Your TV News Cameraman... Almost Live From BVE 2014.

Every TV news cameraman I know is a gadget freak on some sort of level. The level of geekery also depends entirely on how deep and full your pockets are. Many of us freelancers however, depend on a certain level of work and income to remain up to date and able function to the degree that our erstwhile news broadcasting clients demand.

The LiveU... Small, light, agile... Too expensive for freelancers.

In an effort to keep up to date with today's broadcasting gadgetry, I visited the Broadcast Video Expo at the ExCel Centre, London. I say visited, what I mean is I endured the hellish journey to the arse end of London via train, underground and DLR with all the stops and walking that the journey entails, so I was knackered before I arrived.

Freelancer Tip: Don't buy food or drink at the ExCel Centre unless you wish to go bankrupt. (Inform the Inland Revenue, and issue a profits warning.)

On entering the venue, there is all the gadgety and geeky wonderfulness that is to be expected. Massive camera cranes, big lenses, small cameras, big cameras, drone cameras, lights, mic's and lots and lots of drainpipe trousered, boy band haired super director / Producers / Shooting AP's drooling over the newest of the new DSLR's and the Blackmagic stand, that will be out of date by Monday.

The DejeroLIVE... Small, light, agile... Just as expensive for freelancers.

I twisted knobs, opened apertures, flicked switches and pushed buttons. I wondered what would happen to my press pass and personal liberty if I flew a drone camera into Downing Street unexpectedly without permission. I also wondered just what all the people here actually did for a living, besides declaring that they worked in 'The Meeja.'

Working as a freelance news cameraman though, I found that most of the flashing things and shiny stuff were of no use to me, but were nice to fiddle with none the less. I thought that the BVE people had missed a trick by not having a separate news cameraman area, sort of like a fake roadside corner, (with an open door to let in the cold) a burger van selling weak tea and grease, oh, and a light drizzle from the fire sprinklers... We would have felt right at home.

What I was interested in, the ability to transmit live pictures, was unfortunately still too expensive to consider. I have my cameras, sound kit, lighting and edit van. I am completely self contained and mobile and I am very unlikely to change my kit any time within the next 10 years. I can send pictures via FTP or the like, but what I can't do, reliably, is to go live.

The technology is there, and yes, it's getting better and cheaper all of the time. I saw it and played with it today. (LiveU and DejeroLIVE.) But at the prices quoted, I still cannot justify the hit to my wallet that it entails. I have no contract with a broadcaster, so my income is good, but erratic. The broadcasters won't pay me any more whether I have the ability to go live or not.

What irks me is the fact that the people and companies who make and manufacture the kit seem to aim the price and the kit they make at the broadcasters pocket, not that of the freelancer who does a lot of the news gathering for them. There are lots of us... with money to spend... Just not the amount they're asking.

I would love to be able to go live. I just can't afford to, not without selling a kidney anyway. And besides, my red wine habit has ruined its value. On top of that, we just know that the kit will be smaller, faster and cheaper this time next year... Roll on 2015.

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter.

Jazzing Up The News... A load of old Bokeh..?

I wrote a small, slightly sweary post a few weeks ago about shooting the news on various types of camera. DSLR's, Smartphones, TV Cameras and all the new snazzy bits of kit that are now flooding the market on what seems like a weekly basis. You may think that i am an anti tech, stuck in the mud, old school cameraman, that deserves to wither away and be forgotten like an old Beta SP tape. That couldn't be further from the truth. What i want is a story.

I got quite a few replies via Twitter and the like about what it is we do... we tell stories. Good ones, bad ones, heartbreaking ones and uplifting ones. But they are stories all the same, filmed and edited to educate and inform our viewers whether on the TV, web or mobile.

Today i read this article by Paul Mason, the Economics Editor of Newsnight at the BBC. It's called "In praise of Bokeh: the dilemmas of TV filming" in which he describes the advantages and disadvantages of filming with a DSLR style Camera, over more traditional routes, and decided to film a series of stories in the USA using a NEXFS100 Camera and SLR lenses, to achieve a 'Bokeh' look and style to his films. ( Read the article if you don't know what Bokeh is..)

A load of old Bokeh...?

As a news cameraman myself, i like to experiment with new technology, i have started to use a multitude of different cameras, each of which have their own characteristics, good points and limitations. I generally use the camera that suits the situation i find myself in. I no longer take my main camera into a car, for example, when i can use a GoPro to get the shot i need. A cameraman friend of mine, Christian Parkinson, has written about the various cameras he has used in war zones throughout the African Continent. There are times when we as a tv news team don't want to be instantly recognised as a broadcast TV News crew, so now, a cameraman or reporter can be armed with as little as an iphone, that shoots 1080 HD footage, thereby blending in nicely with all the other smartphone wielding people at a protest, or during civil unrest such as last years London riots.

As i have said before, camera technology is changing in our news industry at breakneck speed, the latest 'in thing' changes to the next 'passing fad' and onwards to the 'next big thing' like shallow depth of field. I'm forever reading about the latest, newest camera that is being touted as the industry 'Game changer' The trick to all of this is blending the different formats together to make a coherent looking film.

Now i'm thinking here of style over substance. The only 'Game changer' in our news industry is the speed of which the news can be disseminated around the world at the touch of a button. Social networks, blogs and the internet in general have transformed the way news is distributed, and most importantly, consumed. Smartphones, ipads, and laptops are fast becoming the way many people watch or read the news, hell, they can now interact with it... instantly. But does that really matter when we get down to the nitty gritty of news story telling..?

It no longer matters to the vast majority of news consumers how a news piece was filmed or in what format or style, as long as it has that one thing that we all aspire to. Quality. Over the past few years i have repeatedly seen our industry navel gazing and endlessly discussing the 'future of news' or the 'future of journalism'. We seem to be endlessly fretting about how we do things, when in reality, there is only one thing we should be doing. Informing the public, telling the story, and breaking the news to those who wish to be informed. We should be doing so using the best quality images and journalistic practices that we have. Having a certain style to a news film is all well and good, you can make a name for yourself by having a certain style or artistry to your work. and i agree that dull, same old news reporting and imagery is sometimes our own worst enemy.

Stylistic news reporting is all well and good if you have the time to accomplish it, and you have the tech at hand to master it. Pre planned, produced news packages can easily be stylised and jazzed up when you have the time and the money to do so. I'm guessing here that Newsnight gave Paul Mason and his cameraman Peter Murtaugh, the time and the go ahead to experiment. Given the room to experiment and the time to achieve a style is a thing i have always been in favour of. And i applaud Newsnight for letting them be a little different.

As a cameraman, i would love to be given room to experiment, but sometimes shooting 2 or 3 news stories a day for regional news programmes makes it difficult to change the habits of the reporters, the cameraman and more importantly, the producers, as we crank out the evening bulletin. We generally don't have the time or the money. ( I'm a freelancer on an hourly rate, they want me off the clock as soon as they can.) 

But i have a feeling that the great British public don't give a stuff about the style, i expect to read a few articles, tweets and the like from industry insiders, commentators and the hard core DSLR converts about this style of filming being the news industry "Game changer'.

I don't think it will. And it won't be for the lack of vision. Films such as these, by independent film makers will be well placed on the internet, but at the moment, on TV News, we tend to crank out the normal day to day films with little of the style that can be achieved if we put our mind, and time to it. We tend to stick to the same format and style on all of our news bulletins. could this be our downfall? I don't think so. Quality, stylised stories removed from the day to day news items are thin on the ground and we need more of them if we are to keep our tech savvy viewers, who are quickly migrating to the internet to find the news that suits them.

But as i have said before, style, format and the technology used matters not a thing, if you have no story to tell, that will keep me watching.

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter.

www.media-attention.co.uk

 

Camera..? DSLR..? Smartphone..? Just tell me a story...

OK, i have had enough. Those of you that know me realise that i spend a lot of time on social media sites. I follow a great many people who are in the same industry as me, via Twitter and Facebook, as well as a few other places. We are story tellers, finders of the facts, and of the truth. Tellers of news and factual information. We show off to the world via the medium of video.

The tools of our trade.

I really don't care how that story gets to me, TV, Internet or Mobile, and more importantly, what it is filmed with. If i see one more tweet or status update which declares:

@Dipshitfilms "So And So Film... filmed entirely on a SonyCanikon D5f300 Mkiii/v6. Amazing shallow D.O.F...!!"

I could fucking scream. I do not give a rats arse what the fuck you filmed it on. The 'net is awash with DOP's, Filmmakers, Directors, and other video shooters, extolling the virtues of this, that and the other newest camera, DSLR, or smartphone.

I entirely agree that video quality matters. Technology is advancing in our industry at a rapid rate, meaning that a new camera or DSLR is released every 6 or 7 months. But i cringe every time i follow a link to a film captured with this newest of tech, to find i have wasted 5 minutes of my life watching a total pile of steaming cack, because the shooter / DOP / Director has no idea of how to tell me a story with a beginning, middle or end.

You can have the most up to date, latest released, shiniest of video recording equipment. You can call yourself a Director Of Photography, a filmmaker or what the hell you like, but if any of you halfwits out there direct me to a video link on Vimeo or Youtube, that shows me a very high quality film, but with a story that is a steaming pile of shit, i shall personally come round to your place and fuck you up... big style.

Stop it... Stop it now.

And whilst i'm on the subject of all this new found tech and gadgetry, have you seen some the the rigs that people are attaching to these small, lightweight, unobtrusive cameras...? For the love of all that is holy. I have seen some shooters turn up like they have just been operated on by a spinal surgeon that has attached a multitude of rods, handles, wires and monitors just so he can keep his neck in an upright position. I once witnessed a shooter take half an hour to set up, rig and test his equipment before filming a news piece quite recently, by which time i had filmed my piece and had packed up and left.

I have embedded a film here by DSLR News Shooter, a fine website by Dan Chung. I have done so not to snigger, but to show you what is going on out there in the world of camera geekery and technology.

Now unless you are on a film set, i would say that day to day work with these contraptions are wholly impractical. I wouldn't want to be in a press scrum or shooting any type of news or documentary film with one of these... They seem to want to turn a small useful mobile camera into a shoulder mounted monstrosity that snags on everything you walk past.



So here is my two pennies worth. If you want to film documentary films or the news in particular, buy the best piece of equipment you can afford. Make sure it works for you and your style of shooting. Just be ready to roll as soon as you brake and park your car...

And for the sake of my sanity, please... please just tell me a story, and i promise you, if you inform, educate or entertain me, i will be forever grateful...

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter

www.media-attention.co.uk