A Standup Kind of Reporter

Any good news director will tell you (I know because they’ve told me), that a proper package (a taped story with reporter narration) needs a standup. A standup is video of the reporter standing (or sitting) while trying to say something intelligent.

Here are a few of my more memorable standup attempts:

-Standing in front of the knife-thrower. Two takes. Both perfect. Fear does wonders.

-On the interstate, in the back of a Honda Accord with a beaver. I'd never been so close to such a large rodent that didn’t bite me.

-At the West Jordan animal shelter, walking down an aisle of cages, showing off Max, the illegal pet alligator confiscated by animal control officers.

Peter: "Dog, dog, pig, dog, dog, alligator."

-Leaning against the Kearns building, faking some guitar strums as I lip-synced to a preproduced story-song about a barefoot marathon runner. A security guard asked me to stop leaning against the building. He thought I was panhandling for change.

-Running through a wooded area of a local Frisbee park while dressed in a gorilla suit. It was an April Fool's Day "story about Bigfoot. Though, technically, it was not a standup because I was hunched over and I wasn’t speaking (because, as everyone knows, Bigfoot is mute), I felt the body language was so powerful, I was truly communicating. (Saying “what some people will do for a news story.”)