Using a News Room Headset

Video Transcript

"Alright. In this segment, we're going to learn what a headset is. Well, obviously, we all know what a headset is, but how to use it, and, of course, how to talk back and forth with your director. Now, this is a standard headset. It's got an intercom box and a headset with a microphone and earpiece. What you're going to want to do is, this particular one is set up to have just the microphone on the right side along with the earpiece. Now, you usually want to have one free ear so you can hear things going around outside of the--or outside of your headset, you know, things that are going on in the studio that may be too loud and the mics are picking up, something that you can quiet down. Now, with your intercom box, you have two cords going to it. One cord from the headset so that way you can hear it. And this cord also works for your talking and your listening. Then your other cord is usually reined to a intercom box, which is usually located same place where the mics are, on the input wall. What you would do is, it's just like hooking up a microphone. You take your XLR cable and stick it into the input there, and that allows you to talk back and forth with your director. Now, on the headset, whenever your anchor is talking or the microphone is on, you generally don't want to be talking. If you extremely have to, though, you talk as quiet as you can, and try and get as far away from the anchor as possible, so that way your voice is not picked up through their microphone. Now, the director is going to be shouting commands through your headset to you and everyone else on the production team. So, you kind of got to weed out what's yours and what's not. But, basically, you will have a couple different buttons on your intercom box. There's a call button that sends like a little flashing signal to the director so they can see someone needs something. Then there are two sides to the intercom. There's Intercom A and Intercom B. usually, it's interchangeable. So, what you do whenever you want to talk, (ours is set to Intercom B), you hold down the button and talk, that way your director can hear you, and everyone else on the intercom system can hear you. Also, if you press it twice, like real fast, kind of like a double-click with a computer, it will stay on. Your microphone will stay on the entire time, so you don't have to push the button to talk through it."