Axes, Bullets and Jelly Beans

While I dig my toes into the Carolina sand, Mal James navigates far more treacherous terrain. The Middle East, to be less than exact. Operating out of a Jerusalem bureau, this Fox News Channel International cameraman works a beat we domestic lensers can only begin to imagine. Thanks to UNHOLYLAND NEWS, we don't have to. That's where Mal posts a flurry of danger-ridden posts, winking missives full of security checkpoints, bellicose gunmen and less than trustworthy fixers. It's enthralling stuff, even when he's merely waxing poetic on the therapeutical torture of running triathlons. My favorite posts though, are when Mal hits the street in his armored TV car, dodging roadside peril with a veteran's sigh as he chases the deadline in the distance. Check out his latest, a somehow funny tale of thrown axes, spent bullet casings and Russian refugees. Or go back one for a surreal encounter with a swaddled posse of savvy gunmen any TV news shooter can identify with. But if you're like me, you soon begin to wonder why Mal James does what he does where he does- when he could most obviously succeed in less hazardous climes? Bring in the jelly beans...

A Time to Chill

WARNING: The following post has little to do with TV News and should be avoided by all readers leery of vacation slide shows and other meandering screeds....

We're Back! After six days, four boogie-boards, three books and a couple of grains of sands I can't talk about, the Pittman clan has returneth from the shore. As always, the continent's edge has left me refreshed, rested and as tan as the son of a redhead can ever hope to be. Think Howdy Doody with dermatitis. Or don't - I wouldn't. Just know that as I stumbled through the surf, muttering platitudes, I thought not of cameras or deadlines but of you, dear reader - for I am a man possessed, an otherwise well-adjusted suburban Dad who's found a way to pound his every other frustration into highly therapuetic late-night keyboard sessions. There was no such release mechanism down at 'Cain's Eden' and though it took some getting used to, my new batch of family memories is the fresher for it. Now that I'm back in the Piedmont however, the floor is mine. I have no great news of import to share, but that's never stopped me before from yammering for a few too many paragraphs. So kick back while I clear my head, would ya? I'll be back to bitchin' about smelly live trucks in a day or two...

Mind you, we didn't just go to any beach. We went to Sunset Beach. North Carolina's southernmost shore, this small barrier island is just a short drive from Myrtle Beach, but it's several worlds removed from that comparatively garish blight. No head shops here, no strip clubs, no chain-smoking mothers with faded armband tattoos. Just pristine shoreline, enchanting wildlife and a veritable buttload of family cottages. But the quietest of the South Brunswick Islands is known best for it's rustic ingress - its aging pontoon swing bridge. One of the last of its kind in operation, The Sunset Beach Bridge is a pleasure to watch and an honor to cross. Sure, traffic backs up to Iowa every time it opens to let a boat through, but dammit it's a monument; a clattering marvel of old school ordinariness that's served as a gateway to vacations since 1961. I'm no weeping preservationist, but the day it's replaced by a gleaming, high-rise span will be the day I stop raving about this three mile stretch of sand and sanity.

Thing is, once you cross that rickety bridge, there ain't alot to do. That's fine by me and the Missus, but we got tweenagers, don't ya know? I've feared for years they'd grow tired of searching for sand dollars and demand to be driven to the hipper confines of nearby Wilmington, or the neon-soaked squalor that is Myrtle Beach. So far though, not a word. Last summer's foray into the lesser of the Carolinas left them stricken with the Zen-like qualities of Sunset. That will change someday, but until it does I'll drag my nuclear brood here every June and spend the week people-watching ... Dads in bermuda shorts and knee socks, hefty moms in clingy swimwear, great uncles in flesh-colored speedos - there's one hell of a coffee table book waiting for anyone who wants to document the Great American Unwashed on Holiday. Why, I myself squired about the island clad only in electric blue surfer shorts and a mangled straw cowboy hat. I was eyeing one of those nifty seashell necklaces when my rather urbane 13 year old informed she would no longer acknowledge me in public if I insisted on dressing like a frat boy on Spring Break. I suppose she's got a point...

Then again, I always knew my girls were smart. They get it from their Mom, a spitfire of a woman who's withstood my dark moods and silly demeanor for the better part of twenty years. Why exactly, I'll never know but I think her secret is in never taking me very seriously. That's probably wise, as I too often dwell in melancholy. Maybe that explains why she only rolled her eyes when I launched a hard-target search for neighborhood wi-fi, only to return to the cottage with a fifth of contentment from the ABC store. That's a good woman, one that will no doubt be up for another reach for the beach this time next year. Where else can a family of four entertain each other by merely walking? Where else can offspring wince at the lobster tank and order a veggie burger while their parents gorge on southern fried shellfish and sweet tea? Where else can an insatiable communicator come to grips with his internet addiction merely by knocking back shots of Makers Mark? I'll tell ya where: The Beach. It certainly took the edge off this embittered lenslinger...

Don't worry though; I'll be disgruntled and numb by lunchtime Monday.

Deep Cuts

A dearth of posts can only be expected as I use this week to muse on other matters. It’s nothing personal, mind you - just a much needed reprieve from linear thinking. I’m not saying I wont check in over the next seven days, just know it wont be the normal volume of web flotsam I bring your way. While I’m away, check out the many other fine photog-bloggers available on the internets - or, if you’re really desperate for my particular strain of drivel, do peruse the following deep cuts; a half dozen handcrafted passages I pretty much selected at random:

Long before YouTube made every suburbanite a web-video demagogue, I predicted the rise of citizen-lensers in Birth of the Personal Journalist. Since then, bad camera management has become all the vogue and a million pundits have taken up the cause. Hmmph. At least I called my shot.

Somewhere among the many books I’ll never get around to writing is a turbulent saga of a reluctant sailor; a coming-of-age tale detailing one latter-day slacker’s split second decision to join the Navy. What followed couldn’t be called heroic, but if you liked M*A*S*H, have I got a sea shanty for you. I call it Crazy on a Ship of Tools.

As a licensed camera anthropologist, I often work alone. This disappointments a few interviewees and I kinda see their point. Here they are expecting a dashing news crew and I show up in wrinkled cabana-wear. That’s central to Hillbilly Hoedown Morning Jam, an otherwise ordinary tale of line dancing, time travel and fire departments. Typical, I know.

A TV news camera can score you access to many an aircraft. It’s something I mined tirelessly in my formative years - coppin’ a squat in lots of cockpits. I disclose most of them in Lens Aloft - from rickety crop dusters to attack helicopters to the GoodYear blimp. Did I mention I hate to fly?

Not sure what selling insurance feels like, but committing television news can be a lot like battle. Impromptu footraces, ornery hardware, maddening edicts from a clueless HQ …war IS hell. A shell-shocked G. Lee reaches the limits of his endurance in the cautionary screed, Perfecting the Improbable.

Some people give off bad first impressions. Others are assholes at every turn. Such was the case with the most unlikable lass I’ve ever toiled beside, an arrogant little shrew named after a mermaid. In Jasmine at the Tragic Factory, we chauffer this heartless winch to calamity and beyond. You’d better buckle up…

In Memory of Masha

It's not every day you get to eulogize a polar bear, but that was exactly my bosses wanted me to do when I walked in this morning. Not a problem. After a quick phone call to my pal Rod Hackney, I headed to Asheboro to pay my respects. What I found was a zoo subdued, its many keepers quiet and lost in thought. It was a far cry from the punchy atmosphere surrounding these apex predators' arrival back in late 2002. On that day, everyone held their collective breath as two polar bears rescued from a substandard traveling circus in Puerto Rico took their first tentative steps into the far swankier digs of the North Carolina Zoo. Following years of abuse by cruel circus handlers, Masha and Wilhelm got a second crack at being a bear. Overnight, they began charming visitors with their goofy expressions and playful antics, until these less than pristine animals were considered the N.C. Zoo's marquee beasts. But ten days ago, Masha fell ill - victim to the many afflictions he acquired while living in squalor. The veterinary staff did all they could, but yesterday they had no choice but to put poor Masha down. He was 24 years old, and a very good bear.

Escorting Slobot

No doubt about it, my very first fancycam was the size of a fridge - and about as mobile. One didn't operate it so much as molest it. With a rickety middle and sticky wheels, proper cameratology was damn near impossible. Today's studio cameras can be whisked across the room with the whim of a fingertip. Pushing the above puppy into place was like slow-dancing with a drunken robot. For more than a year though, ole Number Two and I waltzed five time a week, sashaying over a studio floor tattooed with a generation of skidmarks - the footprints of a hundred thousand newscasts. Still, I consider it an honor to have worked on one of the longest running morning news shows yet, Carolina Today. From 1959 to 1998, Slim Short and a host of cohorts broadcast a low budget hoke-fest that pioneered many facets of morning news infotainment. I stumbled onto the set in 1989, one more wash-out in a long line of troubled camera handlers. Before I abandoned the insides for the open road, I ate countless free biscuits, knocked back bad coffee with local legends I grew up watching and became clinically addicted to committing television. Too bad my back was never the same.

Making News: Reality Style

I can neither endorse or denounce Making News: Texas Style, but I can officially confirm its existence. Actually, I've only seen a web preview; the actual show airs on something called the TV Guide Network and try as I might, I can't work up the energy to look for the remote control. No bother. The on-line snippet neatly encapsulates the concept: A small market TV station throws open its newsroom doors to (shaky as hell) reality show cameras for an inside look at the sausage factory that is the nightly news. It may strike your fancy, but after a long day of making news myself, I'd rather have my eyeballs squeegee'd dry than sit and watch how they do it in Midland, Texas. Still, the clip's worth a peek if you've got seven minutes of your life you don't want back - or you just wanna hang out at a tiny TV station in a lone star shopping mall. Was a time that kind of thing would have really raised my mast, but that was before I endured my own backwaters crucible in the swampy studios of eastern North Carolina. But enough about me, here's the pitch:

...the series will focus on the people who put the news together including the anchors, reporters, trainees, and producers.

Apparently no photogs work at KOSA, for they've yet to be even mentioned, let alone shown. Perhaps the producers will zoom out to the great unwashed in later episodes. For its opening episode however, MN:TS wanders into dangerous Lifetime Channel territory - following a zaftig reporter as she struggles to slim down on camera while preserving her dignity. I fear it's too late for that, my dear. Do yourself a favor and milk the publicity for a gig at a bigger shop. Meanwhile, keep an eye out for any wandering photojournalists, would ya? Somebody needs to take over for the over-caffeinated chimpanzee who shot that first show. Back to you...

A Voice of Reason

With housewives posting home movies on YouTube, fourteen year olds mastering laptop editing and newspapers crafting on-line vignettes, the video renaissance is truly underway. It's an exciting time - even to crusty old lenslingers like myself. Never before have so many people embraced visual storytelling - with both stellar and squalid results. As one who's more interested in the written word than the flickering pixel, I'm not particularly threatened by all these newcomers. But I do blanch at the repeated chest-thumping of many of these neophytes. After all, who wants to hear a bunch of camera-handling amateurs proclaim superiority all because they've figured out how to remove the lens cap? You don't hear me screeching about the demise of print journalism all because I've blogged for a few years now. But that's just the kind of thing you'll read on-line: rampant denunciations of lenslinging fundamentals - from the earnest to the evangelist to the inane. Finally though, a voice of reason in the video wilderness, a reasoned treaty on the state of on-line visual storytelling. In The Great Video Gold Rush -- a reality check, Chuck Fadely breaks down what I've been trying to say all along and it's something every newcomer to the form should read. His thesis: Point and shoot cameras are fine for some projects, but newspapers who are serious about video should treat it as seriously as they do still photography - in equipment, training and expectations. Chuck covers lots of ground and if you're still reading this, I implore you to go read that - if for no other reason, do it for his trenchant description of the proper skills to look for:

'Who makes a good videographer? You've probably got a couple on staff. Great story-tellers with the timing of a comedian who are technically savvy, visually literate, and quick learners. Invest in them, they're worth it.'

So where do I send my reel?