Christine’s Sketching Debut on Hawaii News Now “Sunrise”

I hope you woke up early and caught Christine’s sketching segment on Hawaii News Now (HNN) this morning. She was awesome! This is what she had to say about the experience:

Todd (spokesperson for American Institute of Architects) and I arrived at the news studio at the same time. We were escorted inside by none other than Billy V himself! He was very welcoming and led us through a maze of corridors and set spaces including the main Sunrise set which we walked behind of and could hear Grace Lee and the others filming on the other side.

Billy took us to a conference room. He turned on a big tv so we could watch the show, saying we had about 20 minutes before our segment would be filmed. He left and a few minutes later he was on tv with the others. I was amazed with how fast paced everything was. One minute he was leading us through the studio, the next minute he’s on TV!

During the 20 minutes in the conference room I started doing some drawing warm ups. In the middle of my warm ups another guy came to tell us we’re up. He led us through the maze of the studio including the little room where “This Is Now” is filmed. I saw a glimpse of Jonathan Jared Saupe sitting inside, no sign of Ashley Nagaoka though.

We ended up in this smaller separate set with couches. They cleared the furniture and set up a white board for Howard Dicus and my easel. This was our little set for the segment.

Here we met the segment producer Keith and our camera man Joel. Joel is someone I went to high school with. What a nice surprise to see each other on a news set! Keith instructed us on what’s happening and tells me I have 3 minutes to draw on camera, which shocked me. I can draw fast but not that fast. But he says I’ll have time after the segment to finish the drawing and then they would film Howard’s sketch and my drawing side by side.

Keith wanted me to have something drawn by the time they start filming the segment so I started drawing before Howard arrives.

But once Howard does arrive everything happened quickly. Howard goes over what he wants to do and we start filming. I’m in that haze we all go into when we’re in deep drawing mode which is good because I wasn’t feeling nervous, just totally focused on finishing the drawing. Howard and Todd have their back and forth interview and I’m slightly aware of Joel moving around with the camera. And then in no time it was done, Howard goes back to the main set. I spend the next 15-20 minutes finishing the drawing and chatting with Todd. When I’m done with the drawing, Joel films it one more time. And that’s it. Keith thanks us for coming and leads us through the labyrinth of the studio and shows us how to get back to the parking garage. And it’s just 8:30 in the morning.

Way to go Christine! Thanks for representing Urban Sketchers O’ahu!