, 2008 at 2:09 am
From Tim:
I’ll take it as a compliment that with a small team of 2/3 producers on That’s IT we manage to put out a decent episode every week we are in season.
And it’s the dedication and hard work of my team and the support of viewers , like yourself that keeps me going.
My first and final thoughts are always about what the viewers may want to see and know.
Thanks for your support — in time CNA will hopefully be more than just a drop in the Ocean.
The BBC has been around a lot longer than we have.