Crimes of the Camcorder

It's not often The Suits surprise me. This morning, they did. For no sooner had I waltzed into the morning meeting - confident I'd spend my last day before vacation editing this piece on a local cheesecake palace - than I noticed I'd picked up an additional assignment.

"Hey Stew, we want you to do a little thing on shooting better home video. You know, go on camera and share some of your wisdom..."

I turned slowly from assignment editor to producer to news director, then looked up, expecting Ashton Kutcher to drop from the ceiling tiles at any moment and envelope me in one of those insincere bear hugs. When that didn't happen, I looked back at my bosses and replied the way I always do whenever I think they're trying to punk me.

"Oooooo-kay...."

With that I turned and left the conference room, wondering how long this 'little thing' would take. Turns out, it didn't take very long at all. That's because I has very little time to give it. After hammering out my initial project, I slumped at my desk and pounded out a quick script about the fundamentals of good video. Then I read over what I'd written and dumbed the whole thing down to about sixth grade level. Still unhappy with it, but anxious to end the year's longest three day work-week, I threw caution to the wind and hit Print. But instead of finding an anchor to voice my thoughts, I followed the whiff of a holiday cheese-log all the way to Studio 'B'. There I rendezvoused with veteran shooter Jeff Kilduff, who stopped rolling his eyes long enough to shoot my stream of consciousness lesson on how to take the 'suck' out of your home video this Holiday Season. Fifteen minutes later we were done, and whiel I still wasn't sure I wanted to foist my visage on the greater Piedmont Googolplex, I proceeded to the edit bay and ordered take-out. One righteous steak and cheese sandwich later, I emerged from sequesterment, confident that - while Anderson Cooper can rest easy - I'd at least avoided embarrassing myself too much.

So here you go: Crazy Uncle Stew's Video Primer. The tenants I espouse in it are the same ones I break on a daily basis. The cute kids featured within are not mine, but rather that of the aforementioned Mr. Kilduff. I'm told it aired around 5:45. I wouldn't know; I was on the interstate by then, air-drumming on my pick-up's steering wheel and puttting the last workday of 2008 far behind me. I'm traveling East now, to see my Grandmother. Merry Christmas.

December in the Trenches

Sure, you're at home gift-wrapping slabs of last year's fruitcake, but I'M STILL OUT HERE WORKIN'! And let's be perfectly clear: committing television thisclose to Christmas is no holiday. In fact, it's hard labor! Why? Well, for starters, TV stations graciously allow half their staff to clear out once the November ratings book is done. As a result, the month of December is a sparsely populated one - with professional broadcasters actually enjoying vacation time with their families. Weird, huh? Stranger still, said station insist on producing the same number of newscasts - despite the fact that the majority of their ground troops are missing in action. I don't know why exactly: something about the 'revenue stream' Whatever! All I'm really sure of is that no matter which part of December I take off, the rest of my workdays are spent chasing 'General News'.

'General News'; that's Slinger-ese for "Ain't there a band camp I can shoot?" The answer of course, is a resounding 'No'. I, along with every other photog who considers himself above the fray, grabs an equally unfortunate reporter and saddles up in a musty live truck. If that weren't drudgery enough, the end of the year around here tends to be C-C-C-COLD! Late '08 has been no exception, for as soon as I was reassigned to the front lines, Old Man Winter blew in and shoved icicles up the collective ass of the Fourth Estate. Thanks, Pops! At least now when I'm stretching blurbs into exposés, I know my blood won't clot - as it's pretty much frozen solid. Seriously, can we have a solid month of reasonable weather once in a while. Remember, I'm the furry white guy who writes whole operas on the demonic nature of Carolina summers. All I'm asking for is a mild temperature or two, not waves of locusts or low gas prices...

SHHHH! Don't say anything, but Chad's looking at me again. Can't say I blame him; we been joined at the tripod for two days now and I do get a little punchy. Maybe if I sit here real still, he'll go back to dithering with his cellphone. Don't get me wrong; I like the guy. He's a fine reporter, a published author and by most accounts, the King of King. Hell, he evn cut his TV teeth at my broadcast alma mater, WNCT! But these are endtimes, after all: massive lay-offs, weird weather, Paula Abdul still on Idol. It's enough to make two mil-mannered Southern boys turn on each other. Why, earlier Chad and I shot of a profile of a local cheesecake shop and I SWEAR I caught him eyeballin' me by the Creme Brulee. He does it again, I just might icepick him out by the satellite dishes and blame it on some passing drifter. Who's gonna tell any different? PFFT - no one reads THIS drivel....

Glimpses of Infinity

"Where do you go after you've been to the Moon?" That's the vexing question behind Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth. Journalist Andrew Smith is my kind of space enthusiast: one who’s less concerned with what was on the lunar module’s control panel than what was on the minds of the men who parked it on the Moon. But when he vows to track down the nine remaining humans who put boot to Luna, even he worries they’ll be uptight throttle jockeys. He’s only partly right. From the moonscape painting Alan Bean to the increasingly mystic Edgar Mitchell, Smith finds not every aging space cowboy who set boots on Luna fits the classic astronaut mold. And what a mold! NASA chose carefully the humans they threw at the Moon, favoring men with cool heads, trim torsos and limited imaginations. As a result, those few souls who‘ve seen the Earth as a whole have a hard time explaining just what that infinite view made them feel. And they’re not getting any younger - which is what makes this book a public service. For when these space visitors do shirk their mortal coil, who will be around to prove that One Small Step didn’t go down on a Hollywood soundstage? Don’t bother answering; just know that you won’t find a better encapsulation of the Apollo Mission‘s heady success and subsequent ugly death than this book. Equal parts space travelogue, celebrity memoir and character study, Moondust tells the unlikely story of the lucky few who traveled all the way to that rock in the sky, then came back to spend the rest of their days living in it shadow.

Still beats pokin’ around in low orbit, I’m told.

The Endless Lament

Ten minutes to showtime, Jensen grew intense. Chest thumping, brown locks wet and limp, that crazy biker look in his eye. You know the one. It all began in the morning meeting when, over a conference table filled with holiday goodies, he drew the shortest cheese straw. That can only mean one thing for a photog in my shop: Holiday Concert Live Shots. Matt took it like a man, crushing the cheese straw under his thumb and trudging off to meet the rest of his day’s fate. His fellow shooters watched him walk off with nothing short of awe, then spent the rest of the day showing their support by assiduously avoiding his gaze. Dead Man, Squawkin’.

Okay so that overdoing it, but we gotta have some station lore. See, every year El Ocho throws a couple of charity concerts; you know, orchestras, cherub choirs, Santa Claus on ice skates. It’s a large time, but the whole thing doesn’t go off without a modicum of hype and backache. Sure, it begins as harmless promos, then bleeds into anchor babble, but it all crescendos with a series of breathless live above the ice as skaters and oboe players warm up. Which is where your veteran photog comes in, usually one just hours from their Christmas vacation. It’s a live hit the Chief often absorbs. This year Matt took it. To the chest.

On the surface, the assignment’s not so bad… ’swing by’ the Coliseum in a live truck, throw up the mast, hook up a camera and point it at the lovely Julie Luck. From there she’ll take over, poised and radiant as she tells viewers how they can enjoy a free night of good music and cheer if only they’ll bring themselves and some canned food to the Coliseum. Provide her with a monitor and she’ll damn near co-host the show. Toss in cute kids skating lazy Susans along with the bleat and warble of a forming orchestra and you got the makings of a variety hour. What could go wrong?

P-l-e-n-t-y. From the hundred of school kids blocking the service entrance to the security guard who only talks in pops and clicks, half the battle is just getting there. Matt made it in okay regardless; by the time that I arrived the mast was up and the truck locked, cables snaked from the back to the coliseum’s hook-up box, part of the in-house video patch-board that’s nowhere near as simple to use as management believes. From there, I wound my way through the bowels of the great room, dodging full grown cellists and half-pints dressed as Nutcrackers. There, across the ice, I spotted my furry friend.

He was only a speck at first, but the nearer I got to his rink-side perch, the more I realized something was wrong. Why else would a man of his carriage flit from darkened light to power-strip like that, pointing to his ear and cursing the very Gods of Broadcast? I didn’t know but before I could get to him and find out, the orchestra launched into ‘Frosty the Snowman’, rendering anything past a pantomime pretty much impossible. Just then Matt’s light miraculously turned on, allowing him to lunge for his lens and cue Julie, who then launched into her easygoing spiel as if nothing was ever wrong. Perhaps it wasn’t.

All I know is Matt looked positively distraught for a minute or three, before settling into a rhythmic slump behind his camera. Not that I was worried. He’s been doing this for longer than I, cutting his teeth on the great Spam riots while I was still cutting some high school class. If he wants to grumble and cuss while exceeding expectations, I say give him some space. The man can field strip an optical disc with one eye duct-taped shut, all while dropping one-liners like a movie pirate. Besides, I got a glint of satisfaction in his eyes as he shook his fist at the rafters, reminding me of a lesson he taught me so many moons ago: Achieving television on a daily basis will quickly erode the soul, but it goes down a little easier if you bitch about it along the way.

No wonder he's so jolly...

From a View to a Shove

Okay, so I've fallen behind on my Schmuck Alert duties as of late, but a certain piece of video is pulling me out of my holiday malaise. Chances are if you've walked by a television set today, you've seen it. I'm talking about Bernard Madoff's morning stroll through a rolling scrum. Seems the disgraced investor was returning to his Upper East Side enclave when a horde of cameras both still and moving blocked his path. Madoff is of course the Manhattanite accused of bilking countless movers and shakers out of a reported $50 Billion dollars. That's a lot of cabbage and worthy of reportage in itself, but what brings me out of my funk is the pushing match that erupted between the hunter and the hunted. Watch for yourself: at one point Madoff pushes a photographer, only to have said lenslinger plant a hand in his chest and give a mother of a shove. (Stay in focus, damn you!)

Now, I'm not complaining. In fact, the video provided acres of entertainment for my coworkers today. At one point we slo-mowed the footage and dissected it like the Zapruder film (Hey, it's what we do). I'm just a bit flummoxed that neither shover or shovee made much of a fuss about the unnecessary roughness. Is that how you roll in the Big Apple? K-e-w-l.... The whole thing reminds me of another lecherous defendant: The 'Reverend' Jim Whittington. Back in 1992, the televangelist faced federal charges of money laundering and conspiracy after bilking an elderly widow of nearly 900 thousand dollars. Whittington was eventually convicted and did two and a half years in prison. I covered that trial and after a couple of weeks of trailing him from car to courthouse to car again, I wanted to kick him square in the grapes myself. I was younger then, afflicted with more testosterone and not always of sound mind. Though not a man prone to violence, ten plus days of smelling what that reprobate had for breakfast filled me with all sorts of unwise impulses. I may have acted on them too, had I not feared being pummelled by the pack of scary church ladies that clocked our every move.

Ever seen the size of those Bibles they carry? You'd hold your fire, too

Shoot the Revolution Without Me

Either that roofie I slipped Weaver is beginning to take effect, or he's demonstrating the wrong way to grapple with a fancycam. If it looks familiar, though, don't worry: YOU'RE not having a flashback. That's way nine out of ten actors choose to hold such a camera whenever they're forced portray a TV News Photog. Maybe it's something they teach in film school - or perhaps they're just pissed they have to pretend to be someone so low on the broadcast totem pole. No bother, the stereotypical news shooter is going the way of the dinosaur anyway - replaced by multi-tasking, laptop-packing solo-mojo's. If this doesn't bother you chances are there's no light kit in your hatchback. That, or you're like me: a fairly gregarious loner with a lens who'd rather take a video tour of an applesauce factory than play news crew down at the courthouse. However, most photogs are appalled at the idea of gathering contacts and facts along with all those groovy God Shots. I get that. But a crumbling economy and quantum leap technology are rendering our lowly opinions mute. Once the big boys prove that 'backpack journalists' can fill the newscast at half the cost, you can kiss your specialized press pass goodbye. This doesn't bring me any great joy. I've kind of enjoyed being an anomaly all these many moons. Soon, twenty-something's with advanced degrees in YouTube will be the norm instead of the exception. Where that will leave a relic like me is still unknown, but I feel better equipped to take on the future than that photog who's used to catnapping at the crime tape while his pretty reporter works the crowd of looky-loo's for suitable sound. Yes Sir, an infamously undervalued job position just got a lot more thankless. Was a time, I didn't think that was possible.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna watch Groundhog Day solely for Chris Elliot's masterful take on the skeevy TV news photog. That cat NAILED IT.

Menace at Friendly Center

If you live in the Piedmont, you’re probably still wrapping your head around today’s heist at Friendly Center. Here’s what (we know) happened. Around 10 am, a man dressed in surgical scrubs and a red wig shot a Brinks armored truck employee during a scheduled pick-up at the Old Navy. Customers saw the man loitering around the store before the armored truck arrived. When it did, witnesses say the man in scrubs shot a guard at point blank range, grabbed some bags and ran to a dark car waiting in an adjacent parking lot. The man got away, the guard later died and people around here wondered just where in the hell is safe these days. To that, I have no answer. After all, I’m just a cameraman. But I was there minutes after the shooter escaped and I can tell you what little I saw:

Until shots rang out at Greensboro’s most popular shopping center, it had been a pretty slow news day. I was driving to a sidewalk meeting at the time, thinking of nothing more than where I might eat lunch - when the cell phone on my side began to vibrate. A few seconds later I executed my first u-turn of the week, late for what would surely be our lead story. On the way, I did the logistics. See, shopping malls - both inside and out - are aggressively patrolled by security guards these days. Most times, I can barely get my fancycam out of my unmarked car before some Friendly Center rent-a-cop gets in my grill. And that’s when I’m there to interview Santa Claus. What it would be like in the wake of an armored car heist I did not know - but with my station-owned cell phone in mid-meltdown, I was about to find out.

To my surprise, no one so much as said ‘boo’ to me when I rolled into the McDonald’s parking lot across from the Old Navy and set up my camera. Cops were everywhere. Some directing traffic, others rolling out yellow tape while their superiors milled about the Brinks truck parked outside Old Navy. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed even more cops walking methodically by a neighboring bank. Still not sure what had happened, I let my camera roll as I wheeled about from cop cluster to a K-9 crew to detective huddle. At any moment I expected some schlub in a rented badge to shoo me away, but to my surprise the Wackenhut drove by and only glared. Maybe they were intimidated by all the real cops on scene. Maybe like me, they were too busy taking in local history to bother anybody else. Whatever the case, they did their job and allowed me to do mine.

Of course I wasn’t the only journalist descending on Friendly Center. But I was one of the first. For a good ten minutes I swung my lens this way and that, never once spotting a competitor or coworker. Fine by me, for I knew it was only a matter of a few more minutes before this place would be teeming with familiar faces. Looking around, I proclaimed another Mickey Dee’s parking space in the name of El Ocho, for the live truck I figured had to be on the way. A few minutes later it arrived; Danny Spillane offered only a minimum of grab-ass before planting his camera and tripod beside mine. Reporter Sheeka Strickland sauntered off to find an officer who would talk and Danny set up the live truck. As he did I climbed in back, fired up the laptop and began slicing shots into a sequence for the noon remote that was about to follow. I was halfway through my edit when I looked up to see a camera scrum growing around Police Chief Tim Bellamy. Only then did it occur to start taking still shots - something my colleagues have accepted as just something I do.

Thirty minutes later, I left Friendly Center in the leathery hands of my fellow photogs. Somewhere across town a sidewalk meeting was well underway and even a senseless murder outside a place my kids shop wasn’t going to keep me from its tranquilizing tones. Besides, there were plenty of my friends there to mind the store. And unlike, the detectives who must now find a killer, my work was done.

Until, of course, I return for the inevitable follow up...