It seems like the FOX25 team did it again, pulled out all the stops and aired what I might call an absolutely perfect show.
The only thing left to do is just rave about it and hope that other stations saw it, just to see how stunning, warm, and enjoyable a show can really be when shot properly.
We started off with a stunningly beautiful Lisa Monahan, wearing a white, short-sleeved blouse with black ruffled lapel-trim.It’s hard to beat a brunette in white!Her hair was one of those Salon W works of art, with beautiful curls in a gorgeous shade of light brown.Her makeup was to-die-for perfect, with white eye shadow and exquisite deep reddish pink lipstick.It was good enough to hurt you in those tight two-shots, so do I even have to tell you how beautiful she looked in those … wait for it … superbly tight close-ups!!!
Yes, they pulled out all the stops.We had extremely beautiful tight close-ups throughout the show, with just a couple of standing-shots for visual spice.
With tight two-shots and gorgeous close-ups, combined with high-energy and joyful anchoring from everyone involved, it was a show that held you captive throughout.
Smiles were flying out of Lisa at every perfect opportunity, and the banter was very enjoyable.This is a crew that clearly enjoys putting on a show.
It was one of those rare shows where you felt as if the crew gave you everything they could give, and the viewers left feeling satisfied, never cheated out of enjoying the very people they tune in to see.
This was a show where the artistry of the people directing the camera-work blended with the beauty and charm of the female anchor and created something very special to watch.
The amazement continues! Friday night, FOX25 aired what I would call a visually perfect show, or at least as close to it as I could hope for. So what's all the fuss about? Let's go over it.
They have tight two-shots, probably the tightest and most enjoyable in the market, matched only by the two-shots that KOCO uses on the weekend morning shows (at least last time I checked).
They use minimal choreography, so that when they do send an anchor into a standing-shot, it catches your eye and serves as a bit of visual spice. It does not, however, dominate the show and ruin the core foundation of good, intimate camera-work.
They are at least capable, though they don't do it all the time, of pulling in tight enough on their standing-shots so that they are reasonably enjoyable. They did that last night with Lisa Monahan.
The close-ups for the past year have been pretty good but not quite excellent, lacking that extra tightness that gives you that little jolt of "stun". Last night, they threw in some close-ups like that. It was immediately apparent and significantly more enjoyable. Jaime Cerreta's face lit up the screen on those shots and they were captivating to say the least.
A show like this is a pleasure to watch. It leaves you with a feeling that you tuned in and did not get cheated. If you tuned in to see your favorite anchor, then you actually got to see her! And if you wanted some tail-kicking journalism, well, that's there too. With a 47 minute show, there's more than enough time to expose the ongoing saga of our lying, cheating, stealing, incompetent government (and hey, that's just at the local and state level!).
FOX25 has obviously been thinking lately, not content to just coast along. The camera-work seems revitalized, and the show is more interactive with its viewers. The "U Pik" concept is very cool. It's not Earth-shattering in its importance, but it let's you feel like you at least had a small say in what the newscast aired. It gives you that feeling that the station actually cares what the viewers want. What a concept!
I could be wrong about this, perhaps it’s because someone on the crew is filling in for someone else, but it seems to me that FOX25 has been sprinkling some tighter shots into its broadcasts lately.I’ve noticed this for several days, and usually when I comment on something like this, it jinxes it and everything goes back to normal.(I hate it when that happens!)
But the fact remains, for the past week or so, the crew has been hitting us with a tighter close-up now and then, and the results are really striking.
A few really stunning close-ups has been the only thing largely missing from a FOX newscast for the past year.They’ve been giving us good shots, but not stunning ones, and maybe, just maybe, 2010 will usher in a new era of captivating shot-quality on FOX25.
They’ve already overcome the grainy live shots that plagued them about a year ago, and they have some really beautiful live shots, often shot better than some stations shoot their anchors in the studio.
Their two-shots are impossible to beat in primetime too, so the only frontier left to conquer was those close-ups.
Of course they kick more tail in journalism than any other station on a regular basis, perhaps simply because they have more show in which to air it, or perhaps they are not beholden unto any outside groups.Regardless, they air the scandals and government cover-ups that other stations don’t seem to have the guts to tackle.
And with a dazzling array of female anchors and reporters, this show is just plain hard to beat 7 days a week.
I’m thinking 2010 is going to be a very good year for FOX25 viewers, especially with the increased interaction they are getting from Facebook and Twitter.
The 10pm show on NEWS 9 stood out last night as the best of the 30-minute shows.It had tons more stun-power and intimacy than the 6pm version that came before it.
For some reason, the lighting and the vibrance of the colors struck me more than usual.I’d have to study a few shows back to see what was causing this, but the picture itself looked gorgeous.
The other thing that made this show so beautiful was three close-ups of Amy McRee, each one a little tighter than before.The third one was absolutely stunning, and Amy flashed that insanely beautiful smile of hers and turned it into a masterpiece.
She finished off the show with her usual charming banter with Gary England, then gave us one last standing-shot smile taking us to commercial.Maybe I was hallucinating, but even that standing-shot seemed a touch tighter, and those extra pixels and detail on a TV screen make all the difference in the world.
This was a very beautifully shot show.
In contrast, I was able to channel flip during my recording and catch Joleen Chaney in two-standing shots, both of which were very anemic, shot from below the hips!There was so little detail in these shots that you really couldn’t enjoy anything about Joleen; she was just this little “stick person” in the shot that was dominated by a big monitor and a lot of unnecessary clutter.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you can take a fantastic woman and just pour all her gifts down the drain with lousy camera-work and poor shot-selection.
Last night, NEWS 9 nailed it, while KFOR missed the boat.
And since KOCO was solo-anchored at 10pm last night, I’m willing to bet that anyone who switched to NEWS 9 to catch up on their McRee will be thinking twice about switching back after seeing how stunning Amy looked in her shots.
Amanda Taylor was out, so it was “All McRee, All the time”.
Amy McRee wore a dark outfit with a very unusual lapel/collar.It’s ruffled and it sweeps across, then back down and around.I know it looked stunning on her in person, but it was a little too dark to show up well on camera.So I was stuck just looking at that beautiful face of hers; it’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it!
The 5 and 6pm shows were okay, but for me, the 10pm stood out as the best of the three.It seemed to have better shot-selection, so we got about 4 close-ups of Amy, and two of those were running Money Shots, so the show really felt warm and beautiful to watch.
And Amy’s anchoring is insanely great lately.Her ability to project joy and energy, and her ability to give us weather banter that is always charming and never cookie-cutter puts her in a class all her own right now.
FOX25 Primetime News at Nine
Once in a while someone shows up and knocks it out of the park in a way that is totally unexpected.That’s what Lisa Monahan did last night.This was nothing but a simple, “Viewer Left” standing-shot, so how on Earth could Lisa possibly have a chance of rocking my world and causing the 2x4’s in my walls to warp?
Well, let’s add up the ingredients in this recipe for stunning goddess, and see what we come up with.
First her hair was beautiful, no, it was more than beautiful; it was a Salon W work of art, with beautiful tight curls starting at about ear-level.
Her makeup was beautiful too, even at a distance, with lipstick deep enough to pop and those cheekbones of hers were exceptionally stunning.
And then, to fully appreciate how stunning she looked, you have to think back a couple of years ago when Sana Syed appeared in a standing-shot wearing a grey turtleneck sweater.She looked so stunning that I got mail about it the next day.Well, Lisa did the same thing and it took her beauty off the charts.
Lisa was a total knockout last night.She has found a way to combine some of the best features of some of the best anchors in the past few years, blended with her own unique gifts.She’s got a Maggie Carlo killer smile; she’s got Sana Syed stun-power in a scaled down package; she’s got a hairstyle that is a total work of art, more beautiful than most any hairstyle on television, and she has her own uniquely beautiful features, including a very cute sense of humor that I hope I get to see more often.
I’m telling you, the Salon W made-over, post-Jamaican Lisa Monahan is a stunning goddess, someone you simply must see to believe.
And it hit me this morning why we have been having all these Earthquakes in Oklahoma lately.It’s because of Lisa, there’s no doubt.When she shows up looking as good as she did last night, the Earth moves.I’m thinking if I could just have a few million in stimulus dollars for research, I could prove it.
