A Question of Weaponry

Do pardon the vexed expression, but a most dreaded development has wiped the smirk from my fuzzy mug. You guessed it: they're taking my heavy glass. No, a quartet of horsemen didn't show up on my porch and rip the fancycam from my cold, dead hands - but a certain Brit did lay a new rig on my desk the other day and left me with a raging case of D.L.S. That's Diminished Lens Syndrome for those of you without tripods in your trunk. The symptoms are predicatable enough... initial unease at the idea of shrinkage, a false hope that smaller will somehow be better, the cruel realization that you're about to hit the streets with a molded plastic pea-shooter. Why it's enough to make an aging lenslinger pursue a second career - you know, something impervious to change like chimney sweeping, carpentry or cosmetic sales... Who am I kidding? I'll be shooting ribbon cuttings 'til they drag me away to the Old Photog's Home, but apparently I won't be doing so with a full-sized Sony in tow... Sigh.

You'd think a cameraman in his forties would welcome a lighter load. Not. So. See, those anchor-like growths on our shoulders are actually sleek, powerful weapons with incredible range, perfected ergonomics and a steadying heft. But it's not the size that matters. It's performance. What used to be accomplished with a subliminal pinkie twitch now requires the exploration of a few computer menus; dense parameter settings that are difficult to delve into when you're walking all one-eyed in front of a shackled crackhead. Throw in the tiniest of viewfinders along with a lowered lack of light tolerance and you have just two reasons why my new bazooka leaves me feeling less than protected. I guess the only thing I can be thankful is that The Suits didn't decide to outfit with honest to God baked-potato cams - those fist-sized abominations that shouldn't be aimed at anything bigger than a kindergarten graduation. Oh well, at least the Edit Bays aren't changing...

Except...they are. Final Cut Pro - that most exquisite format agnostic edit suite - is popping up in darkened rooms throughout El Ocho. I've hard to ignore their presence for weeks, preferring the comparatively simple Grass Valley system over the candy-colored hell that is an FCP keyboard. Today, however, I jumped on board and what shoudl have taken an hour took three. Good thing I had the time. Most days I don't. And therein lies the crux of my concern, for while Final Cut Pro is strikingly superior, it ain't exactly built for speed. And in News, speed is paramount. After all, this ain't a boutique. I need to be able to blow into a bay with the smell of house fire on me and lay the whole tragic smack down in under a few minutes. Will I be able to make such a deadline on a Mac with attitude? Eventually, but not before a hundred frantic deadlines test my resistance to stress-induced cigarettes...

Now, don't me wrong. These days, new toys are a great problem to have and while I wouldn't have voted to change EVERYTHING at once, I know I can make potent television with just about any piece of equipment that works as advertised. So do me a favor: When I come back on here in six months and rave about the merits of all this new equipment, remind what a wiener I was at the very outset. Until then however, I reserve the right to be grumpy as Hell about it and document in triplicate how things were better when test patterns were hung out to dry. I am a photog, after all. I can wimp and simper in three different disciplines and still feel like a man - even when Weaver or Matt finds me openly weeping in a sequestered edit bay.

I just hope they won't post pictures...