Anchorwoman Cancelled!

After mucho hype, marketing blitz mania and a ton of $$ spent promoting "Anchorwoman", it was cancelled after it's first two episodes that both aired back to back Wednesday.



The shows that will play in the timeslot for the next 3 Wednesdays are RE-RUNS of "Til Death". (!)(Re-runs, really, why?)



I liked "Anchorwoman". It was silly and slightly perverse, but like I wrote before, it is a malgomation of all things 'newsy'.



I guess the public just isn't ready for a behind the scenes look at Local TV News.



Hopefully they will be by the time Lenslinger writes that book. ;-)

Anchorwoman Real Reality

I watched, I laughed, I liked.



No, it may not the best idea to portray the inside baseball of a serious newsroom to your TV Audience, but I didn't see a single part of that show that hasn't happened to me in real life at some point, somewhere.



Several years ago here, a new weekend anchor/reporter was brought in, almost fresh off another reality show and other than the boobs, the blonde hair and mini-skirts, he wasn't much different than "Anchorwoman". Just like Lauren Jones, Jeff Varner had to learn news gathering from the ground up.



His first few times in front of the prompter were rough, his news gathering and writing in the field were raw, but his ambition and willingness to learn the craft outshined other reporters who came and went while he was still here. There were certainly some awkward moments just like in this show.



But by the time he left back in April, Jeff was a polished pro, reading his weekend news like a machine, and chasing other offers that were bound to come with his matured style. But on day one, we were all rolling our eyes at the 'Survivor' just like the the CBS19 employees in the first episode of "Anchorwoman".



Another colleague of mine came to mind watching "Anchorwoman". When Caron Myers started here in 2002 she had been out of TV for a while and her TV experience was mostly NASCAR related. She had to learn news gathering 101 from yours truely and when I saw Wilton take Lauren out for her first solo story I had to chuckle. The very first story that I took Caron out on when she started was to High Rock lake.



Caron was in high heels, we had to walk crazy distances to get the shots, and Caron got a taste of what real news gathering was all about.



It was tough at first for Caron but she did exactly what the Photog in "Anchorwoman" said. She listened and watched and learned, though I can remember Caron doing some of the same silly, "newsy" things that Lauren did on here first two stories.



But Caron learned quickly and today not too many reporters in the piedmont can hold a candle to her news gathering prowess.



I think it's fair that the one Anchor in the show is all worried about integrity, but in real reality this is how most young reporter/anchors get in the business. It's usually just behind the scenes in really small markets, there aren't ordinarly cameras following your every move and they aren't usually supermodels.



That usually trumps being a news anchor.

Signs - Hot Days

It's freakin' hot.

I wonder if the guy who made this sign made it on a day like this.



I'm not sure there is such a thing as a "GUAGE". I do know that it's supposed to be "Narrow Guage Road". (Edit -Damn, the heat must be getting to me...The correct road name is "Narrow GAUGE Road") It's wrong on both sides of this sign. The one on the next intersection is correct!



That was Wednesday. Thursday I shot one that read 107!

The official reading at the airport was 102.



It got really hot when sitting in one place too long. But even rolling down the road the temp only dropped to 100.

Essential Duties that Interrupt Sleep

Journalism is by no means a 9 to 5 job. Television Photojournalism is a step further from the daily bank hour grind. So I am awfully grateful that I've been lucky enough to have been a dayside photographer for 9 or so years now.

But I still get pleny of nightime and early morning assignments. You see, that's when the action is. The typical daytime, middle of the day stories are not as riveting on the surface. It generally takes a little more work to make daytime stories pop.

A lot of times I get my nightime action throught the on call system. It can be a blessing and a curse. It's an easy way to acrue a bit of O-T but it also can lead to sleep deprivation.

Just yesterday I got called out to yet another Greensboro shooting (2 in a week for me alone) at 4AM. The problem was in the fact that I was already planning a short sleep session having hit the sack at 2, only 2 hours prior to my callout.



The shooting was a robbery where the victim chased down the suspects, the suspects shot the victim and THEN when they fled they crashed into a brick wall.



It was easy stuff, I was done by 5 and I probably could have went back home and slept some more but I needed to finish some editing so I spent the next 3 hours editing. Finishing that around 8 I walked into my next assignment by visiting our assignment desk. They were about to call the other on-call guy when I spoke up to head that way.



A man fell asleep at the wheel and his pickup truck crashed head on into a church group headed to a beach retreat.



A woman from the church group was killed and 2 teens were seriously injured.



I wrapped up that shoot in about 45 minutes and handed off the video to another crew and headed towared home.

With only 2 hours sleep I was done and headed home. Unfortunatley I had a bunch of things to do around the house and I didn't get to bed until midnight. It was something like 36 hours with 2 hours of sleep.

Ojects Closer Than They Appear OUCH!!! Cameraman HIt at X Games

That right hand mirror on your car says it and the same can sometimes be applied to working through a viewfinder.

"Objects are closer than they appear."

Not that the cameraman in the following Clip from ESPNs XGames had much of a chance of dodging this one.

Someone once said, "If your pictures aren't good you aren't close enough."

He was doing his job for sure.

Like I said OUCH!

Vacation 2007 Done

I spent 2 weeks on vacation, returning to work just yesterday (Monday) and during the course of my time off I spent relatively little time watching TV, let alone seeing any news.



I didn't even have my laptop computer due to technical difficulties. (My kids broke it)



But I was in my hotel room Friday night and my heart sank when I saw the news from Phoenix and the helicopter crash.



I got caught up on all the details when I got home, watching and rewatching all the clips and analysis.



My heart certainly goes out to the families of those four.





I saw an interview today with the 14 year old son of Rick Krolak. That kid is holding up well. He loved his father and said he'd rather have 14 years with his father than 70 with anyone else. Wow!

Garfield's Birthday Not the Cartoon

Today was Garfield's Birthday. Not the cat in the cartoon, but the kitty at the clinic.



Garfield arrived, abandoned actually, at the Guil-Rand Animal Clinic about 6 years ago. He was suffering from a BB Shot wound to his back and suffered nuerological injuries that kept him from being able to stand up without falling over.



Whoever left Garfield at the Clinic never came back for him and Garfield became the new King of the Clinic. It must have been fate because the previous clinic cat "pee'd on everything" and so he went to a new home.



Somehow the birthday party tradition was started and grew bigger everyear, with Garfields favorite humans coming to celebrate with him and while he get's trippy on the catnip and feather toys, the people have pizza, cake, chips, drinks and other snacks.



Garfield did rack up on the toys and treats. And the good news....all of his old toys, cushions and beds get donated to the rescue cats that call the clinic their temporary home.

Watch the Garfield Story HERE

The Perils of Live TV part 2 Can't Hear Sh!t!

Unlike the co-ed titties in the previous entry about things that can go wrong with a live shot this one is something that you can control.




Let the lesson be this....If you 'can't hear shit' don't stand in front of the camera and certainly don't say it or anything else, especially if the truck is transmitting.

Geesh!

That was funny Shit!

The Perils of LIVE

LIVE TV. You never know what's going to happen. Throw drunk co-eds into the mix at the live location and you get this....


Austin NewsFLASH - Watch more free videos

Baseball Champions

I have to sneak in this non job-related, non tv-related post.

Big, Huge, Enormous kudos to my Oldest Stepson, and BOTH of my own boys for their respective baseball championships. The older 2 played on the same 14-U team and my little one played on the 10-U team.

All three boys have come alive with their baseball prowess this year and all three were great team players and very intstrumental in their teams' successes.

Both games were pretty close games with the 10-U game going 2 extra innings.

It was exciting baseball.

And Guess What....I took pictures....



14-U team pictures (I took mostly video at this game)

10-U Game pix

Weather Woody

OK, I admit it, I like chasing weather. It's one of the biggest unknowns in spot news chasing.

Last week I walked in the station after a 6 o'clock live shot and I saw the radar and new it wasn't good. Our weatherman was on the verge of talking about a possible tornado and I wanted in on the action.

I planned my route to get behind the storm and follow it through. Using my GPS and following scanner reports of wind and trees down I wove my way through northern Davidson County. I was headed toward a report of trees on a house when I spoted the summation of an evening storm passed.



The money shot, or I guess, the pot o' gold shot.



I was able to get great video for the newscast and pop off a couple of great stills.



I got this video and then headed south and west to end up getting video of firefighters cutting trees from roadways and driveways and people talking about the roar (they spared me the freight train quotes) of the storm and the force of the wind.

Nifong Who? Paris Has a Rival

I spent the day 90 some odd miles out of the confines of my designated home TV market covering the begining of the Mike Nifong ethics hearings in Raleigh NC.



"Nifong who?" you ask? Mike Nifong is the District Attorney (the head prosecutor for the state in a given district) in Durham, NC who was all gabby about the details of the alleged rape of a stripper at a party held at the home of some Duke Lacrosse Players.



Now that the State Attorney General has declared all the Duke Lacrosse players innocent of the allegations the state bar wants to determine if the oft labeled rouge prosecutor breeched prosecutorial ethics in his handling of the Duke Lacrosse Stripper Rape Case.



Today was the first day of the hearing and, as one old lady walking down the street said so plainly, "Paris has some competition!"



No less than 9 mobile news studios, a mix of Satellite trucks microwave trucks, from local, regional and national news outlets lined Fayetteville Street around the corner from the NC Court of Appeals building where the hearing is being held.



Short of the photos of the news trucks and crews this hearing is pretty dry and bland. It's certainly no 'Boston Legal' or 'Law and Order'.



And since Court TV is manning the cameras and providing the pool feed most of our work was done outside, chasing down Nifong and company as they made there way into court. And that was over in a matter of minutes just after 9am.



(I can be seen in the background video on several of the onlinve versions of the media scrum walkdowns.)

CBS Evening News Video HERE



The rest of the day I gathered beauty shots and watched these guys scale the Wachovia tower we were parked in front of.



Long story short....Live at Noon, 5 and 6....rinse and repeat. We may or may not be back tommorrow. Probably depends on what Dale Junior says 'cause here in NASCAR counrty Dale Jr. trumps Nifong and Paris.

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Blog Comments - Thick Skin WKRN Blogger Quits

I was recently pondering whether or not to bring up a string of recent anonymous flames I had received in the comments of a few of my blog postings.

Then, when I read that WKRN TVs blogger Britney Gilbert has quit amid the firestorm of negative comments that she says she just wasn't prepared to handle, I thought I should say a little something.

In my case, the negative comments I recieved recently were pretty random but pointed, all seemingly from one person, meant to bash TV, photojournalists, and I guess, me. I could really care less. I'm just happy people are looking and I'm open to good conversation.

The comments said things like....(full text and links at end of post)

"Apparently there is very little news going on in the Triad because you all have time to BLOG all day long."

"I bet you're one of those "photojournalists" who try so hard, they produce themselves right out of a job because nobody can stand to be around you!"

"In a few years a college graduate who will be an intern at your station will take YOUR job using one of these cameras."

"Just think you started in 1993 and by 2013 you won't even clear 50 grand a year working 60plus hours a week making some ad. exec's BMW payment with your hide!"

I think it's funny that it's started out by proclaiming that I'd be out of a job in a few years by a college student with a handycam, yet, on the other hand, I'd be struggling in 2013 to clear 50 grand a year while working 60 hours a week. That cracks me up!

The anonymous nature of the internet, blog comments and back and forth banter and sharing of thoughts and ideas, people are bound to disagree or even bash. The anonymity of people at keyboards in the privacy of their own homes or offices give these anonymous, or even some non-anonymous, writers the feeling of power to say things that would never be uttered vocaly to an opponent in thought.

Some people just like to be mean, stupid, contridictary or just ignorant. And it's not as easy to use psycology on the internet like you can against the school yard bully, who, if you stand up to him, will back down and play nice.

What it boils down to is that if you are going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. Thick skin is mandatory. Brittney Gilbert realizes, and says in her final post, she knew this going in, but her skin just wouldn't toughen.

That's too bad.

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http://tvphotogblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/fire-in-neigborhood.html

At 9:48 PM, June 02, 2007, Anonymous said...
Yes you saved the day!! barf, barf,barf

At 10:24 PM, June 02, 2007, Anonymous said...
Great even your fuzzy friend has a blog. Apparently there is very little news going on in the Triad because you all have time to BLOG all day long. TV news sucks soon you will figure it out! Why do you try to glorify it? Get a real job you losers

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http://tvphotogblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/jerry-falwell-dies.html

At 9:55 PM, June 02, 2007, Anonymous said...
Thanks for helping with the live shots you loser! Just think for for $21,000 you lost sleep making your company rich!! Barf,barf barf. I bet you're one of those "photojournalists" who try so hard, they produce themselves right out of a job because nobody can stand to be around you!

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http://tvphotogblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/playing-with-handycam.html

At 10:07 PM, June 02, 2007, Anonymous said...
In a few years a college graduate who will be an intern at your station will take YOUR job using one of these cameras. Then she will edit her video on her laptop and send it to the station while the whole time she is having cocktails with your news director trying to get the Anchor position.

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http://tvphotogblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/when-i-grow-up7th-grade-school.html

At 10:17 PM, June 02, 2007, Anonymous said...
By the time your stepson gets into TV News, McDonalds will be the place to work because idiots like you try to glorify the job and are willing to do it for peanuts. Just think you started in 1993 and by 2013 you won't even clear 50 grand a year working 60plus hours a week making some ad. exec's BMW payment with your hide!

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. some reThe

Playing with a Handycam

I've had the opportunity recently to get my hands on a Sony VX 2100 for a project I've been working on. It's a cool little camera and it's been great for what I've been doing. But I wanted to strecth it's legs a little so I shot a bunch of off the cuff stuff yesterday and came up with this...







What I'm hoping to do now is talk my wife into getting one of my very own...with one difference...I'm going for the HD version.