Every night when we're out in the field, the promotions folks ask us to shoot a stand-up tease to promote our story. They're basically a short, recorded thing where the reporter says something like:

"Coming up tonight, we'll show you why people [here] are [doing something bad/good] and what that means [to your money, to Greenville, or whatever].

Well, I'll admit there's been like two occasions where we haven't done it (mostly for valid reasons like: lack of time or sensitivity). And, I bet all the other crews have done the same thing - eventually that adds up to a bunch of missing teases. As a result: the Assistant News Director has initiated a contest so that we don't forget, and so we also "step-up" our standup teases during ratings:

"Every Monday through the book (until Monday, May 30), we will choose the best tease from the preceding week. Give me a dub of every tease you want considered. The reporter and photojournalist who produced the winning tease from each week will get $10 each for a good lunch on us. That's 4 Mondays...4 prizes of $20 to the team. Give it your best shot."

Aww yeah! Free lunch? Cash prizes? Marla and I are so gonna win this thing! But, tonight we got a kinda-sorta-not-visual story about city planning and stuff. That didn't stop us. We put on our "thinking outside the box" hats and came up with this idea:

1. Find a prop related to the story, in this case: a map of the proposed development project.



2. Steal it. Borrow it.



3. Stick it in the news car and drive out to the undeveloped land (referenced on the chart).



4. Make television magic.



We are sure to win this thing!

[UPDATE: I just learned that Nigel and his photog produced a tease that somehow involved a race car. Oh man! People in The South love their race cars - no way we'll win at this rate. We are going to need to "step-up" our..um..."stepping-up". We got a few more weeks to 'turn this mother
out.']