Today I....

Where's the Audio?

Well-known member
I stood on the red carpet to wait patiently for washed-up movie stars to grace us with their presence. (the reason Kathy Griffin will always have something to do).
 

Newshutr

Well-known member
Well, not exactly today but, On Thursday, I covered the tail end of a 12 hour standoff where a guy shot at construction workers and police. The SWAT team was very patient and they backed off numerous times. Finally, enough was enough and they entered the house at 2:45am and encountered the subject who then pulled his gun on the SWAT team. We heard eight shots outside. The subject was shot and killed. He was shot eight times.

THEN...on Friday morning around 2:50am, Cleveland police shoot a man, who stopped his car after being followed, did a u-turn and floored it at officers who were getting out of their car. He was shot twice but lived.

Two police involed shootings in two days.

I shudder to think what Monday holds....
 

ewink

Well-known member
newshutr - Do you happen to work at 19 Action News? If so, zing me a PM - I have a question for you! :)

Today I...

Holy moly... Today is one of the wildest days I have EVER had...

I had just completed editing some teases when the scanner goes balistic. Multiple 911 calls of 5-6 shots fired in White Oaks Mall, which is Springfield's only mall. (Excluding strip malls).

I snag a reporter and move my gear into our unmarked vehicle. Mall security considers themselves to be God's on Earth and will boot a news vehicle quicker than you can say 'First Amendment'.

We zip across town to find (and I am not exaggerating) every cop in town outside the mall. People are flooding out of the mall. It's the closest thing you are going to get to chaos in this small of a town. We hop out and start shooting. Two other photogs come out to assist by flanking the mall to get stuff from the otherside, but are quickly removed from the property by security. We shoot, get a sot, then a guard comes up and tells us 'YOU HAVE TO GO!'

I say okay and we go... to the otherside of the mall.

After we have shot about all we can we meet up with another photog where we hear that the police have one of the suspects at gunpoint in a residental area a few blocks away. We fly over there and I get (if I may toot my own horn) AWSOME video of the suspect being taken into police custody. We hang out there, talk to an assistant chief of police, then head back just long enough to snag the live truck.

Total time - 4:30PM - 11:00PM! Woot! Beats the normally boring weekend! Both KSDK St. Louis and WMAQ Chicago request my vid, which I think is pretty cool... That's a first for me that a bigger market has requested something I shot! Then KSDK came up and set up next to me for a live shot while I drooled at the beauty of their sat truck, and stare in distain at my crappy mircowave truck. :p

Right now I am on stand by to relieve another photog who's at a stand off... What's happened to Central Illinois?!?
 

Newshutr

Well-known member
Well, on Friday, I covered a standoff where some guy shot at his wife and family members...he gave himself up.

Then today, I covered ANOTHER standoff. This one went for 17 hours. Guy gave himself up too.

I guess when the weather starts getting good, the nutcases come out of their hibernation.
 

BluesDaddy

Well-known member
Today I... got a new news vehicle. It is a 2003 Chevy Blazer which was a fleet vehicle. Bought at auction with 28k miles. I'm guessing they paid about $18G for it. I'm moving out of a 2000 Blazer with 117k miles. That's about 26,000 MILES A YEAR!!! :eek: Anyhoo, I'm psyched to be in a new(er) car. If only it was 4X4.
 

Newshutr

Well-known member
Two days ago, I covered a guy who decided to speed in a construction zone and wound up kissing the business end of a backhoe. Another stain on the highway.

Then yesterday, I went to a fatal shooting of a 16 year old kid. Turns out the kid is a star football player being recruited heavily by the Big 10. Of course the kid was out at 2:30am in a gang/drug area. Wrong place...wrong time.
 

Photog Cowboi

PRO user
Yesterday I...

Went to meet a bunch of business and political leaders who were on a bus tour of South GA. Went and edited a 30 minute show. Finished editing another 30 minute show and started a third 30 minute show. Today I am finishing the show I started, shoot a segment for another show, edit two PSAs and probably starting the 5th show this week.
 

Todio

Well-known member
Today I...

Didn't do much of anything but...

Last week I...

Did sound for a documetary on Ashley MacIsaac and smoked weed with him during Game 7 of Toronto Maple Leafs / Ottawa Senators hockey playoff.

I had 1

He had 15

Boy, can that guy toke!
 

A/B roll

Active member
Today I shot the one-bajillinth grass fire in the middle of the boonies. I learned that cow poop will continue to smolder for quite awhile.
 

Lenslinger

Well-known member
Today I began work shooting a "Cardio Zuma" class, described to me by the instructor as 'Aerobics with an Attitude'. Come to find out it was a Latin attitude - Ricky Martin filled the air as I walked my tripod around the room and tried not to get caught checking out the hotter Soccer Moms. My EP wanted me to fill two and a half minutes of his upcoming health special, so I stuck around and shot the whole hour-long class. Just when I was getting bored, I spotted a two rather awkward looking gentlemen laboring to keep up in the back of the pack.

Zooming in, I had to laugh as they applied their utter lack of rhythm to the hot Salsa beat. The fat one had one or two moves, but his tall bald buddy was all ass and elbows. Together they looked like two accountants auditioning to be extras in Lambada: The Forbidden Dance 2. As I pushed in with all my glass, it occurred to me the duo was hanging back in an effort to hide from me. Never try to hide from a Cameraman. It's annoying and compels us to capture your image on tape. All I can say is those two cats better not have teenage daughters. I'm about to spread footage of their Dads gettin' their retarded Latin groove on far and wide. Hey, it's what I do.

A week ago today, I wasn't hunting M.I.L.F.s and terrorizing middle aged men in spandex. Instead, I donned blue scrubs, hat, mask and booties for an up-close look at Robotic Prostate Surgery. You heard me - Robotic Prostate Surgery. It's the latest craze in removing cancerous prostates! Instead of slicing you from belly button to hooha so they can reach in deep to get past your plumbing, technology has afforded us a new way of extracting the prostate. Now, they can shoot four pencil-thin robotic arms into your torso, and using a 3-D viewing console, manipulate the tiny surgical tools inside the body. Think of it as remote-control surgery, one with lots of plasma-monitors blaring color images of the quivering interior of the patient's rectum. Katie Couric eat you heart out.

I amused myself with the normal cutaways and chatted with the masked nurses and surgical assistants. They were very accomodating and offered me every vantage point available. I walked around the operating room, making sure not to accidentally unplug the many extension cords covering the floor. I didn't want to be responsibel for any sudden flatlines. As far as surgeries go, I've shot gnarlier, but I did enjoy freaking out co-workers with close-up shots of the robot arm slicing through fatty tissue with its mini-blowtorch. Is that so wrong?

Two weeks ago, my producers dispatched me to the nearest Subway Shop for a local version of 'When Animals Attack!' The night before, innocent citizens were chowing down on their favorite subs when a doe - a deer - a female deer crashed through the front door at breakneck speed. It shot like a bullet down the aisle before crashing into a back wall. Diners gasped and one rather effeminate sandwich-maker did a quick Little Richard impression, but the young deer paid them no mind. Dazed from smacking the back wall, it braced itself on its thin wobbly legs before bolting for the door, disappearing into the night. I know all this because the entire 45-second episode was caught on surveillance tape. Hi-speed, quad-box black-and-white, but video nonetheless.

The door had been repaired by the time I arrived, but the owner gladly talked on-camera and then handed over the surveillance tape. Better yet, he coughed up four large samples of Subway's new salads. Might I recommend the Chicken Ceaser? I plowed through mine back at the shop as a buddy and I imported the surveillance footage to the NLE server. Once it was we in , we sliced and diced, blowing the four quadrants of the screen full and slowing it down by sixty percent.

What had started as grainy high speed four cams on one screen was now four full-screen real-time angles of the deer's breaking and entering. We even managed to slow the sound and enjoy the muffled shrieks of the flailing sandwich-maker. In the end, tehy merager footage made for a nice minute-thirty piece, something for our anchors to bellow about in the b-block.

LOOK WHO'S COMING TO DINNER? IT ISN'T JARED!
A PIEDMONT CASE OF WHEN ANIMALS ATTACK!!!

But first, your FOX 8 Forecast...."

That same night we led with a breaking story on a raging school board debate, but I know what viewers will remember are the multiple slow-mo takes of Bambi freaking out the dinner crowd at Subway.

At least I'm doing meaningful work.
 

Newshutr

Well-known member
Today I shot the discovery of a body in an apartment. Turned out to be a suicide, so it didn't air. Got an earful from someone who owned the building where the body was found.

" Effing media..bite me..eff you...you're going to take my picture now, big guy...etc.."

Got it all on tape. All I could do was reply, " And you have a nice day too.."
 

BluesDaddy

Well-known member
Instead of slicing you from belly button to hooha...
...lots of plasma-monitors blaring color images of the quivering interior of the patient's rectum.
If I had been drinking my Mountain Dew while reading those lines, I definitely would have sent two neon-green streams out my nose.
Memo to self: Do not drink while reading Lenslinger posts.
 

SigLife

Well-known member
Shot a murder on college campus here, first ever. Kind of weird, because I'm still a student there too. Not something you like to think of, or cover. Kind of a bummer.
 
Last Month I......

Was woken up at 3 am by a police officer with a machine gunning banging on my apt door and telling me to get dressed and get out. I drove out through a police baracade, went to the station got the gear and came back to be the only camera to get the hold stand off and arrest, plus sound with the officers. Nice to know i can get paid for getting kicked out at gun point. Oh, and i was shooting all this video from the compitions parking lot. They had NO clue.
 

BluesDaddy

Well-known member
...tech'd a live shot in every show.
Morning show "go-out" shot. (at a factory)
Morning cut-ins. (same)
Noon show. (small plane crash-also shot & cut vo/sot)
5&6pm shows Live for Sports. (minor league game)
11pm show Live for Wx. (Relay For Life)
4 different locations.
5 times raising the mast.
13 individual live hits.
bed: priceless.
 

FatStinkyPhotog

Active member
Held my Cold Beer upward in a makeshift salute to BluesDaddy.

We learn everyday don't we.

I think 13 is a b-roll record or something.

I'm just a disgruntled employee with 4.

Damn you and your bar raising routine.
 

Anton Saur

Well-known member
Today was an easy day. Vice-prez Dick came to town, and I was to man the airport waiting to catch a glimpse as he disembarked the plane.

He did.
I was told to stay in the area and get video of him leaving too. Ok. I ask a guy with a suit and an earpiece when I should be back to get the video of his departure, and he replied around 6-7:30.
Cool, five hours to play around, get some lunch, watch the guys editing their multi-pkgs at the bureau.
I get back at 5:30, go through the dog sniff, and the security check. Still early, and it's starting to rain and lightning. Not wanting to be on the "photog podieum", which was a flat bed trailer with lightning attracting metal; I ended up being offered a seat in te compatitions live truck. Thank goodness for good people!

Anyway, Cheney arrives, we shot his getting on the plane...blah,blah,blah, until, out of the corner of my eye I see a suit coming towards us with his earpiece flapping. Apparantly the take-off was a "closed media event", and he wanted to know what we were doing there. After informing him we didn't know that, we were told to be back, "no sir I don't know which guy with the earpiece it was that told us that", as I glanced over his shoulder to see the very same suit that HAD told me. "No sir, I haven't seen the press release stating that.", knowing darn well it was in the console of my car...upon later review, it did NOT have ANYTHING about departure, not times, not 'closed to media'..nada. Oh well. He eventually left us alone, we think it was because of the live truck, and the recent events on meet the press that may have changed his mind...or maybe not. Of course none of us were live...too bad, the dork was standing right over the microphone.
 

Newshutr

Well-known member
Oh, today was a banner day...

My day started covering a "standoff" with a suicidal man holding a gun to his head in a city park in Akron, OH around 12:30am. We don't usually cover this stuff but the 22 y.o. desk girl insisted this was a "must get". Riggghht.

Well, being around 40 miles away from Downtown Cleveland is just asking for the big story to hit..and it did.

My phone rang after being in Akron for 20 minutes and I am told to get back up to Cleveland because there's a double fatal ax involving a wrong way driver and a motorcycle on a bridge near Jacobs Field.

I haul a$$ and get there. Get kicked off the bridge and have to double back to get where I can park safely. When I'm headed back towards the accident, the police are diverting traffic off an exit, so I follow...and what is right at the exit ramp??? The two dead bodies of the motorcyclists, covered by sheets but a whole lot of blood everywhere...

Turns out a woman got on I-71 near the Cleveland Airport going northbound in the southbound lanes. Drove for about 10 miles that way until she hit the motorcycle. The two on the motorcycle were thrown into the opposite lane when they were hit by the car. They died instantly. They were newlyweds. Only married nine days ago.

Anyhow, I found my spot, shot the accident, did the live thingy, and then get sent to get sound with witnesses who called 911 about the wrong way driver. Got great sound. Plus, I mic'ed the one witness who was a real hottie, no bra and where to put the mic...Hmmmmm????

After my shift, I had to take my Explorer to the Ford Dealer to fix an ABS problem. Explained I needed a replacement for my work car. Figured I'd be given a Taurus or Focus or something like that...


I'm given the keys to a new Cadillac Seville :eek: :D

Decided to press my luck and went to play the mega millions lotto, just in case...

So, I'm now getting spot news in a 2004 Caddie.

Day went from bad to excellent in the span of nine hours...
 
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