Today I....

BluesDaddy

Well-known member
Tippster,
That was probably in the top 5 busiest days of the year... Usually my days aren't good "Today I..." material. Wednesday I'm doing live shots for our morning show. October 15 is "National Grouch Day" (?) We're going to set up in a coffe shop downtown and talk to folks about being grouchy and their morning coffee. :) Should be a lot of fun.
 
Today was all about spot news. Started a a health club doing a pkg about Mens Health, got a call that we COMPLETELY missed a story the night before about an inmate that grabed a gun (don't know how he got a gun) and starting shooting in the jail. So we go down to the jail wait an hour or so for the administrator to give his "presser." As he finishes he says "oh yea the inmate will be in court this morning" so we run to court which had started but thankfully the inmate hadn't been called up yet. Got the walk in, called back to the station and find we're handing it off to the daysider...We get to do cop rounds. So instead we grab a bite on the way. As we're parking to enter the "cop shop" 3 fire engines come racing towards us. We look ahead and see two cops and an ems racing after...so we chase too...just for fun..I mean we were on cop rounds!!

Pull up to a pretty decent fire..am so excited becasue I get pretty flames and everything. I never get flames.... :rolleyes:

*sigh* all in a days work
 

HighDef

Well-known member
"Yesterday I"...

Shot a story on BGE (Baltimore Gas and Electric) then came back to the station and ran right back out to shoot wind video, trees down, cable line exploding, etc... then was called out again to shoot a collapsed house in beautiful east Baltimore.

Dramamine anyone?
 

ewink

Well-known member
This was actually yesterday -

I was called in early only to find that the reporter had gone out with another photog....

moments later was sent to a small town 15 minutes south of the station to cover a car v truck. injuries minor, did not shoot.

moments later was sent to a house fire in a rural area of the county about 15 minutes north of the station... (note, i am still 15 minutes south of the station)

arrive to find that there was no fire and police/fire are leaving the scene...

returned to the station to pick up reporter/anchor and spent 2 hours filming a pack on construction zone traffic. nearly got hit by 3 cars...

went to the University of Illinois/Springfield to shoot the crew of Les Miserables putting together the set to find them on coffee break.... shot crap as creatitivly as i could....

returned to the station and picked up different reporter and headed to a suburb 25 minutes south to film a cop and a coach getting an award. going to be a package, but event last for 2 minutes... reporter had to rewrite pack and sadly we could not do the story justice. :(

got back, had lunch and went home 1 1/2 hours later.

This is the busiest i have been in 2 months... lol... i honestly think i shot more yesterday then I have in the past month! :rolleyes:
 

ransom

Member
A network day outside court with fifty or so other lens haulers. Wait...wait...wait...wait...wait...wait...SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT...take a deep breath and pack up for home. A full days pay for 12 minutes of tape. It's Miller time!
 

Rebby1234

Member
This was actually my Friday shoot... 11/21

Shot two Vo/Sots at a local state park that just got 20,000$ to refurbish the loby of the lodge. The second vo/sot was on a Non for profit group that got special permission to dive and map the underwater cave system at the state park's spring. Got back around 12:30 the reporter and I went to the Police station to get sound for 3 stories.. the one turns out to be a decent pkg so we took that one and ran with it... So in short my pkg was about a comcast repair man who made a house call to a midle age single women's home and exposed himself. The comcast repair man's story was that he had too much sex with his wife the night before and that his genitals were hurting so he repositioned his boxers below his groin and didn't realize his zipper was down... Needless to say the video for the story wasn't that great! I couldn't shoot the women's house or nieghborhood since it was a sex crime and we didn't want to out the victim. So it ended up being a lot of comcast exteriors and every chance I got I shot comcast trucks driving out of the parking lot. I don't think I had it as rough as the reporter though she had to figure out a family way of describing what the guy said his reason for exposing himself was.
 
Shot a story with individual with gun to his head. No one could get a good shot of this guy. I went to an SRO hotel and gve the clerk behind the cage $20.00 to let me on the buildings roof. Was up there for 3.5 hours with all the Junkies and transgender folks harrasing me. The individul finally moved into my view and I shot the footage. Only one to get it. Had to call one of my partners on the nextel to help me get out of the building. All my gear looked mighty appealing to the folks on the roof. Story ended ok subject surrendered to SWAT and now one was hurt.
 

JYT

Active member
I shot a stand off on Saturday that started with a guy blowing snow onto his neighbour ladies driveway. She goes into her house grabs a shotgun, comes out and threaten's to kill the guy. She gets taken down at gun point by the local SWAT team.

I guess snow drives everybody a little crazy!
 
Just finished shooting various colors and piles of carpet....yes...carpet! Now I'm off to set up a backdrop at the local grocery store for a food drive I'll be shooting all day saturday!

Carpet and food drives...My life....Ahhhhh
 

HIDEOUSVlD

Well-known member
A week or so ago, I shot a single-engine plane crash where the passenger turned out to be the mayor of a local small town. Neither the pilot nor the mayor was seriously injured and I got a really cool shot of a small amount of dried blood splattered on the inside of the passenger door. "Too gory" they said.
:(

Today, all I did was go out to two local schools and shoot a bit of each for a reporter's pkg. Fun, fun, fun.
 

Newshutr

Well-known member
Had a real busy overnight today. First, the FBI conducts a little drug operation in a not-so-nice part of town. They wind up shooting two suspects in an SUV. Killing one, wounding another.

While that was going on, I get a call for a house fire that takes one woman to the hospital.

I do my live shot for the morning...and then after that, we get a tip call that a bar is criss-crossed with crime scene tape. I get to the scene and am finally told that a guy tried to burglarize the place at 6am, the alarm dropped and police responded. The burglar decided to attack the police officer and the cop winds up shooting him in the elbow.

And just as I'm getting off work, word that a fire that killed six, 4 children (youngest was 7 weeks) and two adults, hit sometime overnight in Canton, OH and we missed it..So did everyone else, luckily.

Thank God I didn't have to cover that today...I don't think I'd have made it..
 

Monroe

Member
This happened this summer. I get sent out right before the noon to get a live picture of a car that police have cornered off as a crime scene. They are fingerprinting the car and taking pictures. I get the shot up and call back to tell them that there is a body in there. I know this because after working this job for years and years you tend to know what a dead body smells like. So when i call back the producer tells me that they are not going to take the shot because the issue of a body being in there is unconfirmed. I tell her that 99.9% of the time we do this for a bomb scare, lo' and behold...there is no bomb. Just take the shot and tell viewers that there is a crime scene going on. This worked to no avail. After shooting vid, and watching the competition come out and get the license plate number and run a check which revealed that this car and its occupant have been missing for days, I went back to the station to hear them say," You were right! There was a body in there!" I felt like slapping every last one of them.
 

Rebby1234

Member
Today I shot the jail release of Alex Zivojinovich, lead guitarist for Rush. The shoot wasn't that fun 6 hour wait at the jail but the vid of the release was great and he gave a quick interview. So the waiting payed off. To top it all off I am a huge Rush fan so I was just excited to be there. Today will definately go down as one of my favorite shoots.
 

FatStinkyPhotog

Active member
Shot a morning house fire...Let me just say I hate fires...However, once I got my initial shots I started concentrating on the family and bystanders...I was patient and got some excellent emotional moments...one shot behind a three year old boy watching his home burn...then his dad reaches down and pats him on the head for some comfort...Was pure MONEY...Got all the sound I needed and it made a nice anchor PKG...I still don't enjoy seeing people loose their home...especially poor people like these folks today...Will have to dub this story to my tape tomorrow...I hope some viewers saw the story and will help these folks out...That would really make it all worth it.
 

MadMax

Member
Originally I was going to a "poler bear plunge" fund-raiser type deal at the edge of our viewing area (about 100 mi from the station).

80 miles into our trip, we get a tip about a possible amber alert sighting in the town we were going to. We see 3 state patrol units goin' the opposite way. 15 min of indecision follow, then we go chasing this supposed car. Ends up the guy gets caught on the opposite end of the state. Long story short, i spent about 6 hours in a car on this story.

Drop the reporter back at the station around 7:30ish(pm). Then go out and shoot 3 b-ball games.
 

IShootU

Member
...Didn't do a damn thing...managers didn't like stories pitched my reporter...my ass hurts from sitting and browsing b-roll too long - i need a drink...
 
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