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Wednesday, Nov. 11, 1998 | 9:52 a.m.

We begin this tale of tumult with Monte Wilson. You know Monte, or at least someone like him.

Every place of business has a Monte Wilson. He's not a well-coiffed, upper-echelon administrative type, or even a career-driven, overburdened middle management type.

He is, to put it bluntly, the person who really knows what's going on. He's under-appreciated and under-paid, but if you're in a pinch, go to Monte.

Monte is a photo journalist for Las Vegas 1 (the area's only 24-hour news station, operated in conjunction with the Las Vegas Sun and KLAS Channel 8) and a former hammer thrower at Cal State-Bakersfield. A big guy with a big heart and considerable technical skills, Monte was my professional partner for a one-day experiment conducted by the Sun and LV1.

"I hope you know what you're getting yourself into," Monte said last week. "But I'll help you out. There's a lot more to this than people realize."

The idea was to uproot a newspaper writer and place him in the shoes of a TV journalist for one day. The print reporter would work on a story for that night's newscast, then write a first-person account for the newspaper.

It would be a study in versatility, sort of like when Barbara Mandrell plays a solo on the saxophone, then scrambles across stage to jam on the banjo.

But the arrangement was fraught with potential peril for both sides. Chiefly, LV1 was taking a risk in placing a wholly inexperienced reporter in front of the camera on a real assignment.

If it didn't work out, they would likely be left with a valuable but un-reported piece of news, and a couple of minutes of dead air filled by a still shot of the blue LV1 logo. It would be bad for ratings, but at least more interesting than the Bannock County (Idaho) Commissioners meeting over on C-SPAN2.

As for me, any misstep and I would forever be pelted with comments such as: "Brilliant idea, Ted Baxter Jr."

Apart from the professional pratfalls, a few lingering, under-the-surface issues also exist between print and broadcast journalists.

(Trade secret: Most newspaper reporters think TV reporters are as vapid as mall mannequins, while most TV reporters think newspaper reporters are uptight geeks with personal computers.)

However, in this experiment, the pretensions were stripped away, thanks to a handful of helpful (if occasionally skeptical) TV news professionals.

Especially Monte.

We're going in

My day started with a brief meeting with LV1 assignment editor Erik Pappa, whose job is to regularly peruse news releases, e-mail, local and national newspapers and magazines, and any other information source to weed out story ideas.

Pappa led me into the daily morning meeting involving himself and the staff of Channel 8. Pappa sits in on the Channel 8 meetings to ensure that the stations don't run the same story on the same day.

It was here that I realized I'd bounded into uncharted territory. Staff meetings are usually tedious practices in which people mumble, stammer, talk over each other and occasionally yawn.

But not this group. The people at Channel 8 and LV1 always speak CLEARLY, CONCISELY AND ARTICULATELY. They made every comment SEEM VITALLY IMPORTANT. Every story idea CAPTURES YOUR INTEREST.

(When I returned from my day with LV1, I used my new TV voice on a co-worker, who told me to "KNOCK IT OFF.")

This day, Channel 8 decided to work on a dozen stories, including the smut pamphlet peddlers on the Strip, the Nicaraguan relief effort, the new pedestrian bridge leading to the Convention Center on Paradise Road and a national beef recall.

President Clinton was in there somewhere, and Governor-elect Kenny Guinn was due to arrive around noon for a studio interview.

Meanwhile, I was getting edgy, because I still needed a story to "go with."

Out in the field

Pappa and I, along with Sun photographer Aaron Mayes, discussed a few possibilities. We were joined in this process by LV1 General Manager Bob Stoldal, who suggested pursuing a story about scorpions (the poisonous arachnid, not the band).

I called an acquaintance of Stoldal's in the insect termination business who, Stoldal said, was very agitated about a new form of killer scorpion surfacing in Las Vegas. This variety of scorpion is more poisonous and aggressive than native scorpions, and has been rumored to devour 7-year-old children whole during youth soccer matches.

(Not really, but it would make for compelling video, no?)

I called the exterminator, who spoke at length about the killer scorpions (which migrated here while clinging to killer palm trees) as well as killer bees, killer cockroaches, killer termites and Jerry Lee "The Killer" Lewis.

Then, for the first time in my life, I asked: "Will you go on camera?"

The exterminator refused. Probably afraid of being recognized by a killer scorpion. The story, naturally, was killed.

Pappa finally suggested an item on the upcoming City Council meeting agenda involving a proposal from the Las Vegas Fire Department. The department is requesting a $29-million bond to fund four new stations, and two renovated stations to keep up with the demands of our ever-expanding city.

We all agreed it was an ideal story, particularly since it was closing in on noon and the most productive thing I'd done all day was listen to a guy rant about killer bugs.

Fire, Monte and me

I set up an interview with Tim Szymanski, the public information officer for the Las Vegas Fire Department. Szymanski enjoys talking to reporters and isn't afraid of the camera. He invited us over during his lunch hour.

I finally met up with Monte, who asked me, "Is this going to be a package or a VO-SOT-VO?"

"I dunno. How about a do-si-do? We can all go square dancing."

"You don't know VO-SOT-VO?" Monte asked.

"NO-SOT-NO," I said.

Monte, the Danny Glover to my Mel Gibson in this buddy flick, sighed and explained the vernacular used by TV journalists:

* A VO is a voice-over, when an anchor or reporter off-camera reads a story as a piece of videotape rolls.

* A SOT is sound on tape, or a sound bite from an interview subject.

* A VO-SOT-VO is a voice-over read by the anchor, followed by a sound bite, and tagged with another voice-over.

* A package is when a reporter in the field puts his voice on tape and does a stand-up, which is used sometime during the story, and extra VOs and SOTs are added.

Got it?

We decided my story would be a package, which is longer than a VO-SOT-VO. We then interviewed Szymanski at the fire station.

I asked Szymanski a couple of questions about the department's proposal to the city, and he effortlessly repeated what he'd told me on the phone an hour earlier, and what he also said a few moments before I remembered to ask Monte to turn on the camera.

The whole process took about 20 minutes. The interview lasted less than three. I'd been working for more than three hours.

We then shot some "B-roll," which is footage that is not a sound bite that helps embellish a story. Monte rolled a few moments of footage from the corner of Summerlin Parkway and Buffalo Drive, where one of the new stations would be built.

I still needed some more SOT material, so we hustled over to the Albertson's parking lot on the corner of Rampart and Lake Mead boulevards, the site of another proposed station.

We attempted to ambush a few unsuspecting afternoon shoppers and ask them about fire. The problem, of course, was that our obnoxious video equipment kept scaring people away.

(The microphone, resembling a giant phallic symbol, is particularly unnerving to the average citizen).

We finally coerced interviews out of a couple of well-spoken Summerlin residents, who basically said, "We like new fire stations." We headed back to the studio.

Pieces of a puzzle

My next objective was to write a script to accompany our breathtaking video footage. Television writing is different from newspaper or magazine writing, primarily because TV writing must be tight and conversational to fit into a constrictive time frame.

An example of the two:

* A newspaper writer would write: "The casino magnate, who died a decade ago, was known for his eccentricities and resilience."

* A TV reporter would write: "The late casino owner was strange but strong."

"You have to write conversationally," said LV1 anchor John Purvis, who guided me through the script. "On TV, the words have to match the way you talk."

Okey-dokey.

By the time I settled in to write my script, I'd been on the clock for six hours and been working on the fire story for four. The resulting written text from that effort was six sentences.

I realized that major elements of the story -- details about the engines' response time, specific information chronicling the department's impressive safety record, the various land permit obstacles the department faces -- would be lost to time.

"That's how it is in this business," Monte said. "You spend so much time getting interviews, shooting and editing, and the viewers only see a very small part of it."

Monte and I then reviewed our raw footage and determined which SOTs to use in the story, listening and rewinding the tape over and over to choose the best comments. We decided on 18 seconds of Szymanski and 11 seconds of the two residents.

Before the final edit, we set out to record the most grueling five seconds of my life: the stand-up.

Go away with that camera

As we drove back toward the fire station, where we'd record this infamous piece of videotape, I asked Monte if it's common for a reporter to record a stand-up in a single take.

"One guy," he said. "I've seen one guy who could do it consistently, when I lived in Bakersfield (Calif.). He had some training as an actor and could nail it every time."

A challenge! I began reading what I thought would be my stand-up, over and over. I felt I had it memorized when we arrived, and Monte set me up in front of the camera.

At this point, I lost control of my mouth, which realized the work day was eight hours old and decided to split.

I clumsily read a couple of trial runs before Monte said, "Stop. Let me see that."

Monte grabbed the script and said, "You're reading the wrong lines."

Oops. Now I was afraid -- of the camera, and of Monte, who was just about sick of me.

After about 10 takes, I muscled my way through, "Three of the new stations would be in the Summerlin area, where meeting response time is more difficult for fire fighters."

Five seconds. Bull rides last longer.

Epilogue

We returned for a final editing session, which, to me, was the most creative element in the process. Piecing together all of this sound and footage and making it flow is a challenging and time-eating endeavor.

We plucked out of Channel 8's vast file footage library a few old shots of firemen dousing blazes, and another piece of tape showing a dedication of a Las Vegas fire station.

I went off to record my voice for the finished product, venturing into a small studio and reading (and re-reading) portions of the script into a giant microphone in my monotone warble. Monte edited my voice over it and added the file footage (another hour's worth of work), before we finally settled on the finished product.

I took down the final time notations, which show the anchor when each segment begins and ends. Noted at the bottom of the page was my story's final time count: 1 minute, 18 seconds.

The longest minute of my life.

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