Roll Cameras!

Filming turned out to be every bit as scary as I imagined. So much in fact that at one point I wondered what I had gotten myself into. That thought came to me as I was staring down the barrel of the camera, about to have an onscreen meltdown.

Going into TV presenting, I haven't been so naïve as to think that it's all going to be fun and games. Just point, smile and shoot. I knew that there was going to be some serious work and commitment needed. Doing our first lot of episode shoots over the weekend made me realise that there's so much more to the experience than originally expected – even if it is only grassroots community television.

Behind the scenes, there are cameras to calibrate, audio to setup and sets to decorate. Inside the booth, there are switches to flick, buttons to press, and videos to be queued and processed. And before fronting the cameras, there are also segments to summarise and scripts to memorise; what I and the three other new presenters were tasked to do.

And it would have been a pretty straightforward undertaking if only said scripts and segments were actually done and written beforehand, ready for us to simply read off of the teleprompter. They weren't. So, on top of having to get used to being in front of the camera for the very first time, we were also going to be doing it unrehearsed and on the fly; ad-libbed and improvised. It made for an already challenging experience doubly frenetic.

It would go somewhat to explain my near meltdown moment. On what must have been my tenth take on trying to introduce the next segment (I kept stuffing up the same three sentences), I suddenly felt overcome and overwhelmed. The cameras, the bright lights, the need to perform on cue, it started to get to me. I felt ready to chuck the whole thing in.

Too concerned about doing everything right as well as being paranoid about making a fool of myself, I got so worked up that I completely forgot the reason why I decided to get involved in the first place: that it was supposed to be a fun and exciting experience.

So, taking a few deep breaths and a quick moment, I decided to do the one thing that came to mind – channel my inner Kerri-Anne. So, as I stared down the barrel of that camera with the bright overhead spotlights beating down on my face, I mustered as much panache and pizzazz as the plastic-fantastic blonde goddess does with so much ease on her morning talk show, and attempted once again to deliver those elusive lines. And you know what, I nailed that bitch down!

Yeah, I could definitely get used to this television hosting thing.

Kerri-Anne Kennerley, the patron saint of daytime television,
is a great source of much-needed laughs inspiration.