One of the most effective ways to structure a live shot — and ensure a strong and conversational performance — is to map your conversation and movement using environmental “touch points.”

A touch point is simply something in your reporting landscape that you can see and move toward and talk about. String a series of these points together, and you have everything you need to tell a compelling visual story without the worry of memorizing copy. You simply look, let the touch point prompt you, then look again and move on to the next point when you’re done.

The link below features a live lead by Ross Cavitt, long-time reporter at WSB-TV, in Atlanta. Using the environment to guide them, Cavitt and his photographer turn what would have been a garden-variety lead in most hands into an energized, easy-to-remember, captivating statement.

He does almost all of those things we noted in last week’s piece. In particular:

• He speaks with his entire body. Notice how large and open his gestures are — entirely appropriate to the story he’s telling and the landscape he’s in. Everything around him is big, he’s in a big space, and he needs to be big to fill it. Also note how he doesn’t just gesture to the trash container. He touches it.
  
  
• He makes — and breaks — eye contact. He does exactly what we all tend to do in conversation. We make good contact, we look away from time to time to think or to reference something in the environment, and then we make contact again.
  
  
• His voice is as animated as his physical presentation. Listen to him speak with your eyes closed. Note the variety in the pitch and pace of his voice. It works because it’s absolutely consistent with the other dynamics of his performance.
  
  
• And he integrates a prop, adding an additional visual dimension to make his point right before he tosses to the package.
  

This is bona fide standout work. Plenty of talent would have thought to stand in front of the trash container or in the parking lot. Few would have done what Ross did — finding a way to integrate both, energize and motivate his delivery, and reinforce the message that supports it.

Until then, if you have any additional thoughts or questions about any of this, we’d love to hear from you.

The Coaching Company offers a day of free coaching to stations that have never used our services. If you work for a station that would benefit from the industry’s best training, ask your News Director to contact us about free coaching.