Ah dancing. The ability to move with your partner through a series of delightfully light-footed and pleasing movements…knowing all the while eyes are on your every move.
Not quite what I had in mind though.
Dances with cameras is more like it.
Running with the pack and packing it in with the scrum is something battle-worn shooters are intimately familiar with. Sure – it looks easy. Just grab a camera and move in and get your shots. But beware…playing with the big boys and girls can be downright dangerous.
At some point in every newbie’s life they encounter a gang-bang. A hoard of newsies all wanting the same thing – the same interview and the same b-roll and the balance of those wanting and those offering (or alternately running away) is way off. In a regular news situation you’ve got your videojournalist or crew of reporter and cameraman and the interview subject. Grab the interview and then shoot the b-roll.
But at a major story you may have a ratio of 10 or 20 or more shooters and reporters from all reaches of news pursuing one or two potential interviews. And pursuit is the name of the game. Mike-holders create the inner circle, vying for good sound. In the outer circle are the camerafolk, circling and angling for the best light and shot. And somewhere in the dust or SOL are those who came late or don’t understand the dance.
I’ve danced this dance many times…and the trick is to work with your competition. Try to take as little room as you can to ensure you get your shot while giving just enough to allow three or four or more of your best buddies to do the same. Moving in time, down the steps of the capitol, across the PD parking lot…moving to the front and fading back as the pack passes and running ahead to rejoin the mobile mass. But generally it is a tightly packed pack moving in synchronized time to the beat of flying Q & As. I’ve been in situations where the body count is so high and dense that I’ve been able to take both hands off the camera – both it and I were wedged in so tightly.
A newbie who enters the fray gives himself away every time by trying to hog the shot – staying in front and blocking others. The end result of such boar-ishness is a downtrodden shooter lying on the ground wondering where the herd of elephants came from. Now it’s not that the stampede was aimed at taking said newbie out – the instinct in seasoned shooters is strongly tuned to combining cooperation with ruthlessness. And the sure knowledge that if anyone steps out of line, it may be the last time they can even enter the scrum. Oh, sure, I may cut your throat in a back alley to beat you to a story…but in public and knowing I’m gonna have to work alongside you again in the future, I’ll play nice. For now.
