News Magazine State of the Art

[Hiding Under Here]

I think it was dayrate over at the HDX900 thread who metioned he had shot something for 48 Hours. Having myself photographed the bulk of one of their Murder Mysteries that ran recently, I decided to check out the story that dayrate had worked on. In the process, I came accross something quite interesting -- to me anyway.

The news magazine genre is in a state of flux. In the 1990s, the major magazines -- 60 Minutes, 20/20 and Dateline -- produced some terrific programs with varied storylines and subjects. They were showcases for the burgeoning craft of television photography. Now that these shows are out of vogue, they have been limited to covering sensational crimes and trials in order to generate ratings. As a result, the photographic coverage of news magazine programs has dipped at a time when the television news industry has available a large supply of gifted and capable photographers with the potential to do terrific work. But rarely are they allowed to exploit their abilities and push them to the medium's limts.

I thought one of the 48 Hours pieces available for viewing at the CBS News website was particularly excellent. It's titled "To Catch A Killer". I don't know who the photographer was who shot it but the work is, in my view, excellent. If you are interested in shooting broadcast television at a high level, this is a piece to watch and examine. Look closely at the techniques employed, the tools used to create the bottomless amount of images required to make a story of this length. It's a lot of work and you have to stay alert and focused on the task at hand. It takes enormous energy to stay on visual point to generate image after image, understanding somehow how these pictures might be helpful in the final cut. A photographer has to constantly listen as he/she hears the telling of a story to understand what to frame up for a shot and what to leave out, what lighting tone the interviews require, what images might work to help cover the written track. Magazine show shooting isn't news photography anymore. A story such as "To Catch A Killer" offers a television photographer the increasingly rare opportunity to make a solid documentary comparable with virtually any offering in that genre.

I shot a lot of the Worthington murder which is also at the site. However, that story was an update of an older one and I only shot a few days on the piece. What we did on those days forms the bulk of the story. But I didn't really know that at the time. Those aren't excuses -- I just mean to point out, that if you watch our piece, it has nowhere near the visual fullness of the "To Catch A Killer" piece. And that's most likely because we were doing sort of a patch job rather than shooting an entire segment from scratch. Kudos to the photographer of "To Catch A Killer". This program is, in my estimation, the current state-of-the-art in television news magazine photograhy -- a segment of the industry of which I am proud to be a contributor. Some days.

www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?channel=48Hours

[Matt Box]

It was a nice story, too bad they never put the cameramen in the credits along with everyone else.

[Shootblue]

I think that the industry is in for a series of waves. I caught on at the last bit of the phase where you pretty much had to learn on a Betacam style camera. DV consisted of pretty much the beginning of Digital 8. I think there was still a strong sense of quality, learning by doing, and knowing how to get the best product by actively thinking while you are on location. I get the impression from those who do the hiring that there is a quickly reducing number of shooters who have a sense of the true basics and a desire to do broadcast quality work.

The wave that came right after I got started had a huge impact. The DV world allowed anyone with about $2k to become a "professional videographer". These folks seem to have few true sources of reliable helpful knowledge, instead choosing to become legends in their own minds. What this means today is that the quality in the hiring pool for all but the best of jobs is diminishing. I work for a show that goes out across the country. I think there were like 3 out of ten or so reels for a job posting that were shot on a shoulder mounted camera. That's about the percentage of quality in the pool too.

With the expansion of HD, particularly after the digital mandate and people just decide to make the plunge, I really believe that people are going to demand quality for what they view on their televisions. This puts the talent pool in an interesting predicament...a reducing number of folks who are classically trained, and a likely increasing number of DV wannabes. I do believe that this balance will correct itself shortly after the transition, with the few, real talent of the wannabes rising to the top and making the transition to the classical style. Those who learned on the classic system will have a great leg up on getting this influx of network quality work.

Still photography is also in a state of flux...digital has allowed folks to come up with great potential, but has led to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who can afford a Canon Rebel with a kit lens to become the same "professional photographer".

[Hiding Under Here]

I think it might be nearly impossible for someone with enough talent to come into the business and learn how to do the things neccessary to execute photographically like the person who shot that story. Who are you going to learn to light from? The first freelancer I worked with was a lighting guy. He was excellent and I basically stole what I was able from him. Then, as a producer, I worked with a freelance DP and I stole framing ideas from him.

That kind of access doesn't exist nearly as much today as it did only a decade ago. The exchange of techniques and tricks is minimal.

[2000lux]

That kind of access doesn't exist nearly as much today as it did only a decade ago. The exchange of techniques and tricks is minimal.

That's the main reason I also do sound tech' gigs. I get to work with other photographers and learn from them.

[Graybeard]

The DP who should get the credit is David Brown, of St Pete. Fl. I agree, it's a beautiful job.
One of the reasons that it's so good is that David shot 90% of it himself, instead of the usual news magazine practice of spreading out the shooting between 1/2 doz. or more crews on one story.
It really bothers me that the DP on these shows doesn't get credit, up front, like the editor, producers, etc. They are relegated to the tail end technical credits, (Brown did get a one page solo credit at the end, with additional cameramen listed on another page). The Tech credits usually go by so fast that you have to TIVO it and still frame to find out who shot the show.
Why is it that the "Director", who only rolls the show together, gets a big upfront credit, as if he had input into the shooting of the show, but the guy through who's eyes the story is visualized gets a way too brief "crew credit" at the end.

[Hiding Under Here]

The way I look at it is that the photographer is the tailor who cuts up the fabric into the pieces that will become the suit. We have to guess at many things -- the tone of the story, the pace, the length, etc.. The main things we have going for us is the fact that we are there, on the spot, in the moment, looking at the story. Those things AND our experience. The story (or what's left of it because it may already have happened) flows through us. We have to guess how others (editors and senior producers) might see it -- or how they might want to skew it. And even then we have to give them options -- options that will allow them to compress or slow the story down. But we also have to be the people who place the camera in the best position to shows viewers what they might have seen had they, themselves, been there. Gordon Willis, the guy who shot The Godfather (not to compare our craft with his) maintained that there is one ideal placement of the camera out of all the infinite variables available. The DP's job is to find that optimal angle of view, whether it's looking at a person's face, or framing an establishing exterior of a town or village. That's why composition is an essential skill of any successful magazine show photographer.

People who take pictures for a living tend to be intuitive folks. They REACT to things on a visceral level. The key for them, professionally, is to learn to manage their intuition by anticipating what they will need for the inventory of images that are required to make a longer format story. At some point you have to stop doing what you want and start taking pictures that will be required to make the finished product. If your love for your work intersects with the required pictures, then you're really doing something that will satisfy you. But those moments are rare.

[Shootblue]

David is the guy I bought my 200w B-K HMI from...helluva value too.

[dinosaur]

Why is it that the "Director", who only rolls the show together, gets a big upfront credit,

because its in the DGA Network Live & Tape contract agreement that the Director gets first and full page credit for any show to which a Director is assigned. IBEW & NABET have no contractual requirement for named technical credits.

[Graybeard]

[QUOTE=Hiding Under Here;158206]
The news magazine genre is in a state of flux. In the 1990s, the major magazines -- 60 Minutes, 20/20 and Dateline -- produced some terrific programs with varied storylines and subjects. They were showcases for the burgeoning craft of television photography. Now that these shows are out of vogue, they have been limited to covering sensational crimes and trials in order to generate ratings.

When 48Hrs. began, it was a completely different kind of show. The idea originally was to find a story that could be told in five or six elements, shot by five or six crews, over the space of an actual 48Hr.period. Each crew would roll on just about everything that happened to the characters they were assigned, verite' style. Tripods were banned. Yes, banned, everything hand held.
Two days of shooting in this style yielded 35 -40 thirty minute tapes, per crew. The editors would then go through this 100+ hours of raw tape looking for the "magic moments" that revealed characters motivation, or somehow were essential to move the story forward.
There were some restrictions, such as, no sit down interviews, the reporters interviewed the subjects on the move, in the car, or while working. There was no video shot outside of that actual 48Hr. period. The only exceptions being an aerial, or setup shot that wasn't time sensitive. Or a sequence that was absolutely essential but "happened outside of our 48Hr. period", and was noted as such in the script of the show.
Does that sound like a show you'd like to work on? It was like "Iron Chef", only the camera crews were the chefs. Things moved too fast for much "producer meddling". I got the chance to shoot quite a few of these shows, and worked with some of the best cameramen in the business. Darrel Barton, Mark Falstadt, Ed Matney, Norman lloyd, Lynn Rabren, all on the same story, at the same place and time. To say that there was competition is quite an understatement, but competition in the best possible way. It was a real treat to work with these guys, and we learned a lot. From technical tricks that you share, that you wouldn't even have an opportunity to see today, to just sitting around at some remote location at night, having a few beers, or whatever, and talking, bragging, or bitching about what you shot that day. It was an invaluable education for me, and a hell of a lot of fun.
The schedule was such that the producers had one week to prepare the shoot, one week to shoot the show, and one week to edit. There were three teams of producers doing three shows like this at once. Needless to say, this type of schedule caused burnout on a grand scale. Editors couldn't wade through that much tape, week after week. Producers couldn't plan the 48Hr. period as well as they should, and show ideas sometimes were "ill advised". But the crews were having a great time. One day to get to the location, two constant days of shooting, and one day to get home. At one point I shot four of these shows in one month. But at that pace even we were starting to fade.
After a couple of years of this, compromises crept in. More segments were shot "outside" the 48hr. period. Reporters insisted on sitting down for interviews, more planning was done to lessen the avalanche of tapes coming in every week. The show changed, and gradually morphed into what you see today, a completely different "true crime" drama that takes advantage of the popularity of CSI type police procedural shows.
The show has been on now for twenty years. It's older now than the venerable 60 Minutes was when 48 Hrs. began, and completely different than the original show.
It would be interesting if someone revived that original concept. Would you sign up for that type of shoot? Me? naaah, I've got too many aches and pains as it is.

[Canonman]

Graybeard,

That last sentence is interesting, if only to see how it would work with modern day tapeless acquisition. The 'wading through footage' process is made much easier when tapeless is done right.

cm

[freedom]

"Would you sign up for that type of shoot? Me? naaah, I've got too many aches and pains as it is."

I'm beginning to think we need a new forum 'round here.
How about a geriatrics b-roll forum?? We can share aches & pains, trips to the doctor, newest hernia surgery techniques, physical therapy methods, retirement planning, bladder control, leakiness of depends, drooling for effect, outsmarting young whipper snappers, best nursing homes, old formats, young producers, etc.
I'll volunteer to moderate!