Amanda Emily
“don’t fly in unsafe ships”
In 1937, newsreel execs were invited to basically tell how they tried to kill their camera crews out on an assigned story. Walter Bredin, the assignment editor for Hearst Metrotone let Charlie Mack relate how he almost bought the farm twice on one story in his submission. The story that Read More →
“What Price Incentives?”
One of the battles often fought during the early days of news gathering – huge microphones placed in the middle of shots. Unlike say with today’s wireless lavs for example, its was kinda hard to hide the Western Electric 47a’s the sound newsreels originally started out with before technological changes Read More →
KING in the 50s
Well I guess I’ll post something KING-related for some of my readers. Throughout most of the 1950s, BMI hosted a bi-yearly “Television Talks” clinic held in various cities around the US for the benefit of news directors, engineers and other station personnel to meet and share ideas. In 1957, KING Read More →
The forgotten photog at Pearl
Al Brick of Fox Movietone News covering the immediate aftermath of the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. On the morning of December 7th, 1941, Brick was driving a friend back to the USS Arizona, aboard which the friend was stationed at. Brick of course had his cameras in Read More →
Thanksgiving Day…
On Thanksgiving Day fifty-three years ago, one of the most celebrated of Ed Murrow’s television documentaries aired – CBS Reports: Harvest of Shame. The two photogs who shot it, most of you probably wouldn’t recognize their names….Martin M. “Marty” Barnett and Charles J. “Charlie” Mack. Its a shame that unlike Read More →
Faked footage and TV news
December 7th is not too far away, someone somewhere is going to do a story on a WWII vet and its time for my sometimes annual cautionary reminder about the use of faked footage in TV news of an event that took place many decades ago. The footage of the Read More →
The rise of the one man bands…
Okay, perhaps not a rise…its more of a regression to the way things once were. “One man bands” are nothing new…they’ve been with TV since the first shaky test patterns were transmitted and with journalism itself much longer (the first news cameramen were all “one man bands” until the Movietone Read More →