2008 shooting assignment #67

Posted on April 1, 2008

Had a pretty busy day at work, shooting stories about truckers that may (or may not) be on strike. However the real highlight of my day was when I was sent to video a county council meeting, where the sheriff talked about all the prostitution and violence in the area. At one point they shifted gears and gave a fascinating powerpoint demonstration about gang violence, which took a morbid turn when they showed all these gory photos of slain gang members. I’m talking blood and brains. Also, the presenter showed a video called “the blood dance”, showing gang members dancing around and throwing signs. I made a mental note to look up that video later on Youtube and then change out the music the gangsters were dancing to with something more riduclous - someone already (brilliantly) beat me to it.

2008 shooting assignment #62

Posted on March 27, 2008

I’ve done a pretty good job avoiding covering the Leatherheads movie (aka “Clooneymania”) that was shot in the Greenville area last year. I put together my paparazzi story, but that was sort of a mocking thing, so it don’t think it counted. Well, today my streak came to an end when I was sent to video George Clooney and Renee Zellwegger receiving their honorary keys to the city this morning.

The actors were rather charming, but the thing I was really impressed with was having a key tripod position right in front of the stage. I’ve been to crappy local government stories where we don’t even get to set up so close, so this was a nice change. [To all the other videographers: I was hoping to get a bunch of good nat sound for my pieces today, but all I had when I got back to the station was this endless audio channel of women screaming. One long, endless scream.]

2008 shooting assignment #60

Posted on March 24, 2008

I spent a good part of my day at one of the local peach farms, shooting video (and live shots) as they braced for tonight’s freezing temperatures. Actually not too bad for a Monday, considering that a story about blooming peach trees - mixed with meterologist Jennifer Valdez - pretty much shoots itself.

And we had plenty of time between evening live shots to pose with the plastic dinosaur that lives in my Porta Brace cover.

In other news today:
I had a nice chuckle when I got home from work, received a strange package in the mail, and opened it to reveal an interesting surprise: my five free promotional HD-DVDs! My small HD library just doubled, although sadly, will never increase beyond this point.

Also I’m thrilled to see the first character stills from the live action Gi-Joe movie online. Snake Eyes looks great, but I’ve always though of him as kinda overrated. I can’t wait to see Destro or Cobra Commander (even if he’s being played by the whiny alien kid from 3rd Rock From the Sun).

2008 shooting assignment #53

Posted on March 10, 2008

Today I spent a majority of my day at the BMW factory, covering their news of recent expansion. However, the real highlight was when I was given a BMW cupcake.

This particular model is the X3 Cupcake, an expensive high performance dessert. [This next sentence is where I was going to talk about the cupcake’s “handling” and “efficiency”, but got tired of the automotive metaphors before I even got started.]

We get to take another photo!

Posted on March 10, 2008

One of my favorite memories from work last year was when a majority of the photog staff got together to pose in a photo for the NPPA magazine, followed by a pizza party. It was to celebrate our photog staff’s win as Television Station of the Year (Medium Market) in the Best of Photojournalism awards- something we get to celebrate again this year!

The judges comments were really nice this year, and I was happy to get a shout out about my “Juan the Paparazzo” story. Our entry, along with other, way more awesome pieces are on the Poynter site.

2008 shooting assignment #45

Posted on February 26, 2008

Here’s a quick shot from one of the “Geoff on the Road” live segments that I shot this evening. I spent the entire two hours at this Spartanburg athletic club defending my camera lens and crotch from getting nailed by rogue volleyballs (of death).

This previous post has another, similar crotch-defending photo - which I’m starting to see as a disturbing trend (especially if Geoff and I end up doing segment at a shooting range).

2008 shooting assignments #41-43

Posted on February 25, 2008

Today was a rather busy day at work, although I don’t recall if any of the stories I shot were even in the newscasts. My last story was a definite non-story. I was sent out to a possible drowning on a river. When I rolled up into the scene, I put on my game face and started getting shots of the area until a fireman came up to me and said, “This isn’t a news story” - which is exactly what people say when they don’t want it to be a news story…even though it clearly is, but in this case he was right, as the drowning was a false alarm (someone saw an abandoned boat on the lake and thought the worst). When I called back to the station to update them, my assignment editor called it a “chocolate sauce” story, which made me chuckle. That referred back to an infamous incident in which a local law enforcement department suspected that there had been a grisly murder at an area hotel, but were later corrected when the out-of-town forensic investigator showed up and informed them that the ‘blood’ smeared on the sheets and walls was just chocolate sauce.

That was the end of the day. In my first part of the day I was conversing with country western musician, Michael Peterson as he talked about an upcoming concert and his message urging young people to give back to the community. When the newsroom folks first said, “Do you know who Michael Peterson is?” my initial (incorrect) response was, “It’s that guy that killed his wife, right?” But, it turns out I was thinking of two other men in the news with a similar last name.

I really don’t know much about country artists, but I figured it’d be a good idea to get a photo with him. You know, in case it turned out to be a big deal to someone back at work. It’d be like another photog coming back into the newsroom and saying, “I just got back from interviewing some guy called Morrissey” right before I flipped out and accidentally punched him in excitement.

2008 shooting assignment #38

Posted on February 20, 2008

Today’s video assignment found me bouncing around in a fishing speedboat as female “Bassmaster” Janet Parker ripped across Lake Hartwell at the nautical equivalent of 120mph. Along the way, we hit some rough patches and got blasted with freezing water, but her makeup help-up remarkably well.

She’s in town as part of the media circus surrounding ESPN’s Bassmaster tournament thing [video]. I’ve been told repeatedly today that it’s the “Superbowl of the fishing world” - but without all the semi-entertaining television advertisements. I left work at the end of the day with two thoughts running through my mind: 1)”I find myself oddly interested in the world of professional sport fishing; 2) I’m so thankful that I didn’t drop my XDCam in the lake today. Read more

2008 shooting assignment #29

Posted on February 11, 2008

My Monday did not start out the right way. I left my morning coffee on the counter at home, and then an hour later I discovered that my news rig had a dead battery. This time it was inexplicably dead - not like the time I had totally drained it by hooking up a mini-fridge filled with Capri Sun juice drinks.

To commemorate the last time my day was ruined by electrickery, I had Nigel pose over the engine, much like Marla Cichowski did on that fateful June afternoon (photo comparison after the jump). Anyway, after all the morning drama, it became a rather relaxed day at work, despite the fact that I was covering the death of a beloved high school principal [video].
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