Call the chiropractor!!
My very first job in TV news was at WCBS, the CBS local station in New York.
I was a researcher and my boss was a guy named Tom Petner.
During my first month at work I made some minor mistake and Petner hauled me into his office and started reaming me a new one…
he ended his rant by saying ‘there are 200 people in here every day looking for your job’.
I grew up in a military family. My old man was a Colonel in the US Army. I was used to being screamed it. It didn’t phase me in the least. Petner, in fact, was an amateur.
I turned to Petner and said ‘give it to them’, and walked out of his office and WCBS.
Thus ended my first foray in to local TVÂ news.
That was many years ago.
These days, Tom Petner produces a daily newsletter called The 24/7 Newsroom.
It’s pretty good.
This morning’s newsletter included a piece from Cincinatti veteran TV news cameraman Randy Hansen entitled:
My Camera vs. Your Camera
Is my full-sized news camera as good as the little cameras given to reporters?
By Randy Hansen – The Photographer’s Viewfinder
As an old school professional photographer, Hansen likes his big old camera.
OK, it may weigh a ton, but it has benefits.
Hansen doesn’t hesitate to point them out.
Fair enough.
An IBMÂ mainframe is a lot more robust than a crappy toy Apple laptop.
Which is more ‘professional’?
hmmm
Which would you rather drag around with you all day?
While Hansen seems unaware that you can put the ‘toy’ cameras into manual focus (his biggest complaint is the autofocus apparently), he seems equally unware of the benefits of the smaller cameras – or the fact that they are pretty impressive in terms of what the technology delivers.
The real trade offs here are both what I would call the schlep factor (dragging all that crap around all day, every day takes a toll), and the cost factor, which Hansen buries at the end.
“And that brings us to the elephant in the room: if these reporter cameras are not adequate for the job of gathering news video, why use them at all? Well, my P2 is priced in the neighborhood of $25,000 – depending on the options (a 32G P2 card alone is around $500). A typical reporter camera, the Panasonic AG-HVX200A retails for less than $3200)
Well yes, exactly Randy.
But it’s not the ‘elephant in the room’, it is in fact the driving factor here.
For the cost of your one camera a local news operation can buy 8 ‘reporter cameras’.
Now, multiply that by the number of cameras your station currently field – let’s say 8?
That means that now, in place of putting 8 cameras on the streets of Cincinatti every day to cover the news, your station can now put, in theory, 64 cameras on the streets of Cincinatti.
Suppose you had two competing newspapers covering Cincinatti – one with 8 reporters working the beat and one with 64. Which one is going to deliver better value, better coverage, better news and better stories to their readers?
Exactly.
So yes, you go out and do a story, but so does your reporter, your producer, your editor and anyone else who wants to be in the news business.
The newsroom should, in fact, be empty pretty much all day long.
(you can actually get rid of the newsroom entirely, but that’s another story for another day).
When you limit the number of cameras you can field you limit the number of stories you can cover. In fact, when there are so few cameras in play you can’t make any mistakes, so you are generally relegated to covering stories that come from the local paper or press releases – the ‘sure things’. You can’t take a risk because you can’t afford to come back and say ‘gosh, that one just didn’t pan out’.
So your ‘news’ becomes banal, predictable – in fact the same exact thing your competitors are covering.
Boring.
Journalism, (real journalism) requires the ability to take risks. Â To sense that there ‘might be a story here’ and then go check it out.
This is why newspapers always break stories and TV follows. Because newspapers can take risks because it’s just a reporter and a pad and pencil.
Well, the ‘reporter camera’ is an electronic pad and pencil – cheap, mobile, easy to use.
It’s not crime.
Yes, your big camera is better…compared to a reporter camera.
But your big camera is crap compared to Panavision.
Show Steven Spielberg your work and he would say ‘garbage’.
So go buy your station one massive Panavision camera and some great lights and shoot to your heart’s content.
Each night your station will produce one hell of a piece, ….with the emphasis on one.
6 Comments
Paul Huebl July 24, 2011
Here is a video from my world:
http://youtu.be/RBOAU1UG-XE
Paul Huebl July 23, 2011
I respect Petner and you too, Michael. I read the article and my reaction is send out the toy cameras on the dayside and the P2 monsters for nite-side.
I finally obtained a JVC GY-HM100U with wireless mics, lights, a carbon fiber tripod and a MacBook Pro with Final Cut X. I’m shocked over the quality of the product I can make.
I will get set up much faster and be editing my video off the little SD cards and out for distribution faster than anyone swinging a Panasonic P2 monster.
My only failing is not taking your VJ class. I’m in L.A. and have a very limited budget. TV has not had a lot of money for free lancers like me for the last decade or so.
I’m a licensed private investigator and my news speciality is investigative producing. I use and abuse all the public records I can. I hope my little camera can make a big splash soon.
I also speak German and hope to do some work there too.
Michael Rosenblum July 24, 2011
HI Paul. We use the JVCs and I was also astonished at how good they are. If you can’t make it to the bootcamps, please take a look at http://www.nyvs.com. It’s an online version of the bootcamps. We do a lot of work in Germany, and we’re talking to BILD right now. Stay tuned.
John D July 23, 2011
Another good read Michael! I’m an older guy who’s spent the last 30 years shooting local and network television news. But what makes me different than most of the staffers, like this author, is I actually have to take money out of my pocket to buy the camera I make a living with. I’d bet quite a bit of money this fellow has never done that and when it is your money…you begin to understand the business realities of what tool is purchased to achieve the desired final product.
One of my best friends is out in LA and he makes his living shooting second unit work for feature films. Second units do much of the action shots as well as the scene setting work, not usually with the principal actors of the film but their final product has to fit seamlessly with the rest of the film. He and I have a running joke about how I’m a “news hack” since my camera and “tools” don’t reach the level of quality his must.
The point being too often people get caught up in the tools and not what is supposed to be constructed. You don’t need a five million dollar crane with a wrecking ball to knock down an out-house! (I thought you’d like that analogy) 😉
I own my own camera. A Sony PMW-EX3 which is kind of in the middle when it comes to “big” or “small”. I have an-ons mounted to it that most don’t but, bottom line, our author friend might consider it a small camera not sufficient for “real” news coverage. But as I and many of my friends know, it is. Most of the US national networks accept it as a camera to be used either producing a news story or for shooting a live segment for Good Morning America. I know of several fellow freelancers who have done just that!
Whether one is in the “little” camp or the “big” camp the important lesson to learn is there is no one right answer. When I have a client who wants something “bigger” it’s easy for me to rent, using my own existing support gear of lights and audio equipment, and still make a good buck.
Folks who choose to be staff, which is a fine job and nothing to make fun of, have to accept they are not in control of what tools they use. They may have good ideas about what is better but they, ultimately, are not the ones deciding on what is “good enough” for a capital investment in difficult economic times. If they do feel strongly enough, then they should “walk the talk” and buy their own gear and go to work for themselves. But…many won’t. Which is fine with me! It’s always nicer to have less competition!
Thanks again for a great read Michael!
Aaron Weiss July 21, 2011
The first sign Randy has no idea what’s going on in the real world:
Guess what, Randy? A $900 Sony A55 has a 1.8″ sensor. It has SIX TIMES the surface area of your “professional” shoulder boulder. I’ll let you guess how the Sony performs in low light with a nice fast lens on it. You can buy a flock of A55s for the price of a P2.
Move up to a $3,000 Canon 5D Mark III and you get a 35mm sensor with FIFTEEN TIMES the surface area of your P2… all in a package that’s weatherproof, dustproof, and proven in conditions far more harsh than the mean streets of Cincinnati, all while being a fraction of the size, weight, and cost (even after you pimp your 5D with video toys and a good mic). Your P2 is stumbling around blind in the dark in comparison with that sensor.
All your P2 really gets you is a $15,000 shoulder mount — which is the professional photographer’s equivalent of a security blanket.
Matt Adams July 21, 2011
There’s a need and plenty of room for both.