The sun also rises

Well, that was a bit of excitement on Friday.  As you may be aware I made my first foray into the suspiciously chirpy land of breakfast television last week.  When I say "suspiciously chirpy" I am, of course, making reference to the fact that I am not really a morning person. In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't hit my straps until at least morning teatime, and then, only if there are biscuits involved. 

That there are people like Carly Flynn, Oliver Driver and Co who can be upbeat in "the a.m." at all, let alone to a professional standard is one of those facts of life that I accept despite not really understanding how it happens.  Like anything to do with the internal combustion engine or the economy.

So there I was, contemplating having to be articulate before eight in the morning.  As someone who often looks for the pitfalls and traps in any given situation, particularly unfamiliar ones, I have to say I approached this with a reasonable amount of trepidation...and also caffeine.  Before I went to bed in my hotel room on Thursday night I made sure there was a bottle of Coke in the fridge.  And I needed it, as my brain decided to wake me up at 3.30am so that it could ponder such relevant issues as "Oh, sweet Jesus, what am I going to SAY?"  Being concerned that you might be crap on live television is, I think, a reasonable worry to have.  Doing it in the middle of the night, however, is completely self-defeating, and having it accompanied by the Glee soundtrack (as mine terrifyingly was) is a good indication that you need to listen to something else on your iPod.

So, there I was catching a taxi at 7am to the TV studios in Mt Eden grasping my bottle of Coke Zero like a drowning woman in the eighties might cling to David Hasselhoff's manly, fur-covered chest.  I get to TV3 HQ and sign in at reception, and then a very cute girl named Chloe collects me and takes me off to makeup. 

TV slap is not at all like the everyday kind.  The amount I have applied to my face is probably about two to three times as much as I would usually wear.  The thing is, it doesn't really show on screen.  For some reason what seems an almost clownish amount of makeup to me, doesn't really look excessive when broadcast, which actually makes me think that someone like Tammy Faye Bakker must have been utterly horrific in the flesh.

Being in the makeup chair is good for me because it gives me an opportunity to work on "stringing a sentence together" with the makeup lady.  Also there's a TV in the room and I get to see what's happening on the show. After she tidies up my hair a bit, I go back out to the waiting area, which isn't so much a room, as the junction of a couple of corridors with several chairs, a coffee table and a flat-screen TV. Chloe comes back and gives me a mic which I have to feed up the inside of my T-shirt and then clip at the neckline.  I occurs to me as I'm snaking it up past my bra that if this mic could talk it would have quite a few interesting things to say.  I pop what I assume is the battery pack into my jeans pocket and then Chloe takes me into the studio where I'm directed to the big white couch and told which bit of it to sit on.

The couch is surprisingly comfortable despite the fact that on TV it looks like it's got as much give as a fridge-freezer turned on its side, and Carly and Oliver make their way over from the desk and we have a very short amount of time to chitchat before three cameras inch their way forward and I can read what's on the autocue.  For some reason this feels slightly "naughty" since they're not my lines to actually read.

I'm quietly impressed at how well Carly Flynn pronounces my name since she hasn't asked me beforehand how to say it.  This is a fairly rare occurrence in my lifetime.  If I have any brownie points to give out, then she gets some. Speaking of which, in a brazenly cynical move I have worn my work T-shirt in favour of infinitely more fashionable items of clothing, with a mind to accruing some points of my own with my boss. "Ka-ching" is the word I would use, I think.

The questions that Carly and Oliver ask are ones I can cope with (no maths or geography - phew!) although there are moments where I feel as if I've started a sentence without knowing where it's going to end up and have to remind myself not to ramble.  Hm, perhaps I should always speak as if I'm filling time between ad breaks?  It might make me a little more succinct.

And before you know it, it's all over.  Sacha starts reading the news and everybody is very quiet and whispers while she reads, and I de-mic myself.  I have to wait until she's finished before I can leave the studio and then I'm back out into the waiting area.  Cate, Sunrise's Online editor, who I count as a "Twitter friend", is waiting for me there and I'm so relieved to have not made a dick of myself on live television that I actually hug her, even though I've never met her before.

Cate takes me around the building introducing me to people and showing me stuff, and takes me to the cafeteria where it is revealed that it's "Fry-up Friday" so I get treated to some hash browns and bacon. In the caf I also get to meet Paul Mayo, who does the Weird World Wrap (of which I am a big fan) and am just a little disappointed that his voice is quite normal sounding.  More illusions are shattered later when I glimpse John Campbell across the newsroom and notice that he is without a jacket and tie.  It seems weird and wrong to see him in such a state of undress.  When I imagine John Campbell he is always formally attired, irrespective of the context - at the beach, at bedtime, at the gym.  I know that's ridiculous and displays an uncharacteristic lack of imagination but I honestly can't picture JC in jandals and boardshorts no matter how hard I try.  It's like trying to imagine my mum dressed as a Vegas showgirl or Lady Gaga in dungarees.

I hang around a bit longer and get all silly when Josh, Sunrise's weather chap, arrives back.  I get my photo taken with him and may have scared him a little.  By this time, the pendulum has swung from "God, I'm tired" all the way to "Ooh, quite manic now" and quite possibly Josh was not ready to be confronted with all this but he takes it all in his stride.

After more photo ops with Rod Cheeseman I'm off in a cab back to my hotel and my televisual adventure is pretty much done and dusted. 

As someone who watches a lot of TV, and Sunrise in particular, I find it really interesting to see how TV actually happens "under the hood".  It all appears so seamless when you're watching it, but in fact there are a myriad different things being coordinated and brought together in such a way that you never see the joins.  Have you got any questions about what it's like "behind the scenes"?  Also accepting feedback (hopefully not too scathing) on my "performance".

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