I find it amazing that you keep us fairly well posted on where you're going and what you're doing there, and thinking about that brought some questions to my mind.
How long in advance do you know where you're going and what you're doing? And how much do you know, in general, about the jobs before you go? Are you given material to read/study? Do you research things on your own? Or do you just show up, start from scratch, and learn everything you can from the experts with whom you work? Once you're on camera, roughly how much of what we see is planned in advance and how much is ad libbed? (I mean, do you think of questions ahead of time or just ask whatever pops into your head? Or both? Etc.) And of the "scripted" part, how much of it is your own creation and how much comes from someone else? Sorry to ask so many questions, but it's all sort of related so it's hard to separate it.
Thanks so much for your time and energy. You're the best.
The schedule is very fluid, and I assume nothing beyond the next 5 days. In two hours, I fly from Chicago to Oklahoma to clean the skull of a 40 foot whale. That's all I know about what's waiting for me, and have no idea what a whale is doing in the middle of the country.
I work with two different field producers - Dave and Greg. On this job, Dave will meet me in OK with the crew this afternoon, and do a "scout." He will have been provided some general information from our research staff. With that, he will determine the basic structure of the segment, make sure the subject is coherent, and arrange the basic logistics of the day.
As for the content itself, it is completely unscripted and unrehearsed. From time to time, we will do multiple takes, but never the same way.
