As the title suggests, I sometimes have so much fun at work that it’s hard to believe they pay me.  On a recent Saturday, Jerry Gretzinger and I went to the Double H Hole in the Woods Ranch to shoot their ski program.  We had gone up there over the summer to highlight their summer camp.  Basically, they take kids who have sometimes serious illnesses and disabilities and give them a fantastic summer camp experience.  They do an unbelievable ropes course in the woods and play all the games kids play at “regular” summer camps.  It was really cool to see how much they can do for kids who would never be able to get this experience.  As we were getting the nickel tour, we passed by a ski lift and Jerry asked our guide about it and she told us about how they taught some of their kids to ski and asked if we would like to come back in the winter to do a story about that.  Uh…duh…YEAH!

So a couple weeks ago, Jerry and I go up on a Saturday and were blown away.  They have kids who can’t walk, SKIING!  Whoa.  The looks on some of their faces makes you melt into the snow.  And the volunteers!  Incredibly dedicated people who selflessly give to a great organization.  They don’t just help, they work miracles.  Watch.

On a production note, I dusted off the 20+ year old skis and wondered if I could ski and shoot at the same time.  As the girl at the end says, “there is something special in the air” because I didn’t fall and break me or anyone else or the camera!

This is the second part of the “Goodness of Human Beings” post I did a couple weeks ago.  This story raises the question, “how good of a friend do you think you have?”  Andrea and Karen (Angie and KK) met while working at the Hannaford in Kingston many years ago.  The following is their story.  It’s about friendship, love and unbelievable generosity with a little fate tossed in just to make you go “ooo, is that a coincidence or …..”

This is one of the stories Jerry and I did that I mentioned in the previous post.  If this doesn’t give you a little lump in your throat, you ain’t human.  Jerry and I went to shoot this a couple weeks ago.  I arrived before Jerry and began to shoot the rehearsal for their upcoming production of Scrooge.  After I had exhausted 34 minutes of tape, I was so compelled by what I was seeing that I just sat for another 1/2 hour watching the rehearsal.  The amount of hard work these folks are willing to put in is inspiring.  And I’m not even talking about Tony from Cohoes Music Hall who is directing the show.  His patience and dedication to these shows is amazing.  Watch the piece and see what overcoming personal limitations and society’s expectations truly mean.  As the movie trailer line says, “If you see one show this year, this is the one to see.”

Being in the news business, we, the press, report the various and sundry bad things that people do.  Murder, rape, fraud, politics…  But, luckily, I get to do alot of stories that highlight the good things people do.  These are usually part of Jerry Gretzinger’s “Take a Break” series.  I’ve highlighted at least one of these on this blog about a local roller derby team that raises money for local charities and non-profits.

Within the last week, Jerry and I have shot two stories that will make you laugh and maybe even tear up.  I can’t really describe them as it would give them away to the dirty competition.  Okay, I know, this was just a big tease!  Well, I can tell you this, one has to do with a group of people overcoming personal limitations and the other has to do with uncommon generosity.  The first will air next Thursday November 4th.  The second, the following week November 11th.  I promise to highlight each after they air and give you some behind the scenes stuff as well.

Stay Tuned.

Sorry about the prolonged absence.  Training, vacation, yada yada yada…ANYWAY…We are eagerly awaiting approval from the higher ups to go ahead and buy some new cameras.  Our current flock are Ikegami DVCAM’s and they have served us well for 7 or 8 years.  That’s about the projected life span of a television camera that is subjected to daily use in the field.  What does that entail?  Well, just about everything you can think of.  They are dragged in and out of the trunks of cars multiple times a day.  Sometimes jarred around if you happen to be running after someone or something.  They get rained on, snowed on, hailed on, sleeted on.  They get muddy, dirty, humid, dry.  They are apt to be outside in -20 below to 100+ above.  Once in a great while they get dropped.  (Yep, happened to me!)  So you can see why their lifespan is limited.  Plus, their technology gets outdated.  Ours are only standard definition so we will need to upgrade to high def.

With all of this in mind, we have chosen our new gear.  The Panasonic  AG-HPX370.  These seem to be the ones that many stations are going with.  In fact rumour has it that two of our competitors are getting these as well.  We have had them in for a demo and, like anything else, they have their ups and downs.  A major up is that they do away with videotape.  Since the mid 70′s, the TV industry has been shooting on one type of video tape or another ranging from 3/4″ to Beta, to DVCPRO or DVCAM.  These cameras record on P2 cards.  If you followed the link, you can see by the price that no one can really afford too many of these.  The good thing is they can be recorded over about 10,000 times without failure.  That means we only need a limited number of them.  Good thing.  However, one  major bad thing is that I wish these cameras had  better lenses.  It seems to be rather pedestrian.  Oh, it looks great in HD and all but they don’t have an extender.  What’s that?  It kind of a “doubler” if you will.  Like the zoom on your home cameras, we have them on ours as well.  Currently, we also have an extender that doubles the zooming power of the lens.  It lets us get very close to the action when we are far away.  It’s a great help when shooting sports.  These don’t have them and buying a more powerful lens costs almost as much as the camera!  We can’t just switch our old lenses over because they are standard definition.  High def. lenses are ground much finer and are therefore more expensive.  So, we do what we can and operate within budget contraints.  Just like you at home, I wanted a 72″ high def tv but settled on something much smaller.

So we trundle along waiting for approval.  We will get it sooner or later.  Hopefully sooner.  Stay tuned, I will update you as events warrant.

So, I show up at the track on opening day at around 9:00am to follow jockey John Velazquez around for part of the day.  I already know that the weather will make the day difficult.  But really.  Come on.  Are you serious?  Kelly O’Donnell was with me and I swear, Kelly will back me up on this, the heavy stuff started to come down JUST as we started shooting.  We went to the gate to get the opening and it just begins to pour minutes later.  And it just wouldn’t let up.  The video below shows that the wind started to act up as well just as we start shooting John as he walkedto the paddock for the 2nd race.  That’s my Channel 6 issued pancho blowing into the shot.  As we continued, shooting John on his first mount, you can see the rain POURING DOWN on us.  You can also see, as we interview Johnafter the race, that Kelly abandoned the umbrella because it just wasn’t helping.  Man was he soaked.  And, of course, we tried to talk with him after the 3rd race, my microphone completely crapped out.  Adding insult to injury, We were using my camera for the weather with Steve Lapointe and it developed a moisture dot on the lens during the 6pm weather.  Steve, pro that he is,  made the best of it.  It took the camera 24 hours to fully recover and even then I had a foggy eyepiece.  My shoes took 3 DAYS to dry out.  No kidding.  What a day.  It least it was interesting.  I mean, it could have been a nice day in the 70′s with the sun shining and the birds chirping.

Why the h*ll couldn’t it have been that instead of a dress rehearsal for a Peter Jackson on screen adaptation of Noah’s Ark????!!!!!!

Ok.  This will probably rarely happen on this blog.  I am featuring a piece from a photog not from WRGB.  I saw this on b-roll.net, a photog web site, and had to share it with you.  Follow the link and watch what is a rarity in tv news.  The one shot package.  The photog shot this alone and had a reporter back at the station write into the holes in the natural sound.  This is what we should be doing when we can.  Letting news happen and stepping back.  Granted most stories we do can’t be done this way because of their detail and nature.  But, jeez, ride along on this and watch it happen in real time.  Too good.

http://www.whas11.com/news/local/Donor-and-recipient-finally-meet-years-after-narrow-survival–97275269.html

Here’s our exclusive interview with outgoing Schenectady Schools Superintendant Eric Ely that aired during the Tuesday 11pm newscast.

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On Tuesday afternoon, Marci Natale called me to ask if we could do a 2 camera shoot for our exclusive interview with Eric Ely.  I said sure thing, no problem.  Well, what I should have said was, “one problem”.  I am only one photog, and there needs to be 2 cameras.  It being summer and all, folks are on vacation and there are lots of other stories to cover.  So I thought, ok, I will bring my camera and our “mini” camera as the “reverse” camera.  The “reverse” camera is the camera shooting over the shoulder of the subject so you the viewer can see the reporter asking questions.  You’ve seen this on 60 Minutes and other news shows.  They will actually have 2 photogs and 2 cameras.  Normally, we would do that as well but in the summer, our schedule of personnel is tight so we do what we can.

When we shoot these 2 camera shoots,  we syncronize the timecodes of the tapes so something at 3 minutes and 15 seconds on one tape is in the same exact spot on the other making editing easier.  As you can see from the finished piece, they edit together quite nicely.

What you never see (until today) is what sometimes happens when the unmanned camera gets something that’s not supposed to be “on tv”.  Namely, me.  As I was standing over my camera, I shifted from one foot to the other a couple of times.  One time too many as evidenced by the revelation that on Tuesday, I was wearing a black shirt.

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Yes, that’s right, CBS6 was nominated for 3 New York State Emmy awards!  Liz Bishop and Photog Al were nominated for a piece they did about some nuns who feel they were taken to the cleaners by an art dealer.  Jerry Gretzinger, Photog Chris and former Photog Chris were nominated for a piece about a pool playing toddler and the former 3 and I were nominated for programming about kids.  And the winner is…

…none of us.  Sadly, the academy did not think our pieces “Emmy worthy.”  But, we all had a fun trip to NYC a couple weeks ago for the ceremony at the Marriott in Times Square.  Yes, that’s the same Marriott that was partially evacuated due to the, thankfully, dud of a car bomb this past weekend.

But, as they say, it was an honor just to be nominated.  Okay, that’s cliche.  We were darn disappointed that we lost.  But a further look into the other nominees showed that while we had maybe 2 or 3 folks on a story, the NYC stations who won had a bevy of staffers, sometimes 7 or 8, on their stories.  So if you look at it that way, it was kind of an honor just to be there.  But, if you base how feel about how you do your job and whether or not you are really good at it entirely on the amount of awards you’ve gotten, then this would really make you feel rejected, neglected and disrespected.  But I don’t feel that way and neither should my esteemed colleagues.  I’d say our little operation held its own against some very stiff competition.  Can the winners say that?  They only beat some hicks from podunk Albany.  Nuff said.

And Igot it.  Photog Chris has been named Co-Chief Photographer here at the big 6.  Since the departure of my predecessor Bruce, the job has expandedand folks thought I might need some help.  And I am sure glad to have it.  Chris is an excellent photog who has the respect of the staff.  We stole him from Ch. 13 a few years back and boy are they jealous.  I am really looking forward to implementing his ideas on how we can make the station look better than ever.