 Hi, my name is David Geiger and welcome to the show today My guest is a former DVP student and now an ABC news reporter ladies and gentlemen Christopher Brantley How you doing today Chris good? How are you doing? I'm doing wonderful. So let me just ask you a quick question What led you to part of DVP? Well first of all, thank you so much for having me on the show. It's absolutely wonderful to be here. I you know DVP was The crux of my of my high school and and at the same time college career, right? And I never expected it to happen. I never expected to be in DVP. I didn't know what I wanted to do Around 10th grade. I couldn't I knew I had an idea that I wanted to write that I wanted to be in journalism in some form but I didn't know where to take that and When the program came about for digital video production, it just kind of resonated with me a little bit when they were talking about it Of course back in we had a different campus. It was completely different school. It seemed like and When the opportunity arose I I couldn't turn it down the opportunity to come in here and learn About things like this about learning how to do an interview to you know You know set a set up to set mics up that that was Also exciting to me and it didn't seem like it was real work And and that was the kind of that was something that I really was excited about was DVP didn't seem like real work because you know if you love what you do You know work a day in your life and that's that's the way I felt about DVP. Yeah, it's not a job It's like a career, right exactly. Yeah, I feel you there. So um How to help you in your career now today? Well, you know bringing DVP into my life kind of gave me a little bit more of an idea of where I wanted to go and when I Sat through the first day. I I knew this is it and going through the whole program and getting out of the program and Being able to intern at ABC 7 that Was everything to me and I learned everything From DVP. I learned how to run a camera how to like I said Mike somebody up I learned all of that from DVP So when I walked in on the first day of my internship The people at ABC 7 my co-workers now did not expect for a moment that I'd know what I'm doing They wouldn't expect me to turn a camera on much less go out and shoot Video of a crime scene or what have you So being able to learn all of that in DVP and then go out and immediately Put it to action and almost immediately. I say that because I left high school and left DVP Walked straight into ABC 7 as an intern for six months unpaid unpaid important to note that And then you know began full-time employment with ABC 7 paid at that point But being able to walk in on day one of my internship And know exactly what I'm doing Mm-hmm All thanks to DVP Was it scary at least a terrifying terrifying terrifying absolutely mortifying I'll never forget the the sense of terror because it at our office. We have the giant gates That have razor wire around the top and you have to those of us that are employees You know kind of go around a drive and the gate opens for us And we have a little card, you know to swipe to open the gate So the first day that I pulled in and I had my card and I swiped the gate As soon as the gate opened it was just terror absent absolute terror until I walked out And drove out that same gate in the evening. Wow, but you fall in love with it. You fall in love with the terror Yeah, I still feel that sometimes when I walk in So um speaking before we go off the topic of DVP. What was your favorite memories at DVP? you know It's so hard Having spent two years in the program with all of my best friends that are still my friends It's so hard to whittle it down to only a couple. I have to say though that the one memory That sticks very clearly with me and a couple of my my friends because we talk about it regularly As if it's the first time we're ever talking about it was the very first day Everything seemed to be going wrong for the whole day it was raining and it was We couldn't find our way around the campus at that point the campus was spread out there are one-floor buildings and You know the classroom that we went into we hadn't seen before I hadn't seen before and it was an old garage So the garage doors and the air conditioning unit was just a wall unit against the wall and it was dark in The classroom and we're like the sketchy. This is all sketchy This doesn't seem right and then mr. Gray walks in and I don't know if it was mr. Gray since if humor on day one But he was wearing all gray and introduced himself as Bob Gray and we went. Oh This is gonna be interesting. This is this is gonna be a great year Of course within ten minutes. We you know had completely different thought But we were that was I remember being so terrified and I was never terrified to start school But starting school that day I went I'm not sure how this year is gonna play out But I was that's probably the thing that sticks with me the most because it was such a contrast to the way I really felt about TV because I walked in going. I'm not sure this is gonna be good This is all sketchy and the day I walked out On the last day of high school. I remember not an emotional human being mind you I remember getting you know, oh misty. Oh, oh teary-eyed. I was a little upset Give like a family, right? Oh, it totally it becomes a family from mr. Gray down and and you know first year second years We all were very close and you couldn't help but be close when you're you know Spending so many hours with people every single day and then going out on shoots with them after school You can't help but get close to them. I feel you there so How did you start working at you be seven? You know that is a crazy story That I love to tell people because I like I said it was an unpaid intern for six months and Not easy not easy to do that for six months and all of a sudden I'm standing in the newsroom and The news director at the time this I'm still an intern news director pulls me into his office and says You know, you're not receiving college credit for this. You know, you're you're not getting paid for this We're not compensating you in any way shape or form and I think you need to go and I protested a little bit And I said, you know, well, you know, I'm learning so much. I'm helping out so much You know that he sees me around the newsroom every day and he said He said you just don't you don't have a future in this career. You don't you're not gonna be in television He said you're far too young for our market No one's gonna like you on the air and why and he says specifically he'd never put me on the air and so he asked that that be my last day and So that was that was a day. I left I didn't tell anybody he didn't tell anybody and here's where my big break comes in I Come in the next day anyway Because I figure what do I have to lose and why not right? Why not exactly? Why not you go in if he kicks me out He kicks me out. Yeah, I Kind of hope that maybe he'd forget so I spent half the day hiding from him went out on a couple shoots came back And by the time I had to go into the newsroom, which is a giant open room and he could see everybody from his office. I Turned the corner into the newsroom and there he's standing With a box full of his personal items Oh, and people were standing around him and I bolted to the bathroom and I hid in the bathroom for ten minutes and waited and waited and waited Until I figured by this point security had to have you know kind of moved him along and It was a great guy. Don't get me wrong, but he he that was his last day of employment at ABC 7 and I walked into the newsroom 10 minutes later He never told anybody to kick me out. Nobody was the wiser I stayed on for it was another month before they hired me full-time and it was a full year After I had worked there for full-time before I told anybody that he had actually Asked for me to leave so that's a really cool story Yeah, it was and then that was that was me just being able to stay but being able to be hired was a photographer left her position and They had a hundred as I recall it was around a hundred applicants to the job some of them were Emmy award-winning photographers one of them I specifically remember was a national geographic videographer and For whatever reason the vice president of our company was doing the hiring that day And he just decided to hire me and the right choice. I yeah, then I started getting paid That's really that's really awesome. Yeah, it's much nicer to go into the office every day when you're receiving a paycheck I bet I bet so um What is it like be on set of an ABC 7? You know the first time you walk on set as As just you know as a floor director or you know, I was a camera operator in the studio for a little while That's a little intimidating The first day you walk into the studio with a microphone on and an earpiece in your ear and they're telling you one minute to show That's a feeling right there. That's that's where you get your adrenaline rush You don't need coffee when you're about to go in the air Because you you realize that you're you know directly staring into a camera and on the other side of that camera can be upwards Of 80,000 people our last ratings book was about 80,000 watch us on standard But at six o'clock in the evening the first time I went on set to do something live by the way It was completely unscripted. There had been a plane crash on Casperson beach down in Venice It was us. I believe it was a Sunday and I was a weekend reporter But they had only had me doing taped things before I'd never been live and Plane crashes I go down there. I was the only reporter on the scene that evening And so I did the story I shot everything I went back to the studio and my boss called from home and said I want you on set in the chair for the 630 broadcast and I did two minutes with our anchor Mack what max when it's Just about completely unscripted. I had bullet points in front of me But the teleprompter was useless. I I just had to wing it So that was my very first time live and that's terrifying when you walk into the studio and you go We are two minutes to show and I have no script. Let's just do it So do you have any stories by the way of being on on your favorite stories? You know, I Won't call this my favorite story No, I have to I won't call this one my favorite story. This is probably Why I real this is the moment I realized excuse me why I do what I do a couple weeks ago We had a series of bad storms that came through in the middle of the night 3 a.m. Everybody gets woken up by alerts on their phones As did I I had only gone I had come from a late movie So I had gone to bed at 2 a.m. That morning and I was up by 3 a.m. That morning and My office I was texting one of my bosses and and saying, you know Do we have anybody out in the field our weatherman Bob Harrigan had been on the air for a couple hours by this point? And they said we don't have anybody Nobody's coming yet to get on the air to go out to the scenes And I because I'm a bureau. I have my camera. I have a work vehicle all at my house So I jumped in the car. So went to bed at 2 was up at 3 on the air by 330 blowing around in the wind And we I did specific specifically I did live programming for six hours that morning straight No script you you are standing in front of multiple different scenes moving around and you're describing what you're seeing and The amount of people that were watching us was unprecedented and It was a marathon 14 hour day straight with one hour sleep and I stopped at Panera bread on the way home, you know for dinner and three people Stopped to me from three separate groups just while I'm in Panera for less than 10 minutes to say great job You know, we were watching you because what we do what our job as journalists is to get relevant information to people And I knew that's what we've been doing for the last three years of me being there But going on the air for six hours straight and telling people this and this is serious You know, we have to you know, be careful because more storms were popping up and we saw you know the possibility for more Getting out there and telling people this is urgent that that truly That showed me why what we do is so important that my most favorite story is I got to Off this is just this is an honor. It gives me chills thinking about it still I got to fly to Washington, DC With the honor flight group Which is a group of veterans and that go up To see their memorials for a day in Washington, DC. They don't pay a dollar these are World War two veterans to Iraq war veterans and the emotion we're at the airport in Fort Miners at 5 a.m. and Boarded a plane that was specially chartered by Southwest to get us there and back and there were full military honors at the DFW in in excuse me at Dulles in in Washington. There was a one of the Vice admirals the Joint Chiefs of Staff was standing there waiting to shake these men's hands and you you walk off and you go Wow, and it was that all day every memorial we went to it was raining It was freezing these 80s 90 year old men and women Got on and off the bus every every memorial we went to soaking wet To see there were more of most of these people low-income have never been that was the Coolest story I think I could ever do sounds like it and I got to work on that story for a couple days and put together a long-form piece for It and I'll I'll never forget that so it was like breathtaking Breathtaking it was it was mind-boggling walking around Washington, DC Following these people who were there during so many of these con so many Consequential moments in American history who have never seen the memorials for them Being there with them as they're seeing it for the first time Being very emotional you just you can't help but get emotional yourself and you can't help but think about it all the time Right. Wow. That's something else. Yeah, it is. Um, so For people that are interested in becoming a reporter What what advice would you give them for going into that career path? Ask questions? Ask so many questions the the most important thing that we do is getting ourselves out there and And reporting the news and asking tough questions of people and power that is what people need to do You can you can go to school for it You can take classes for it as much as you want But if you're not willing to get out there and ask questions and get your hands dirty sometimes in that, you know In the search for answers Then you're never gonna make it so what I tell people is it a lot of kids say a lot of kids Not necessarily high school students, but a lot of kids say they want to be news anchors And I tell people do not ever say that don't ever say you want to be a news anchor Say you want to be a reporter Because that's how you get into this field News anchors were reporters at one time. I never want to be chained to a desk I never want to be reading a teleprompter or five nights a week I want to be out there, you know reporting news and that's what I tell people ask tons of questions and say you want To be a reporter that's really cool. So You said you like to be out there and doing things and you said you were there for the For the weather reports and everything. Is it scary? Is it terrifying to be out there in the hard winds? I Got knocked over at about three forty-five ish in the morning I in my earpiece I could hear Bob Harrigan saying I was on CS2 key. He said CS2 keys about to get hit with heavy winds coming off the Gulf in a couple minutes, and I'm like, I'll be fine I'm you know nestled in between buildings So he they come out to me, you know ABC 7's Christopher Brantley is out on CS2 key. I Start talking and describing, you know The voracious winds coming through and you know like there's debris everywhere They were literally lawn chairs that were you know beach chairs that were on the beach that are scattered across midnight pass You know across several lanes of road And I'm describing that and in the middle of me describing that the camera goes over and I hit the ground really hard and Busted my my left knee pretty hard. So that got a little terrifying, you know, we got back in the car pretty quick You had people help you though. No, I was by myself the firefighters There's a firefighter not far away. He came came running over and I Noticed he got my camera up before me, which I was very appreciative about because the camera is worth a lot more So Besides all the newscasting and everything is there any hobbies or interests you like to do, you know When you're in as a bureau chief, you don't really have a whole lot of time You find yourself working, you know early in the morning too late in the evening and weekends sometimes shooting different stories We have a new show that we started a few months ago That's a 7 p.m. Show. It's long-form pieces of journalism, you know, rather than 90 second stories They're three to four or five minutes So I find myself shooting a lot for those and preparing a lot for that that show Besides work I tend to find myself at the Oslo very often seeing a lot of shows One beautiful thing about living in a cultural city like this is you get to see, you know, fantastic You know performances and and it is nice at the end of the day after a long day of you know Living in this crazy world to be able to step back and to a you know pretend world for a couple hours And that's very nice. So you like arts, you know I I do enjoy the art arts and culture, but I'm getting into the Oslo a little bit more I'm starting to like stage production a little bit more. I've always liked it, but Now I'm going to see a ballet this evening. We'll see how that goes. Were you ever involved in drum club here? No, no, no, I was I'm not good at doing it myself. I'm I can appreciate it Right, I can appreciate it from the cheap seeds with a cup of coffee But I couldn't be on the stage. That's I agree with you Anything else we would like to know? You know just a DVP Put me to where I am today, you know When I get asked almost on a daily basis how old I am and I say I'm 23 and they say How in the world are you 23 years old in in your job? And I I say because I had an amazing school an Amazing teacher who put me exactly to where I was supposed to be and taught me everything. I needed to know for day one of work and then being able to come in and and Or I should say into ABC 7 and put all of everything I learned Straight to work was fantastic. Well, thank you for your time today, and I hope you guys have a lovely night And thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you