The Crying Game

In an as yet unposted News and Record column, my fave glottologist and all around nice guy Mike Clark tackles the tough issues:

"Videographers zoom in extra tight anytime someone on camera is about to cry. I think they're trained and certified in tear-zooming. Don't zoom in, we take your camera away and give no severance pay. Zoom in and you go national."


Now Mike, I can't speak for everyone out there with a face full of viewfinder, but those of us who stuff newscasts for a living do indeed zoom in at the first sign of ocular hydration. But if we're going to discuss this, we have to get the terminology correct... We are PHO-togs - rugged underlings who stick their lenses in other people's problems for a daily wage. We shoot crusty mud puddles and active hurricanes, oversold molehills and mountains of smoldering sheet metal. Videographers shoot weddings - poorly. You'd no more refer to one of these seasoned TV stevedores a 'videographer' than you'd call a grizzled homicide detective a 'rent-a-cop'. Okay, so the average photog isn't gonna break out the taser just because you mangled his name tag - but you get the idea. Now, as for honing in on falling tear drops, that we will do - but make no mistake...

We do not train.

Firemen train. Photogs sit around and bitch. We swap war stories and gossip about the other guys' "talent". About the only thing we're truly certified to do is drive top-heavy minivans and identify fast food structures by silhouette. Mostly though, we chauffeur reporters around reglons we know better than they ever will - all while constantly reminding them that without us, it's all just bad radio. Yes, we're not an especially easy breed to cozy up to; if you're looking for refinement and style you may want to check in with the overly coiffed camera crews at Bravo - but if you have to scale some poor widow's porch at high noon, you can do no better than your above average staffer. Why? We got snipers' eyes, a lifer's decorum and exquisitely subtle thumbs. I myself can reach up and feather my zoom controls at the first glint of falling water and never once tip off the surrounding in-laws as to my true intentions...

Unseemly? Yeah, but don't blame me. Blame Iron Eyes Cody. You know, the noble Native American who shed a single tear over the littering of America. I - along with a lot of other news shooters my age - watched Big Chief Verklempt quietly lose it in that famous Public Service Announcement for years. I even asked friend of the blog Bob Timberlake about him once and whiel the famous painter regaled me with a great story, I can't recall a single sentence of it. What I do remember however is that single tear rolling down the Indian's worn cheek and a small part of me has been trying to recreate that scene ever since. And have I. Victims, beauty queens, sweepstakes winners,: I've documented more waterworks than that Jacques Cousteau's cameraman. In fact, only one crying jag escaped my gaze and it haunts me to this day...

May 28, 2006. All the world was watching Hollywood as some gray haired schlub whose name escapes me won the title of American Idol. I was outside the Kodak Theater that night, camera-manning the red carpet as a gauntlet of pseudo-stars and real life celebrities preened and sauntered past. Among that number: goofy boozehound /national treasure David Hasselhoff. That's right: a half hour after the Baywatch mogul staggered past my camera, he famously lost control of his emotions over some banal bit of American Idol stagecraft. The Hoff cried and I MISSED IT.

Four years later, I still get choked up thinking about it.

The Parent Flap

Some news shooters polish their weapons on the perimeter as they plot their every move. Me, I just stumble into the breech. Take today for instance, when I bum-rushed a school awards ceremony like a deranged janitor. Technically, the Principal knew I was there - and even why. But to most of the parents packed into that cafegymnatorium, I was just one more Dad with face full of plastic glass. How else to explain the panting man in the cargo shorts, the one high-stepping over third graders and Room Moms alike. Yes, I was halfway to the podium when their collective stares weighed me down and I looked up to a room full of suspended eyebrows. It was then I realized they took me for a (GASP!) hobbyist. One glance at my hand and I understood why...

It's that damn new camera.

Plasti-Glass 5000, Fancy Cam Jr, Fisher-Price Vision: I still haven't decided what I'm calling my diminished lens. Fact is, I haven't so much as cradled it before today. Instead I've let it ride shotgun on auto-ignore as I squired around the old Sony I wished was my owny. It ain't - and until I get in the habit of buying TV cameras, I'd better get used to wading into the battle with a far weaker weapon. What's that you say? My new long-arm is less intrusive and newer, low on the hernia scale and of quite higher definition. Yeah, it's got some theoretical pluses, but for a fellow who's worn a groove in his shoulder with a certain caliber of camera, it doesn't always add up. But hey, match was never my strong suit, so I've vowed to shut-up and shoot - for any camcorder that acts as advertised should be all I need to enact some cinema, right?

Right?

Theoretically, yes. But having now used my pea-shooter in a real-world shoot-out, I find my self pining for the hefty embrace of my Sony XD. Today the topography of that fine device was much on my mind as I jabbed at my new rig and found most of he buttons missing. Thrice I tried to record a shot - only to white balance in three different shades of orangey-blue. If that weren't enough I conducted half a scintillating interview before ever realizing I'd yet to roll. Imagine a certain third-grader's chagrin when I asked to him to repeat most everything he'd said. Yes, that and the indignant glares of so many parents almost shook my confidence and for once I was glad my miniature lens at least had room for a trimmed up El Ocho logo. Otherwise, I'd be cast to the back of the the room with the rest of the amateurs...

And I'm not sure I could live with that.

Above and Below

Ahhh, the God Shot - that mythical frame that eludes news shooters both moving and still. At first, it's barely a concept. Soon however it morphs into obsession; a single minded quest for a vantage point the viewer will never see coming. It isn't always worth it. Rash acts rarely are. But when a committed lenslinger begins lusting for a certain angle, you'd best damn take cover. Before you know it, he (or she) will climb out on the struts of a wobbly chopper, strap himself to the hood of a black and white or jam a camcorder into an old aquarium and get wet. THAT'S exactly what my competitor Aaron Glancy did today as we faced off on the banks of the Mighty Dan. While I clung to the crumbling shore and bitched about the heat (my normal M.O. this time of year), the intrepid Glancy encased his rig in fish-house and plunged into the drink. Dude's got moxie (and hopefully a change of clothes somewhere). And while the muddy water may have clouded this particular vision, all was not lost - for the pasty schlub who stayed ashore left most impressed.

Almost makes me sorry for all those rocks I threw at him.

No Van Is an Island

Either the BP oil spill is causing the very planet to crumble into the sea, or Florida freelancer Roger Scruggs is having fun with Photoshop again. Either way, it makes for an image I can't stop staring at. I just hope The Suits don't see this; else they'll want this kind of team smotherage EVERY year...