All Scenes Considered

Broadcast News - it’s the ultimate team sport. Too bad only a few of the players are visible from the cheap seats. Still, you can spot the craftwork of countless others, if only you’ll remember...

For every perky young morning reporter leading a lens through a carnival funhouse, there is a cramping photog nearby who’s pretty sure his kneecaps will explode before the anchors in his earpiece ever stop chortling over his shot.

For every man on the street interview seen pouring into your living room, a half dozen other citizens were queried, many of whom declined the on camera portion of the interview but insisted on sharing their extended views on the matter anyway.

For every series piece that opens with a flashy montage, there is a red-eyed editor who still wonders if he should have shaved off a few frames in the middle, reworked the beginning or just ended the damn thing on a cross-fade dissolve.

For every quick encapsulation of an overnight crime, there is a smug desk jockey nearby, who uncovered the morsel during her frenzied ritual of morning ‘beat checks’ - otherwise known as the Dewey Decimal System of newsrooms everywhere.

For every sudden loss of audio during a live shot, there is a control room full of irritated technicians, an engineer peering over his eyeglasses at a nearby screen and one photog who really wished he had replaced those cursed 9 volts back when he first thought about it.

For every shimmering backlight feathering the anchor team’s glossy silhouette, there at least a couple of pale studio goobs with shadowing acumeninfinite Hobbit knowledge who spent more time than you would tweaking squeaky barn-doors from atop a wobbly step-ladder.

For every effortless live remote involving multiple microphones, there is a harried audiophile on scene who, given enough time, thinks he could improve upon G-n-R’s Appetite for Destruction using only duct tape, clothes pins and the rattiest of Sure Mixers.

For every newscast that ends on time, there is a show producer somewhere, crumpling up script paper and pushing the last eight hours of detail-wrangling, hand-holding, and ego-stroking out of her mind, lest she refuse to come back tomorrow and do it all over again.

By the way, if you see said newscast-stacker carrying a box full of desktop possessions to her Camry - let us know, wouldya? The show must go on.