RÉSUMÉ TAPES

WHAT KIND OF TAPE DO I SEND? VHS? DVC-Pro? DVD? YouTube Link?

The term "résumé tape" is outdated by now. Send whatever the job ad asks. It appears that VHS tape has finally died and that most news directors can watch DVDs. More and more ads let you apply via e-mail. For those you need to have your "reel" (a term not only outdated but obsolete in literal terms) online.

Setting up your own YouTube or Vimeo page is easy and free. Ideally you'd have your own web site but at the very least you want to be able to send someone a link to examples of your work online.

Don’t worry about the poorer video quality of online video. A news director is judging the quality of your work, not the quality of the medium on which he watches it. He can certainly tell the difference between a home video camera produced demo tape and one that was done on professional equipment and uploaded to YouTube.

Even if you send an e-mail with a link to your work online, I'd still follow up with a DVD.

WHAT TO PUT ON THE TAPE

First, what NOT to put on the tape. Don’t start with color bars or a slate with your name and address on it, just start! One news director told me that he looks at every tape he gets. It may be for only five seconds but he looks at every one. If you only have five seconds, don’t waste it on a slate. Show him something that might make him want to hire you.

You have to put what I call "separators" on your tape. That is, things that distinguish you from the hundreds of other people who sent tapes for the same job. Separators should show up in every item on your tape starting with the opening montage. If something on your tape isn’t going to demonstrate to a news director why he or she should pick you from among the masses, don’t put it on your tape.

1. STRUCTURE

Make it clear when one part of your tape has ended and the next has begun. I’ve seen tapes in which one thing goes right to the next with no break between them and I found them tough to watch. Everything just runs together and I have no idea what I’m looking at. Is this still the opening montage? Did that lead-in about college football go right into that package on the local ping pong player when it aired? Probably not don’t leave news directors wondering about things like that when they should be thinking about how good your tape looks.

After the montage I put about one second of black just to show that the first part has ended and we’re moving to the next part. My tape has never featured fancy graphics or other transition devices. If you don't want to use black as a transition, don't get too elaborate with what you do use. You want your tape to look sharp. You don't want it to look like you spend more time looking for a new job than doing the job you have. It might be different if you’re applying for an editor’s job or some other production position but you won’t impress most news directors with them.

2. CONTENT

OPENING MONTAGE

In another survey of news directors, an overwhelming percentage said they wanted to see a montage of quick examples of your work at the top of the tape. We’re talking brief here: 60 seconds is plenty. And it should move along fast enough to make that time pass quickly.

Visit the videos page to see montage examples.

Make your montage of quick clips of you at your absolute best, whether it’s in standups, live shots, anchoring excerpts or even package excerpts in which your face isn’t seen. Remember, you may have as little as five seconds to make an impression. Don’t save anything for that big boffo ending.

Whatever it is, make sure it’s something in which you look and sound good. One reporter I know had an excerpt of a live shot with George Foreman on his tape. It was hilarious. The problem? Foreman was funny, the reporter was not. In fact, Big George magnified the reporter’s dullness. Your tape needs to sell you – not an interview guest, a co-anchor or a natural disaster.

THE BODY

What you put on your tape after the montage depends upon your strengths and the kinds of jobs you’re seeking. Looking for a weekend anchor gig? Consider putting packages and/or live shots before the anchoring. They’ve seen what you look like and how you read in your montage. Show them that you value packages as you show off your ability to do them. If you’ve got a strong package you wrapped around live, that’s an even stronger start.

One station remarked to me that it was particularly attracted by the fact that I had prominently showcased my reporting skills on the tape. That by itself was a separator. Two other stations, one in Hartford and one in Tampa, must have been similarly impressed. They hired me from tapes on which my reporting examples came before the sportscasts.

"BIG STORY" SYNDROME

The "big" story is not always the best one for your résumé tape. News directors care far less about what you’re covering in the stories on your tape than how you cover them. You don’t need to prove that you get assigned the big stories at your current station. You have to prove that whatever story you get assigned will be worth watching when you finish it.

Both of the packages on the tape that landed me in Tampa featured local "small time" stories. I’ve done plenty of stories on professional athletes and teams. Rarely have they appeared on my résumé tape. And you know what? While I worked in Tampa, our GM never visited the sports office to ask us about our coverage of any of the local professional teams. He DID come by to ask me to do a story on a youth soccer team. And I’d be happy to send that story out on a résumé tape.

Remember your audience: a news director, closeted in her office with tapes piled all around her, bleary eyed from watching reel after reel. That story on the President coming to town might have been the highlight of your career but it’s not going to be the highlight of this news director’s night. The President goes to a lot of towns. Reporters do a lot of "The President Comes To Town" stories. Reporters put a lot of said stories on their résumé tapes. A news director is not going to see anything new in your story. She’s seen them all and they all look the same!

You’re trying to separate yourself from the other candidates. Putting the same kinds of stories on your tape that every other applicant does won’t distinguish you from them. As veteran news director Paul Steuber put it in a letter published by TV consultant Don Fitzpatrick Associates' industry newsletter ShopTalk:

Sorry. I don't care about the day you were the 39th person to interview Bob Dole And the big fire? Heck, I can send the station janitor (excuse me, custodian) out on the five-alarmer and get a "10" back--the story IS a "10," and it's tough to screw that pooch. What I look for is story telling. What I want to see is the time you were sent out on a "4" and came back with an "8." I want to see the story where YOU made the difference: where you asked the perfect question, looked for the perfect shot, came up with compelling writing, structured the story so that you hooked me and wouldn't let me go.

It’s the story where you made the difference that will differentiate you from all the others competing for a job. That’s what I mean by having "separators" on your tape.

3. LENGTH

Even if what you should put on your tape varies, how much of it you should put on it does not. Ten minutes is plenty. If you haven’t made a positive impression in that time, you never will. I once sent a tape to a news director who told me she liked it but that it had gone too long. "Leave me wanting to see more," she said.

A recent news reporter tape of mine shaped up like this:

Opening Montage (1:00)
Live Shot w/PKG (2:30)
Live Shot w/PKG (2:00)
Live Shot w/PKG (2:00)
Anchoring Example (2:30)

That's about ten minutes. Ideally, the packages will vary in type. One will be spot news, one will be a story you enterprised and one might be a feature. But I go with my best work, no matter what kind of stories they are. If the job doesn't specify anchoring, I put it last. If I were seeking a weekend anchor job, I might use just two stories before the anchoring segment. Consider having more than one version of your tape so you have one ready that best fits the job you're targeting.

Here’s how a typical sports résumé tape broke down:

Opening Montage (1:00)
Serious Feature PKG (2:00)
Light Feature PKG (2:00)
Sportscast (4:00)
Live Shot (2:00)

That totals about eleven minutes. The opening montage had a lot of humor (or attempts at such) so I wanted to change the mood to show I wasn’t some wannabe comedian by putting a more somber, serious piece next. Then came a lighter piece that I hoped would demonstrate creativity. I knew my storytelling and packaging skills were my strength so I put them ahead of my sportscast and live shot. Structure your tape to showcase your strengths and to feature things that will distinguish you from everybody else’s tape in the stack.

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