How Henri ruined my Sunday...

...Or: Anatomy of a "News To Me" story.

*UPDATE*
Cat haiku by Henri's creator here!

Last Thursday Mike asked me if I'd like to write the script for our treatment of a popular cuteoverload.com video called "Henri" about a pretentious house cat. I immediately said, "yes," but I did not immediately start writing.

All of a sudden it was Sunday afternoon and my Monday morning deadline was looming. I had a couple directions I'd thought about going in, but actually getting started down one of those paths was harder than I thought. So instead of enjoying a lazy Sunday at the end of a long weekend, I tried blogging about it in hopes that would help me get focused. I'd exhausted all my other procrastination options, and Wimbledon was in a rain delay anyway.

A couple weeks ago we all got an email from Mike with a link to a very creative video he'd found. That's how a LOT of stories actually start for us. Someone finds a great iReport or blog, sends everyone the link, and then we all "reply all" with what we think. It sounds a little haphazard and we're actually trying to streamline that process, but "reply all" has turned out to be a surprisingly good filter. Mike's link to a video starring Henri the cat got mostly positive "reply all" reviews and so the process of working out a plan to put it on TV began.

To follow Henri from idea to air

First step... find all the elements. As good as the "Henri" video is, we couldn't just throw it up on TV and call it a day. We have to get behind the video, get all the who, what, where and why of it. Mike reached out to Will Braden the writer/producer/director of the video and he agreed to shoot and upload some exclusive video just for us.

Second step... the TEDIOUS step. Mandy downloads the new video from our FTP site and transcribes it. This is a really boring and time consuming process of watching the video and typing out every last word spoken in it. We call it "logging a tape" (even though there is rarely a tape involved). We've all had to do it, and we all hate it. That transcript DOES become invaluable to the writer and editor of the piece down the road though.

Third step... the script. This is the part I was procrastinating on. Lets talk about it some other time.

Fourth step... music. For Henri the cat, we're considering "Cool for Cats" by Squeeze, "Cat Scratch Fever" by Ted Nugent, you get the picture.

Five... editing. This is a mysterious process wherein all the raw materials, script, music, video and pictures are all stuffed into a Macintosh. Several hours later they've been blended together and come out looking nothing like the writer expected as a cohesive and compelling story that lives in a little folder on a computer desktop until it's plugged in to the whole show on Friday.

Six... airing. Henri is on the rundown for this weekend's show (which doesn't necessarily mean it will actually be ON this weekend, but that's the plan right now). Give it a watch and then come back and let us know what you thought!

P.S. – I finished the script... blogging was a good cure for writer's block!