April 2010 Archives

So if you've been reading our blogs, and let's be honest everyone is, you'll know that my last experience with satellite interviews could have gone better. Well I have been redeemed, and all thanks to a Jonas Brother!

Field trips are being cut from a lot of schools to help save money, and Kevin Jonas is working to help kids win them back.  Let me tell you the Jonas Brothers "nice guy" image is well deserved.  He was extremely polite, thanked me for calling, said he'd talk to me soon(which I intend on holding him to!) and most importantly did not think any of the questions I asked him were weird!

Make sure you guys watch for the interview on Thursday.

In other news, Dean is going to be gone for the next week, and will be skyping in for all his segments so Allison and I will have a lot more to do to make sure all of his video and interviews are ready to air.

Also, what did you guys think of Whitney Cummings on the Courtesy Desk this morning? She's hysterical!! 

(Havana, IL)   Can't find Cuban food or cafe Cubano here.  But we're headed to Havana, nonetheless. Havana on the Illinois River, southwest of Peoria. 

Holding them in your hand, they may not have the rubbery-texture of a Cuban Monte Cristo "Torpdedo."  But I'm told the cigars rolled in Havana, Illinois were the next-best thing (if you didn't have ready access to quality Cubans).

This cigar label is one of dozens used by local tobacco companies that thrived in Havana. 

According to the Havana Public Library, there were dozens of tobacco and cigar companies based here in the town of Havana.

Exactly who gave the town its name is a mystery.  Local history is that an island in the Illinois river was shaped like the island of Cuba.  

We'll take you down Main Street here in Havana, IL.  Thursday night, on the WGN News at 9PM.  Or watch the stories whenever you want at wgntv.com/cruisin

Ok, we were hoping to have the video that we made up by now, but we're experiencing some technical difficulties! So stay tuned for that...it's a little behind the scenes, sneak peak at the morning show.

In other news, what is going all with all of this volcano nonsense?  People are stuck here, people are stuck there...basically people are just stuck! Dean was supposed to go to London on Thursday but that got cancelled, and he has another trip that might get cancelled as well. 

The ACM awards were on Sunday...here's my review:

Reba: Always and forever phenomenal

Lady Antebellum: Fantastic

Brooks & Dunn: Really? I wanted to be able to vote for them not to sing...not pick what song they did sing.  Also did anyone else think Ronny Dunn looked a little under the influence?

T-Swizzle: Ok so I love Taylor Swift, but the whole dancing/hair flipping thing was a little ridiculous.

Carrie Underwood: Fantastic

I only have 2 complaints, but they are huge! 1. Who's idea was it to have Darius Rucker close the show? That person should be fired. And 2. WHERE WAS SUGARLAND'S PERFORMANCE?!? In my book you don't have any country music awards show without having them and Reba perform.

So what did you guys think of the show?

Also who saw the new IPhone prototype?!? I need one immediately!

We're pulling out all the stops for Cruisin' Illinois in 2010.  Later this month, we embark on an exotic adventure to Havana!  Can you believe it?  Haven't worked out the details yet, but we plan to cruise down to the beautiful town of Havana, Illinois the week of April 26th.

O.K.  There may not be palm trees, Cuban food or white-sand beaches where we're going.  But we're told the western Illinois river town has an intoxicating allure.  It sits on the banks of the Illinois River.  Because of it's famous name, Havana becamse a big Cigar factory town.  All of the cigar shops are closed now, but we'll learn more about the history of this place when we visit.   

What's the history behind the name?  Is there any connection to the Carribean nation?  You'll be surprised to hear the connection. 

We hope you'll tune in as we kick off a third season of Cruisin' Illinois every Thursday night on the WGN News at 9 (beginning April 22nd).  If you miss it, don't forget you can always see our Cruisin' Illinois stories on wgntv.com 

Hello there,

So today was another great day at WGN. We had Darrell Hammond here, an SNL alum, who happens to be one of my favorites from the show. I'm a big fan so it was nice to get to meet him. Sometimes I wonder if our guests are going to be nice or cranky because we're on so early in the morning. But to my surprise, they are usually incredibly nice and I worry for nothing. I guess it's better to expect worse and be pleasantly surprised. Dean had his reviews today for the movies and music coming out this weekend. But I did most of my work for that earlier in the week so I had a pretty relaxed day.

Our last guest, if you didn't see already, was Christopher Mintz-Plasse aka McLovin. He was such a good sport too. He was going on no sleep but he came in and was funny and pleasant. I was so excited to meet both of these guests so it officially made the start of my weekend great. Next week Dean will have his interview with Jennifer Lopez about her new movie "The Back-Up Plan" which I can't wait to see!

Allison 

So I haven't written here since my first post, but I had a few pretty slow days.  There wasn't anything interesting to write about.  Then this week...BAM!  Lot's of exciting things happened.  First, as the other interns told you, I went to Wrigley Field for our Cubs home opener broadcast.  Walking in to Wrigley Field just before 6AM, before the crowds have even hit up the bars, was amazing.

It was my duty to escort guests from the security gate to the field.  Any guest who wasn't a member of the Cubs organization or a regular Cubs reporter (like Len and Bob) had to check in at the media trailer outside.  But, the media trailer had told our a cappella group, Straight No Chaser, to just report straight to the gate.  The security person at the gate had not been told this.  I had to run back and forth between the media trailer and the gate, making sure that our guests would be able to get to the field.  Luckily, everything was sorted out before the singing group arrived.

After I brought the a cappella group down to the field, all the other guests were able to access the field on their own.  Then I basically got to relax...and take pictures with Allison (see her blog below)!

Now, originally, I wanted to blog about Monday's experience on Tuesday, but for there was too much to do!  I had all kinds of video to try to locate in our file, which took quite some time to do.

Today, I'm in the process of tracking down copies of the show from last Thursday and Friday.  I'm at a standstill, trying to brainstorm where they could be. Wish me luck!

Coming up later on the show, Ty Pennington from Extreme Makeover will be here.  My friends and I used to watch him on Trading Spaces, so I'm pretty excited for that.

The busy days, like the ones this week, are my favorite.  Time to get back to work, and attempt to find those copies of the last week's shows!

-Michelle

Hello there,

It's Allison today and I have so much to tell you guys! I haven't been able to blog for a little while because things have been crazy for me here. The deeper I get into the internship the more responsibilities I have. And on live television I can't really say all the things that happened because that would be like a whole boring novel. But I'll show you the pictures and hopefully you can get a sense of what I was going through. On Friday 4/9 we had Norm Mcdonald, Rob Schnieder, a dinosaur from "Walking with Dinosaurs" and some of the cast of the original West Side Story.

That was such a crazy day because I had other tasks to take care of as well as tending to the guests. Thank goodness I had Tania here to help! And let me just say, if you haven't checked out the video or didn't see the dinosaur you definitely should. I felt like I was living in Jurassic Park (cue theme song here). It's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. And the cast wanted to see them too so I was kind of chasing them around but they were so nice I didn't mind. Rob Schnieder was so nice too so I was pretty happy how the day went.

On Monday, I had to wake up at 3 a.m. to be at WGN for the Cubs home opener coverage. We had all these technical difficulties but we finally got on the air around 7 a.m. I've never been in Wrigley Field that early and when there is no one there. It was so peaceful and just really cool to be able to sit and watch from the dugout or the stands. I definitely felt so cool being there : ) We had Straight No Chaser on to perform and I didn't know that an a cappella group could be so cool! I got to see Tom Ricketts and some pretty cool baseball memorabilia. I hope you get a sense of being there too with me because it was such a good experience and I shared it with Michelle so she'll be telling you more about it tomorrow hopefully.

That's it for now, check back to see the video blog that Morgan and I are doing about behind the scenes of WGN. You can take a little tour of the studio and really see what the other interns do as well.

Hey it's Morgan!

So being an intern has proven to have its good moments, and it's...not so good.  Billy Elliot the Musical has some how given me both, let's start with the good though, because that far outweighs the bad.

                The Good:          

On Friday (4/2) I got to go back stage of Billy Elliot the Musical with Dean!! Now I was extremely excited about this because I loooove musicals, and we don't get to go out with Dean a lot because most of his shoots are outside of Chicago.  So we get there and go in the stage door, and walk around where all the actors are...and I try not to mention that I'm an intern so I look important J

                We got to watch all the boys playing Billy rehearse, and let me tell you they are phenomenal! I can't even imagine being able to dance like that! I mean this dancing was so far past my jazz hands grape-vine combo that I was ashamed to be in the same room as them.  It was great to see that they were still kids though.  After watching Toddlers & Tiaras, I get really concerned for child actors!

                They gave us a tour of backstage: dressing rooms, wardrobe, hair & make-up... it was nothing like the gymatorium I made my theatrical debut in.  After the tour we got to see a full dress rehearsal of one of the scenes from the show, which again was phenomenal.

                I'm so glad I got to go see just what all goes into a huge production like Billy Elliot.  You should all definitely go see it, its' going to be amazing!

               The Bad:

                Ok, so it's not necessarily bad, but a little disappointing.  As I'm sure you know today was the home opener for the White Sox, and Pat, Dean and Ana were all outside U.S. Cellular Field for the show.  I was really looking forward to going, mainly because I've been craving and ballpark hotdog for a very long time now, but also to experience being with a reporter when they're doing a live remote broadcast.

                So I get in today and find out that instead of going to the ballpark I get to stay at the station and log all the footage we shot at Billy Elliot.  Now if you know anything about reporting, logging is that necessary evil.  You have to do it so you know what shots you have and what people in your interviews say, but no one wants to do it...no one. 

                The next 4 ½ hours of my life were spent logging everything we shot of Friday.  I didn't move from my chair and stopped just long enough to make sure my eyes weren't permanently crossed. 

                But now Dean can now piece together his package on Billy Elliot the Musical, which air tonight at 9pm.  And even though you won't see my work in the story, when you're watching just remember all the work that went into transcribing it!

                On a totally unrelated note, I would just like to remind all of you that Glee returns in 8 days!!

Hey guys,

This is Tania. Today has been a pretty slow day. All I did was get videos ready for the producers to use. Nothing special! And this is how it should be :) It is Good Friday after all! Many don't go to work today (me included), and others (like me...again) don't go to school. The news, however, doesn't stop working. Here work, there work, everywhere work, work.

And even with all the things we interns have to do, we still have some time to think. What I thought about today, was this year's Spring break. You would think that interns would get to enjoy their spring break, especially if they are seniors. I enjoyed mine...here in the cold city of Chicago, in the always busy WGN-TV. I got to wake up "early" in the morning, if you can call 11pm an early morning. I came to the studio at about 1am to see how news is gathered. And I was even able to write some stories. If you go to wgntv.com website and type my name, you can read some of them... or you can also read my latest story HERE. I also got to go out with a reporter. That was amazing, especially seeing people's reaction when they see cameras and microphones. WOW! At some point I was just staying in WGN's van and I had people knock on the windows, asking me who is the important celebrity I was waiting for or telling me that they had amazing stories to tell.

So, being an intern for a TV station is not bad at all, even if you don't get the holidays off. It is an experience you won't get anywhere else. And even though I didn't get today or my last Spring break off, I don't regret a minute of it.

And on a brighter note, we have Rob Schneider coming in next Friday and I am super duper excited! If you have any question and comments, go ahead and shoot them!

Until next time!

Hello all!!!!

Today is a really slow day for me....this is really a first or maybe because its April Fool's Day lol! We had Miranda Cosgrove from the show iCarly on the show today; the little kiddies loved her and she was cute!

Tomorrow, my producer is taking a day off and me and the other intern Keri will be in charge! Scary!!!!!!!

That's all today, maybe tomorrow I will have more! : )