Moda on Fox News 5 San Diego!

May 13, 2016

Yesterday was the first time I'd ever been on TV, live TV at that, and it was pretty cool to see how all that works. The plan was to do a couple 3-minute segments at the factory with Fox News 5 San Diego features reporter, Heather Lake, to show and talk about how Moda surfboards are made, what snowboard-flex means, and how it's different than conventional surfboards. Then we head to the beach for two surfing segments. One of Heather and me surfing Moda surfboards, and one with us talking and our background surfer in the water. We have about 45 minutes between segments to get to each location, setup, discuss talking points, and such and such. Seems simple enough, if rushed. Not everything panned out, and apparently that's what makes live TV exciting; anything can happen and you just gotta make do with what you have. Here are some observations of news TV based on my one experience.

They're really good at broadcasting their subject. Heather is really personable, but when the camera turned on, she went into pro reporter mode like a switch. That switch unnerved me a couple times. So much that I hope the camera didn't pick up my reaction.

Plans falling through does not faze them. If I were running a news network, I'd have plan B and C lined up in case the plan A totally falls through, and that is probably what Fox News does. But they want A to air. It's the most compelling story (at the time), that's why they sent a crew out to cover it. They probably have backup crews loitering to scramble to B and C if A is a complete disaster.

Thankfully, we didn't have critical disasters. Our backup surfer backed out at the last second. Not a big deal, I had sent Fox News some B-roll surf footage earlier. Heather brought her wetsuit but didn't seem to feel like surfing. Not a big deal, we figured we could find surfers at the beach. I was more worried about fudging up my lines, and distracting production since we were shooting in the middle of it.

How quick the news crew thinks on their feet to put together a compelling story is impressive to me. It was clear that Heather did her homework, but she didn't finalize the story until all the pieces were on location and clear to her.

Ultimately, our two beach segments did fall through completely. Apparently the crew had to rush to Qualcomm stadium to cover Beyoncé despite being 38 miles away in peak morning rush hour. Getting two out of four segments was fine, though. And I tried to tell as much of Moda's story as I could that fit within our dialog. Live TV is a complicated process that I'm claiming zero expertise in.

Thanks to Fox News 5 San Diego, Heather Lake and crew for the opportunity to share some of Moda on TV. Making surfing more fun for more people through environmentally responsible solutions is what it's all about. And part of doing that is communicating our efforts to the public.

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