The Most Hideous of Tendrils

It was a cold January day and I'd somehow convinced my mother, a pediatrics nurse, that I was sick. Once she left for work, I commandeered all three tiers of the keyboard -sized cable box, it's thick brown cord draped over the flowered ottoman and my 18 year old feet. Pushing the La-Z-Boy all the way back, I worked the clunky, spring loaded buttons of the old school remote. That's when I realized it was launch-day and sat up with a snap.

Even an overgrown delinquent like myself knew about the Space Shuttle Challenger, the shuttle with the teacher on board. I'd even put in a rare appearance at a school assembly where our librarian told the story of applying for the Challenger ride and being denied. Sitting there in the bleachers, I tried to hide my fascination under a wise-ass sneer, but my frontal-lobe was secretly engorged. Civilian space flight had always intrigued me, as evidenced by the tattered Robert Heinlein novel in my book bag that day.

So it was with great adolescent satisfaction that I flipped through the previously unfathomable number of TV choices recently installed at my parent's home. Twenty five in all, counting UHF. After punching several clunky buttons I settled in on CNN, the rookie network that was forging a new, 24 hour news-cycle. With the countdown itself just seconds away, I chewed my lip and leaned into the set, eager to drink from its 19 inch glory.

The unknown achor droned on as the director dissolved between two shots - a wide shot of the new astronaut's students and a long shot of the great bird simmering in the distance. In 1986, TV news didn't get any better than this...but then the hideous tendrils appeared, crazy columns of billowing smoke that had just seconds earlier been a nation's highest-soaring dream. I watched alot more that day, stunned that a mighty spacecraft could actually crash on live TV.

Little did I know then that twenty years later I'd observe the grim anniversary by interviewing one of the fallen astronaut's brother at a crowded book signing. Carl McNair and I made small talk before he told my lens a little bit about his brother Ron. I'd have like to spend more time with the affable author, but the room was small and competitors were clamoring at the door. You know how photo ops are.

Sack in the Baddle

Having spent far too long slicing footage of vocalists both local and hopeful, I almost grinned today as I slid behind the wheel of Unit 4. It's been a couple of weeks since I twisted my ankle in an impromptu display of clumsy Dad dexterity and since then I've thought alot about how I wanted to spend the rest of my days behind the lens. It ain't editing 'American Idol'. Hey, I'm thankful for the diversion - but after countless days of cutting tape of caterwauling milkmen, I'm glad to get out and do some driving of my own.

Not that my mission was all that compelling. Instead, my appointed rounds consisted of the mediocre and the mundane: a press conference here, a burned out apartment building there. For once I didn't mind though, I was just happy to escape the shadows of the edit bay - even if it did mean traversing the farthest reaches of two seperate counties for news items that would make up all of eighty-five seconds on their respective newscasts. Who cares? For every eight hour shift of newsgathering misadventure, there's easily three or four days of skull-numbing errand running, days spent filling TV screens with so much processed cheese. I'm okay with that.

I just wish it made for a more interesting blog-post. Truthfully, the only moment of intrigue came at a Rockingham County stoplight. There I was, staring at the windshield and listening to Jim and the boys rip through 'Alive She Cried', when the bleating of a fellow motorist's horn invaded my cockpit. Looking over, I saw a young man positively bouncing behind the wheel of an idling Chevy, grinning madly as he flashed me and my familiar logo an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Of course I returned the gesture, glancing only once to make sure the door to Unit 4 was securely locked. Apparently happy with the exchange, the young man sped off at the first hint of green. And that was about it. I'd like to tell you the fellow asked me if 'that thing had a Hemi?', or dragged me back to his lair for a mystical transaction of ideas and petty cash - but after watching clips of Oprah (rightfully) raking beleagured memoirist James Frey over the coals, I may never embellish again...

American Idol: Greensboro

I don't normally like to plug the things I help put on the air, but in this case I'm making an exception. On Tuesday January 24th, American Idol: the Greensboro Audition will air on FOX. Readers of this blog may remember my coverage of the A.I. machine's visit back in September. Since then, I've spent w-a-y too much time stuck in an edit bay with the resulting footage from those five days, culling reports that will air locally over the next several days. Thus, I'm eager to see what the big boys did with their network fare. This much I do know: the Idol executive producers and celebrity judges did nothing but rave about the Gate City from the moment they exited their limos. Some of that I'll chalk up to flattery, but they must have meant it - as the Greensboro show weighs in at a full two hours.

Now, I'm not here to champion the merits of the globe's silliest talent show and I dan sure don't want to make this an American Idol blog (even though it does send my site meter through the roof). However, A.I. is a part of my gig and I'd be less than an honest blogger if I refrained from mentioning it. So, it is with professional pride and just a little bit of indigestion that I donate a small amount of space to my involvement in this bastion of indignity - especially since I may soon enter a pressurized tube to witness the ensuing drama up close and personal like. Besides, the unwashed masses that showed up for the Greensboro auditions brought it all: talent, delusion and enough body glitter to choke a transvestite. What could be more fun to blog about than that? Don't answer, just tune in Tuesday night for an episode of American Idol with a southern twist. If nothing else, tune in for Kellie Pickler, a young lady with a great voice (and even better backstory), who smiled for my phone-cam mere minutes after wowing Randy, Paula and that dude in the muscle shirt.

You Know You're a Photog When:

My buddies at b-roll are reviving an old standby, and I couldn't resist:

You Know You're a Photog...

...when you're totally at ease in crowded, tense situations - as long as you've got your gear to hide behind.

...when you identify landmarks by the odd calamities that happened there, "You know, that statue where the Amish kid got stabbed?"

...when you're totally cool with going in like gangbusters, but you far prefer to be invisible.

..when impromptu pools of natural light spilling through half-closed window blinds excite you on a visceral level.

...when you dream at night, you find yourself analyzing its shot-composition, before noticing the dream-you is carrying a tripod.

..when you've attended grow-room take-downs, hot air balloons launches and formal Governor luncheons - all wearing the same wrinkled Hawaiian shirt.

...when the smell of a structure fire reminds you of umpteen other such occasions.

...when you're no longer surprised where the voice on the other end of that 3 AM phone call wants to send you to.

...when you can identify individual fast food franchises by the silhouettes of their buildings.

...when you're on first name basis with the Chief Surgeon AND the security guard who lets you park in the doctor's lot.

...when a random fire truck screeches by, your conditioned response is to whip a U-turn and gun engines after it.

...when the very best and absolute worst workdays you've ever experienced both ended up as ninety second masterpieces.

...when your hands are scarred by tripod bruises, your lower back kinda hurts and you have a deep, unabiding pocket fetish.

...when your collection of press-passes is surpassed only by your stash of free t-shirts and logowear.

...when you'll accept just about any absurdity in life as long as it's presented to you at the end of a tube, on a tiny black and white screen.

Heroics at 11

If I really did have some Viewfinder BLUES virtual t-shirts, I'd send a whole box of them to fellow FOX affiliate photog Bobby Hughes for keeping his cool at a recent news scene. It happened in the wee hours of Friday when the Saint Louis news shooter happened upon a burning car, an unconscious driver and a few dazed onlookers. Not waiting for someone to call 'ACTION!',the veteran lensman bolted forth and helped drag driver Corey Abernathy 20 feet to safety. True to his DNA, Hughes rolled the whole time, proving you can shoulder a TV news camera and some responsibility at the same time. Check out the footage, currently bouncing around the internets. It speaks well of the KTVI shooter, who above all remained calm when the real-world calamity began spilling off-screen. Bravo!

Slicin' Time In Edit 4

With my bum ankle still keeping me from full photog status, the chiselers here at El Ocho have insisted I pull a few edit shifts to better earn my keep. 'No sweat', I thought, I'll just crack open a breakroom soda, grab some stale cheesy poofs out of the machine and plant myself in front of a warm, dry keyboard. After all, what possible challenges could mere mortal editing present to a highly-seasoned photojournamalist like myself? Remind me to shut up the next time I spout off with those smug, rhetorical questions - would ya?

First of all, we're not talking some sequestered closet where I'd leisurely tweak another boutique piece. No, the suits signed me up for a stint in Edit 4 - that bastion of broadcast anarchy some TV stations call 'The Feed Room'. It is a less than soothing place. With its racks of whirring tape decks, bleating playback stations and screeching phones, Edit 4 has the frenzied atmosphere of a front-lines triage unit and Air Traffic Control. All of which makes sense, as this is the nerve center of the newsroom. Every piece of tape, video snippet and digital timeline gathered by our staff passes through these four cluttered walls before spilling out into the region's living rooms. That's where your friendly gimped-up lenslinger comes in...

For it's my duty to sort through the soundbites, map out the mug shots and spruce up the segues that go into your above average newcast. Along the way I have to take in feeds from grumbling field crews, slice out a half dozen teases and send out clips to disembodied voices from far off lands. That's a lot of organizational skills to ask of a guy who loses his car keys every sixteen hours. Nonetheless, I've stayed on-task for two solid nights, working the candy-colored keyboard of my humble workstation at maximum speed, knowing that a single case of photog fat-finger will bring a whole newscast down in flames and spark a post-show investigation that could very well end in me washing Neill McNeill's car.

Luckily though, I'm under the command of our Senior Editor, the all powerful Angie Riley. Chief Surgeon of Edit 4, she can revive a dying line-up with but a whiff of her perfume. Just don't let all that estrogen fool ya, fellas. The lady is a menace!. A proud graduate of HardAss U, she can rip the throat out of a cowering cameraman at a dozen paces. She's the Darth Vader of El Ocho. Ask any news shooter about the sound of her approach - a stirring in the Force followed by a curvaceous shadow and an ever so polite voice telling them they have twice as much work as they thought they did. As the walls of the small room shrink and the clockhands spin, Darth Angie is know to spin on her designer heels, scrape any unfortunate photog-plasm off her shoe and sashay back to Edit 4. And it's geting worse! Last night I watched her make a confused young shooter's eyeballs bleed simply because he didn't slow-mo his recuts! What's up with that? If she reads this, a sore ankle will be the least of my problems.

Help Me Obi-Wan!

Fly On The Wall

You can do a lot of things with a TV news camera on your shoulder - chase cops and robbers up crack pipe stairwells, do the one-eyed backpedal as a Governor glad-hands his way through jam-packed ballrooms, grab for balance as your small boat scrapes the roof of a flooded school bus, we’ve ALL been there.. God knows when I started lenslinging, I wanted to do just that; strut up and down the crime tape with badly-scratched battle-axe atop my station freebie fleece. But the older I get, the more I find myself parking my one-eyed beast on a tall tripod and turn on its cloaking device. What? Never heard of the Invisible Switch? Oh yeah - we got one. It comes in damn handy at heated hostage situations, fallen hero funerals and those goofy outdoor dramas...

Of course, every shooter worth his or her sticks knows the worth of the proper perch. Be it small-plane crash or bigwig visit, TV lensers do their best work with all five feet firmly planted on the ground. It’s a hard concept for young shooters to accept, who doesn’t wanna shrug up and swashbuckle at age 23? You can slam-dance in the camera pit of life but for so long; eventually you’ll realize your three-legged friend in the back of the car can bag far better shots than you or your shoulder. County Fair midway, one-way glass stake-out, pissed off polar bar watch - it doesn’t matter where. Someday those with a zoom lens in their life will wrap their arms around their static rigs and embrace the power of the Still Side. Only then can they begin rendering themselves into the distance.

Crowds can help, as can loud noises and the deafening silence of recent grief. Mostly though, laying low behind the lens requires slow, deliberate motions. Act like you’re only babysitting the camera until the real guy gets there. Putter about like you’re supposed to be there and life forms from all walks of life will grant you unthinkable access to their inner selves. Both casual passers-by and shackled defendants assume that, like a still-camera, you have to look through the lens to capture an image, Untrue. Even before the advent of flip-out color screens, real photogs everywhere were fluent in low-key recording. How else you gonna get the good juice at the courthouse squabble?

Cop a squat, frame a shot, hit the record button and tie your shoe. While you’re lacing up the finest in photog footwear, you trusty weapon is committing all that passes through its tractor-beam into digitally pixilated full-motion memory. I cannot tell you how many times this simple technique has landed me the catch of the day, be it a handcuffed dentist mouthing curses at my camera, a construction worker falling off a three story scaffold or SWAT team members dropping a shotgun-wielding hillbilly on his front porch. So here’s my advice to all those shoulder-happy rookies with thoughts of COPS in their heads: Bring your three-legged friend, mark his territory and get to know the outer reaches of the zoom lens zone. A million vistas await the patient. Be persistent and you’ll learn to shoot whole epics from a lone camera-position. Unless, of course you’re following a troupe of break-dancing midgets through an old folks home. Last time that happened, even I had to ditch the sticks and live a little.