Monday, January 17, 2005

Two Celebrities; One Day

Twice a year here in the Piedmont Triad of North Carolina, the Grandaddy of all trade shows comes to High Point bringing in more than 80,000 visitors and oodles of celebrity furntiure mavens.
This past October my personal Furniture Market coverage began at 9am at a local middle school where Kathy Ireland was doing a PTA presentation. After Ireland and several other local officials had their say it was time for an impromtu press conference. I waited patiently as several print reporters wrapped up their exclusive, individual, week long Q&A of Ms Ireland. Us TV folks (Myself, the CBS affilliate Phojo, A Freelance crew for the Today Show and a crew from the school system) did a gang bang interview. (TV speak for multiple crews from various outlets doing the interview simultaniously)

She was very grateful for us being there and very pleasant to deal with. Before the event she had actually walked toward where we were positioned as she talked to the school children. After a few questions were gathered on the disk I was out of their, on the way to my next assignment.

As the day continued with a series of various other shoots, my final job of the day once again found me on the trail of a celebrity. Back at the Market John Elway was going to be at the showroom where his new line of fine furnishings was being shown to buyers for the first time.

We arrived on the 12th floor at the Bassett showroom via a heavily crowded elevator about 15 minutes early. I started shooting some preliminary B-roll when I spotted Elway at the doorway. I was in a great position to get him gladhanding with all of the buyers and company reps in the showroom. But as he continued working the crowd I spotted a familiar sight in the viewfinder. Who could it be but Kathy Ireland. What a treat, a double celebrity encounter.
Elway and Ireland posed together for pictures and talked for a few minutes as I rolled on the spontanious event.

The morning sports anchor was with me and we sat Elway down for a one on one with the famous former quarterback for about ten minutes. A buddy of mine from the local Newspaper was there and he shot a photo for me as I put the lav on the ex-Bronco.

This photo was on the front page of the paper the very next day.
What a Day!

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