TV Crew ArrestedWhen to cross that line?

When is it justifiable to go out and get yourself arrested during the course of gathering news? That is the question that comes to my mind after reading about the plight of TV Photog Cliff Erwin and Reporter Sara Sheffield.

The two were arrested just after a Live report for failing to heed the instructions of the Highway Patrol who told them to move from the spot where they were covering a building collapse.

According to other media reports they had been covering the collapse since before the sun came up and had moved back several times as police adjusted the yellow tape.

Today I recieved an email reply from someone close to the situation stating that they "were plenty far away. Not to mention the fact there were several other
journalists in the same location who were not arrested or even asked to move."

The email was brief but continued to say that Erwin and Sheffield "were in the spot local police directed (them) to earlier that morning. It’s crazy!"

Yes, that is crazy! If the public can be there so can the media. Period! It's a statement worth repeating. Hell, make it into a T-shirt and I'll wear it. If it's OK for Joe Six-Pack to walk around the damaged building or at the yellow tape then it's OK for the viewers watching my newschannel to be there through my lens as well.

But too many times an overzealous Barney gets all out of sorts about protecting the victims or protecting my safety or protecting his job and our big fancy cameras seem to set off their radars.

It seems lately to be an almost daily occurance in our jobs for someone to not want us around, to ask us to leave or to threaten our very freedom.

SO, back to my question. When is it OK to get arrested? When does it help? When does it hurt?

Certainly Sara and Cliff got their job done and made air. That is the most important factor to consider. My bosses wouldn't like it too much if they had to fill a 2 minute black hole at the last minute because I wouldn't move 50 (or however far)feet to make a point about the first ammendment or public access. It's very important to make air.

But this crew that was arrested were nearing the end of a full shift. They stood up for what was right, made their Live Shot and were still given NO CONSIDERATION from the authorities. I think in their situation they did the right thing. They took the bullet (so to speak) and hopefully that'll get the local and state authorities to take a closer look at their media relations.

The problem is that, starting with the altercation, most of these situaions create more problems than they solve on both sides. The cops spend time dealing with a sidebar problem, the media get behind on a deadline, legal problems and expenses are created for those involved, and animosity can develop between the cops and the media.

And heck, all we want is a decent place to take a picture from!

Take a swing around the web and see who's saying what about this incident...

Lenslinger Article

Bluedog Photog Blog Article

Lost Remote Article

Lost Remote Artice

THE LIVE SHOT

News-Leader Article

B-Roll.Net Thread

Sedalia Democrat Article

Pictures of the Arrest

TV News Streaker

I found this great video skit spoofing a streaker in the background of a Local News Live Shot. It was produced by Studio 8 Entertainment. Make sure you go pee BEFORE watching.

Link to Video


As seen on Break.com

Long DayGetting the Worm(as in....Early Bird)

After about 4 hours of shut eye I rolled out of bed and rolled into the station and met Caron and we took off to the Alamance County Seat of Graham where Sheriff Terry Johnson wanted us to see some good old fashioned police work first hand.

Seems one of their veteran detectives worked his way into the crimminal element, gained their trust and started buying their stolen goods. The undercover work was so good that they were purchasing stolen merchandise before the property owner even had a chance to report it stolen.

It was even stated that the crimminals would call up the "buyer" and ask if they would buy this or that because they were going to steal one!

So this morning we arrived at 5am to head out with one of the arrest teams to watch them round up te 41 or so people that were listed on warrants obtained through the undercover operation.

We did a noon, 5 and 6 o'clock live shot. It went something like this at noon and this at 6.

MYSTORIES VIDEO

The time is drawing near (read: now) that some of my at work, work may be on the web through official means!

That excites me because I'll be able to point you to some great stories if you feel like taking a look.

So without further adeau, though not one of my best efforts, a consumer story about fake tanning that I shot and edited can now be found online.

I also did a story about packing light to travel.

But I really like this one that I didn't shoot any of...editing only!

Who's Going to Hell?

I was covering the Southern Baptist Convention the other day and after spending most of the day inside listening to the preaching, singing and other Southern Baptist Business of the day I had to head outside and across the street to see the opposition to the Baptists.



Of course as an impartial member of the media I had to observe, shoot and air their side of the story which is one filled with hate and hostility but it made my stomach turn!

These are the members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. They are the ones protesting at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. The main members of the Church are the Phelps family headed by family patriarch Fred Phelps.

Showing up carrying american flags, or rather, standing on the flag, holding them upside down, spitting on them and holding signs with nasty messages inscribed.(see pictures) the group consisted of people of the aproximate ages of 4, 10, 12, 14, 17, and other young and middle aged adults.



Their message is that God hates homosexuals(see pictures) and that God doesn't forgive. Of course, they may be onto something there. Jesus was sent as the saviour, so going past their rhetoric, they've messed up their own message. They came to Greensboro to call Billy Graham a lying whore.

A group of Soldiers and Marines also showed up to stand across the street and give them the death stare. That thumbs up in this picture isn't for them!



They generally think that they are the chosen ones and that they will go to heaven for living the life they live, which isn't exactly 'Love thy Neighbor'.

Wiki-Pedia has an interesting article on Fred Phelps and how this group of fanatic protestors came into existence. They also have several websites spreading their hate, one of which is titled www.GodHatesFags.com.

American Idol:Kellie Pickler on Jay LenoHer Biggest Fans

I saw Kellie Pickler on Jay Leno Wednesday night. It was funny! Hillarious as a matter of fact. (Don't leave to try to find it online...I'll send you there in a second...) Her appearance on Leno's show from the MTV Awards red carpet got me thinking about the bubbly blonde who has the stars gawking over her.

Before she was a finalist on American Idol, before she came to be adored by millions of people nationwide, before she generated 810,000 hits by Googling her name, before she came to Greensboro and posed for Stewart "Lenslinger" Pittman's cell phone snapshot, and before she had appeared twice on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, she was just a small town southern belle with a thick, small town, deep south, North Carolina drawl.

Before all the hoopla that has risen her quickly to the status of southern superstar she was just another beauty pageant winner named as Ms Stanley County.



She was also a roller skate waitress at an Albemarle restaurant with name that rhymes with Tonic.


While in school she was trying to set new and exciting fashion trends for the prom.


As seen on Break.com


But now she's got the likes of Justin Timberlake, Sandra Bullock, Will Ferrell and Keanu reeves gawking over her.

The stars want her to make it big....They're her biggest fans!

Check out the video of Kellie on Jay Leno.

Look Up and Live(and this is on the set!)

It's a statement usually reserved for field crews operating a microwave van with a 50plus foot mast: Look up and live!

But the following video might cause our highly-compensated newsreaders in the studio to start craning their necks at the lights attached to the grid overhead.

The female anchor is reading the script when a light falls from above striking her in the head.

However, I don't know if I buy it. I could be wrong but in slow motion it looks like she begins the fall a fraction before the light hits her noggin. (If you can prove otherwise please feel free to comment.) And since all TV Lights are double secured when hung it's just not something that happens.

Still funny to watch....

Watch it below by pushing play...


As seen on Break.com

Flying CirclesBeing a Vulture is Just Part of the Job

I had 2 very interesting comments in response to my Blog Post titled "Cell Phone Stalking: Court House Style". The first one was from the lady I mentioned in the blog who laid on the horn to "mess up" our video. The second comment is anonymous but along the same train of thought. Both comments basically call the news business to the carpet for doing our jobs while defending 2 jailers who were just "doing their jobs" when an inmate was killed.

Due to the nature of the comments I feel like a point by point response is in order...

At 9:54
PM, May 20, 2006, Anonymous said...
It seems to me that, from a news standpoint, you might realize that there are TWO sides to every story.

And as with every criminal case we cover, we have and continue to extend an open invitation to both defendants in this case to go on the record about the charges and allegations against them. A defendant choosing not to talk does not mean, however, that the media won't continue to pursue the story and print or broadcast all the information that we can gather.

The media has done all it can to hype up the sympathy for this ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT who died while in a struggle with law enforcement officers in jail. Why was he in jail? Let me list just a few of the charges...DRUNK DRIVING, hit-and-run, reckless endangerment, resisting arrest...And while he was in jail, he became agitated & violent, threatening others with a broken-off mop handle...he had to be placed in restraints because he got so out of hand!!

First, no one has said that the victim was illegal. Personally I think that's irrelevant. Yes he was in taken to the jail to be tested for DUI, though he was not held for that charge because he only blew a .07...NOT DRUNK. He was charged for taking the car of a co-worker without permission, and yes he had a fender bender and left the scene. Hardly a hardened criminal. His friends and family could have picked him up that very night on a very low bond, but wanted him to think about it in jail for a day or so. I don't remember anything about resisting arrest in the Thomasville Police Arrest Report that I read.

and while he was in jail, he became agitated & violent, threatening others with a broken-off mop handle...he had to be placed in restraints because he got so out of hand!!

I don't know what happened in the jail to make him mad, but I do know that enough time had passed that he wasn't under the influence of that .07 any longer.

How can you news people not see that maybe - just maybe - this is
simply a case of self-defense on behalf of the officers? The inmate had to
be shot with a taser gun and he STILL would not settle down and act like he
had some sense. Language barrier or not, anyone can tell what is trying to
be communicated in this type of situation. The officers were trying to
take away a WEAPON that the prisoner was using to provoke others in the
jail.

I don't know what kind of inside information you have but you just stated that they put him into restraints and then they were tasing him.(maybe you wrote it out of order) Maybe it was self defense. Maybe the officers were justified in shooting him with the taser gun numerous times all over the body and causing him to die due to a blunt trauma to the head. That's still to be seen. I do know that the DA says there is enough evidence to warrant charging the two jailers.

But the media only wants to show the public the most sensational and attention-grabbing side of the story about this "poor imigrant" who was in this country to support his family back home. BIG DEAL!!! You people disgust me with your hot-shot stories and you make no attempt what-so-ever to gather all of the information to present a thorough report.

No, like I said before, there is an open invitation for the two defendants in this case to talk to us on the record. We've contacted the lawyers of both defendants and they know that the invite to talk stands. The family of the victim stepped forward and had their say. There is no reason the defendants shouldn't have that chance too. That's not up to me, that's up to them.

Leave those two officers alone! They were doing their jobs, and you vultures
just want to shove a camera in their faces & put them on public display as if they are the criminals. They're not!!

They are defendants in a high profile killing in a taxpayer funded detention facility. The public deserves to know what happened, and what's going to happen. Yes, we do our best to get video of the people involved in the stories we cover. If those people choose to run from us we will chase them down. When we catch them we will still ask them if they have anything to say. No they are not criminals. That's not for me to decide, that's for the jury.

And by the way, I am the "other lady" who laid on the horn when you were
hounding Officer Huie...I should have tried to run one of you idiots over
instead. How's THAT for a news story?!?

That'd be a great story...sounds like assault and battery to me. Wouldn't be the first time.


And then the second comment....

At 2:00
PM, June 03, 2006, Anonymous said...
I have to say that I agree with the above statement. At this point now, I'm sure you've decided not to continue reading the following statements because they don't agree with yours. I'm curious to know, while you're busy staking out the courthouse, are you getting paid?

Absolutely. Why would I do that for free?

I ask because I wonder if you've ever worked a job/career where
you are expected to put your life on the line everyday! Inmates are in
prison/jail for a reason, they broke the law! While I don't disagree that
sometimes things happen and innocent people end up in jail by mistake, those
people generally don't threaten those around them. Especially, those who are
essentially their "care takers" while in jail.

My father was a police officer. One day while in a foot chase he was knocked to the ground by the guy he was chasing landing across a hard concrete corner with his lower back. He severely injured his lower back and it was 20 agonizing years before the right surgery came along to really do anything about it. Being a cop in the 60s there were no great benefits to let him rest on his laurels for the rest of eternity.

As for me, I wouldn't say I put my life on the line everyday for my job, save for the last statement in the first comment above. I wouldn't have a problem going to Iraq to document the war. You may have heard that a cameraman was killed there last week in a roadside bomb attack. There are elements of dangers in my job here stateside too. We camp out on the side of the road on an almost daily basis. We go into strange, lower class, crime ridden neighborhoods everyday. We drive on the highways and street everyday.(Statistically higher chance of dying than from flying!) But I agree that LEOs including jailers have an extremely difficult job dealing with the worst elements of society on a daily basis. But as one of my reporter friends likes to say..."We're kind of like cops...we go where they go and deal with the same people they deal with...we just carry cameras instead of guns."

The media has gone crazy lately. I don't believe 95% of the stuff reported
in the papers or on the news anymore. While doctors and nurses, etc are held by
a code of ethics, it doesn't seem that reporters have any type of ethics,
responsibility, honesty, decency, etc. They gather a few tidbits of info that
may or maynot be true, twist it and turn it until it's absolutely no resemblence
of what it started to be just to beat the competition in "getting the story out
1st".

Unlike the codes of conduct and ethics established for doctors, lawyers, etc..., you can't legislate free speech. There are libel and slander laws that cover issues involving out and out incorrect reporting against individuals.

And as with any profession there are bad apples, those who don't follow protocol and cause bad things to happen. In your example you see stories on TV and in the papers that seem to be based on falsities and bad reporting. In this story a man is dead! Two jailers beat him to death! Whether or not they are found guilty as charged will be determined by a plea or a jury.

Personally I am very big on getting the story right the first time. I check and double check the facts of every story I work on. I do my best to gather information from more than one source even double checking official sources like the DA or LEO reports.

I also don't discriminate....I have also written stories about members of the media who have had their run ins with the law.

I follow the ethics guidelines of the National Press Photographer's Association. There are several trade associations that others journalist use as their guidelines, most overlapping and having similar codes of ethics.

We already have a shortage in alot of significant professions, such as
nursing. Law enforcement is not much better. I think I will see the day in my
time when we have such a shortage, no where will be safe to live. No one will
want to be in law enforcement, etc because everybody is "sue happy" these days.
Why not? People are too lazy to work and are looking for the easy buck!

Anything an employee does as a part of his or her job in any job, especially a public job, is generally the civil responsibility of the employer. Even in this case, the civil responsibility may soley lie with the Sheriff's Department. This is the point where good and ongoing training in the particular job field come in handy.

What better way than to turn self defense into murder. Not only does your
family get an express pass to be here legally, but they also don't have to worry
about lawyer expenses because the taxpayers that live here legally and are law
abiding citizens will take care of that bill, not to mention whatever comes from
all of the civil suits the family's ambulance chasing lawyer choses to file!

The murder charge is up to the DA and is completely separate and apart from the civil side of the case. But you are right...If you remember the case of OJ Simpson a few years back...He wasn't found guilty but is paying a hefty amount to the family. But that's just the difference in criminal and civil law. The civil court will be left to decide that part of the case and just who's resposbile for the damages that may be incurred.

(BTW - The victim in this case was also a taxpayer with a legitimate job with taxes being withheld.)

What the heck, maybe I'll take off to another country and live. Oh, yeah,
other countries don't allow illegal immigrants to have more civil rights than
their own citizens!! Only in America right! The Land of Opportunity!!

Exactly. And other countries don't even allow their own citizens to have the freedoms that we have here in the great ol' USA. The freedom to express ourselves. The freedom to think independently. The freedom to have a jury of our peers decide our fate. In some countries those jailers would have already been executed.

Gone Racin'Coke 600

It's the years longest race and for me it was a helluva long workday. (So why am I blogging about it now at (start time) 1:19am???)



The (not-so)quick rundown of my day looks like this....



7:17am - Wake up...Drive to Lowes Motor Speedway...



9:30am - Shoot a story with Ryan Seacrest taking the 170 mile per hour tour of the track by Kyle Petty...



10:45am - Take Photos of said story shoot...



11:00am - Dub In-Car Footage of the Ryan Seacrest ride along.



11:30am - Edit Nat Pack Story(no reporter, all video and sound I shot) of the morning with Seacrest.




5:30pm - Dub Story from my laptop edit computer back to my XD Disc.



6:00 - Stop and talk to Bucky Covington.(more pictures)



6:30 - Feed Story back to station through WSOC microwave truck. (Thanks WSOC!)



6:45pm - Drive to my new secret LMS Parking Spot outside of the track on the front stretch.



7:00pm - Haul Camera, Tripod and Chairs to top of the Tower to shoot some the race from lap 100-ish to the end.


(what kind of Coke Points do I get for this pic ;-)

10:30pm - Kasey Kahne wins race...Drive Home.



11:45pm - Arrive Home.



1:50 am Finish this blog.

Seacrest OUT!!!On the Racetrack

Ryan Seacrest took to the racetrack today at Lowe's Motor Speedway before the big race. Way before actually. I've been at the track since 9am!




Look for the story on Fox8 after the race! A few more details when I have a little more time!

Investigative ReportSpankin' it in Cleveland!

I found this story from the NBC affiliate, WKYC, Channel 3 in Cleveland on Break dot com.

Now this is how you do an investigative story!

It's got old school attitude and 21st century flair.

Kudos to the photog for some fine shooting!

Kudos to Carl (the reporter) for protecting his photog!

Now watch the story...


As seen on Break.com

Same Story linked from the WKYC Website


Another Version from the WKYC Website.

Rooftop Education

I wonder what they're trying to teach the kids over at UNC-Chapel Hill that has them up on the rooftop catching up on their studies?



Must be real interesting!



I wonder if he could spot my wallet that I lost in Chapel Hill today!

Note to self: Don't put wallet between legs in the seat before exiting vehicle in a rush!

When Reporters get Video Phones

Here's what happens when a TV Reporter gets a video phone....



(Here are the Links to the QUICKTIME Versions)
Her driving(and shooting)...
Waiting for a Live Truck...
Me after a long day with her...

To her credit...it's hers...on her dime.

Thanks for the video NB!!!

The Ultimate M.O.S.update:The Ultimate Job Interview!

It's the most feared acronym in TV News....M.O.S. It means Man on the Street...as in go out and find someone, anyone, and ask them questions about whatever the story of the day is and that becomes the news.

But the BBC has taken M.O.S and brought it to the set when they hired computer copyright expert Guy Kewney to speak on the Apple/I-pod/Beatles lawsuit, but the right Guy never made air.

The REAL "Guy" explains in his blog that he was waiting in the reception area with the clock ticking away the minutes and seconds until his scheduled 'expert' appearance when the following came on the telly.... (push the play button in the center)






The real Guy explains on his blog that there was some excuse from a BBC Studio Manager about mistaking the guy at one entrance for the real Guy at another entrance.

Somehow the darker skined guy also named Guy, who's the BBC says was there for a job interview, received his visitor's pass that of course said 'Guy' and then the wrong Guy became the M.O.S, in this case, Man on the Set, instead of the right Guy!

It begs the question...what would YOU do to get a job!

Air Care Angels

Over the past several weeks I had the privilege to shoot and produce a story about angels. These angels fly over the Piedmont of North Carolina going to where people are hurt and taking them back to one of the best hospitals in the state.



These angels have a name, Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center Air Care....Baptist Air Care for short, and whether they are responding to a trauma call like a car crash, or to another hospital to pick up critically ill people, they are sometimes the ticket to another chance at life.



I spent a full shift and half of another one to make my story come to life. On the first day the only time in the air was for what the pilots call a power check, sort of a diagnostics test for the Bell 412 that Baptist Air Care flies.



On my second day with Air Care we made a trip to Mt Airy High School for a simulated car crash during a school assembly about the dangers of drunk driving.



Onboard AirCare is usually a crew of 4. The pilot and co-pilot are responsible for the safety and flight of the aircraft and they get to make the call about whether to fly or not to fly.



A Flight Nurse and Paramedic are in the back to provide patient care.

This is Flight Nurse Kathy Nelson, who after 8 years and flying 2 pregnancies to full term, is almost done with her full time stint on Air Care in trade for more weekends off.



On this flight, Paramedic Shana McCready somehow stayed out of the shots but props to her (and Kathy) for some of the great pictures.



On the way to a scene there is a lot of prep work to do. They have to get as much information about the patient as possible and prepare any equipment they know they may need for a given call.



The real call I did get to fly with Air Care on happened as the night shift came on. At Wilkes Regional Medical Center a woman went into respiratory distress during a C-Section to deliver her baby.



We flew up to Wilkes county on a trip that takes 20 minutes by air, but would have been 45 inutes or more on the ground.



A week after that flight I went back to Baptist Hospital and interviewed Kala Bullard, the patient from that flight, and got to see her baby who was brought to Baptist by ground. They are both recovering nicely and says that without Aircare she thinks she would have surely died. Ironically her mom took an Air Care flight 5 years ago, but only lived 3 days after arriving at Baptist.



And while there are a lot of Kala Bullard type stories of survival, patients beating the odds, Aircare getting them to the hospital in the "Golden Hour", there are also stories like Kala's mom, people too sick to survive, but without the effort by the medical team, who would have ever known.

And during my discussions with the AirCare crews I learned that our jobs aren't too terribly dissimilar. No, I'm not out saving lives, but I have to deal with the families after tragedies that take the lives of loved ones.

While the aircare crew gets the pleasure of a visit from surviving patients, they also remember each one that dies. From my end as a photojournalist it's rare to follow up with too many AirCare survivors because without extraordinary circumstances, it's not likely salacious enough for local news.

But as soon as someone dies from a traumatic accident, you can put money on the news crews circling in to find out what happened and why.

Take Sylvia Gibbs for example. She was found hanging from a clothesline, apparently an accident while playing near it. She was taken to the local hospital and then AirCare took her to Baptist.

I'm sure they did all they could, but it was all for naught. Sylvia passed away and I had to go with a reporter to see her mom. That's a low feeling. Every time.

It's tough when kids die. Even tougher this time because this girl was a month younger than my youngest.

I like to walk away feeling like maybe telling the story will save a life down the road, or help the family get on the path to healing or maybe raise some funds for the funeral.

The AirCare Crews like to walk away knowing they saved a life.

For the ones they can't, those are angels flying along with them over the piedmont of North Carolina.

Cell Phone StalkingCourt House Style

With my wireless phone in hand I scanned the horizon, looking through a sea of 1200 heads from the list.

I could care less about 1198 of them, although they were all wearliy aware of the presence of me and my fancy XDCam.

The two faces I wanted to capture for a date with the TV News audience are however the same two faces who these others might wouuld have formerly seen if this courthouse monopoly trip landed on them on the wrong corner.



Ronald Parker and Brandon Huie are both former Davidson County jailers, charged with 2nd degree murder in the violent jail death of inmate Carlos Claros Catros and both had a court appearence on Monday.

After a long morning of waiting and watching and finally asking for a fellow photog to shoot me the mugshots on my cell phone I was ready, studying the picture constantly trying to burn the image onto my corneas.

When court was getting closer to lunch and more and more people were being released until their next date with the judge another TV Photog and I got the word that one of the jailers had left through a side door, on his way to the outside.

We quickly bolted to the outside and coordinated to cover each end of the building. At the opposite end of the courthouse I ran headlong into the now familiar face Brandon Huie who promplty took a left and picked up his pace across the parking lot.

The other photog saw my pursuit and worked and angle to cut us off at the pass. When Huie saw the other TV Camera coming he jerked his Sunday coat up over his head and broke into a near run.

Two ladies were waiting for him around the corner about 2 blocks from the courthouse and I finally got in front of him when he had to slow down to get into his SUV.

One of the women in another car laid on her horn to "screw up our shots", I guess, and stayed on it until they were out of site.

I guess we'll do it again at the next court date. I'll have my cell phone.

NAB 2006Girls of NAB(Updated)

An astute reader of TVPhotogBlog has alerted me to the fact that Ms. Frontz in the following post has quite a web presence if you should decide to GOOGLE her name. Of the google hits, THIS is my favorite. It's her own bio site...www.Jamie.ws.

==========

A smart marketing guru once said "Hire a pretty girl to hand out your catalog and you'll get a bunch of eyes on your booth." Actually I just made that up, but there were a bunch of lovely ladies on the floor of NAB strutting their stuff, dressing the part and peddling the wares of companies with smart marketing gurus.

Take Jamie Frontz for example....


Me and every other guy at NAB saw Ms. Frontz strutting around in her Daisy Duke business suit and I would be turning a blind eye to my journalistic duty if I didn't investigate further and find out who she was working for.



Oddly enough she was handing out catalogs for a label company that I have used before and plan to use again in the near future. If there is a place to stick a label, Pro-Label dot com has a label to stick on it.



Another group of ladies at another booth were dressed up as flight attendants, playing the part for a company that does something with airlines. (Sorry not sure, snapped the picture in a mad dash to another location.)



And let's not forget the B-roll dot net girls, who weren't in action on the NAB floor but were the life of the party at the B-Roll get together at Gordon Biersch.

NAB 2006Technical Review

With way too many things to see and not nearly enough time to see it all, I snapped off as many photos as I could and decided to soak it all in and wait until later to think about it.



I liked the sign at the Hitachi booth, because it set the tone. It truely is a candy shop.



So we've been throwing about this term, "Backpack Journalist" but the guys and girls from Easy Rig taken it to the next level. There is actually a review on B-roll.net about this unique looking contraption.



I wished I would have tried it on, or had time to. It sounds like it really relieves shoulder stress by putting all the weight on the hips and any New Photog worth his/her weight could use a little of that.



But we had to move on to our next stop and Easy Rig wasn't an official stop on our checklist, but definately worth pausing for.



Around the corner, or maybe in another building, we found this Ford Excursion with a telescoping mast attached to the trailer hitch connection.



On top of the Mast a Gyro Stabilized color camera and infared camera and a digital microwave transmitter. Inside the vehicle are all of the controls to make great TV.



A iron clad version of this truck sees battle in Iraq.



The company won a technical achievement award for the vehicle.



This might be a great news helo for small and medium market stations. I'm not sure how many people it takes to run the thing but I've seen it in use for NASCAR races and I liked what I saw. It's a lot more efficient than a full size chopper, and it could be great in some news situations, but it's more a a production rental.



Moving on down to a new location.....I saw the biggest freakin' edit screen in the world. This one's only so people at the back of the room could see the demo, but it made a lot of folks stop and look.



And luring people to stop at your booth in a sea of colors and sounds isn't as easy as just setting up shop.



And finding a particular booth in this ocean of TV Gadgets was no piece of cake either.



Here's one we stopped at and Kevin Johnson asked a bunch of questions about. It is a hard drive that accepts a Firewire input and various codecs and allows many hours of recording, depending on the size drive and which type of signal is input.



Here is a great long lens for High Def Cameras. I didn't get any details, but it sure was fun to look at. It was only there as a Demo for the Hitachi Camera.



Also at the Hitachi booth was their Z-DR1 camera that records on a Hard Drive or Solid State removable media.



Whichever media type you choose, it can be removed and plugged directly into the NLE of your choice. As soon as you are plugged in you can edit from your clips with no download or digitizing required. See the video on B-Roll.net.



If you're into movie making you might be interested in this big ass jib crane. It was huge. It looked more like it belonged on a construction site somewhere!



It has this 35mm film camera attatched to the other end of it.



On the smaller, more budget conscious side, there were plenty of smaller jibs at a bunch of booths.



In terms of new technology, this is one of the more "revolutionary" products we saw during our tour. Hydrogen Powered Batteries.



Using this refillable Hydrogen canister attached to a reactor/adapter, you create 12 volts of renewable power that creates water as a by-product.



It's a little bigger than your standard brick for the back of a camera, but it lasts a lot longer. When the Hydrogen canister is empty you just fill it back up with Hydrogen (from a large tank that you can purchase in any city).



The Hydrogen power is marketed by Jadoo. Now if only they could get us a car powered by Hydrogen!



Of course the Grandaddy of NAB has to be SONY. If you wanted to lose yourself in a sea of people get anywhere within 100 yards of the Sony Corridor.



Outside there were more interesting odd and ins. A steadycam mounted on a Seguay. As smooth as I've seen a Steadycam in a full sprint by the operator, this Sequay mounted version must just be for the lazy photog in us all! There were a couple of different incarnations of the Steadycam Seguay. On this model the operator could carry the full weight Steadycam or mount it directly to the Seguay.



Prepare to be caught on camera anywhere and everywhere at NAB.



Coming Soon....

The Girls of NAB

The Limo Ride