TV Cameraman And A Compendium Of Calamity.

Making your living wielding a lump of glass and plastic forthe TV viewing public can take us to some wonderful places where people want to feed you, mean neighbourhoods where people want to kill you, and surprising situations where people want to... well, i will keep that for another blog post. Mostly though, we never find ourselves in front of the camera. That is, until something funny, stupid or bloody well dangerous gets captured by another lens wielding lunatic who then uploads it to YouTube for the world to laugh at. It also gives me another excuse to trot out my favourite TV cameraman meme

TV news locations... sometimes wet.

I did share an unfortunate moment with you a while back, and even a video of a stupendously stupid footballer, but here at the ukcameraman Institute of TV News Studies we like to keep an eye on the electronic interwebs for more of the same, in the vain hope that by sharing, the news gods will ensure that it will never happen to me...

1. The very lucky TV cameraman. In which a TV cameraman nearly gets flattened by a Porsche.



2. The horse whisperer. In which a horse gets overly amorous with a TV Cameraman's ear.



3. Wobbly leg syndrome. In which a TV cameraman finds an amusing lack of blood in his right leg. (We've all been there.)



Do you see just how hard our job can actually be..? It may seem to you that we enjoy a freewheeling lifestyle in glamourous places with famous people, or hanging around courtroom doors in the warm sunshine drinking coffee, but at any moment we may have our ears ripped off, our heads smashed in by flying cars or get a very nasty case of pins and needles that lasts all bloody night. The things we put up with...

I know, I know... Your heart bleeds.

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter.

www.media-attention.co.uk

TV Cameraman Vs Stupid Footballer.

I came across this video today whilst browsing the electronic interwebs for TV cameraman related stories. Unfortunately, it's not a video that i can turn into a bit of fun for us all to laugh at and have a bit of a giggle.

Footballers... Notoriously thick.

Ezequiel Lavezzi is a highly paid footballer for Paris St Germain, paid approximately 4m Euro's a year. A honed, highly trained athlete... And a complete and utter dickhead. Following a match, he can be seen to play a so called 'joke' on a steadicam camera operator who was following another player, resulting in the cameraman being felled with all of his equipment. He then runs over to his footballing mates laughing all the way.



The kit that the cameraman has is expensive... like a footballer. It is prone to breaking when smashed on the ground... like a footballer. That's why we take care of our investments... like a club does with it's footballers.

The actions of Lavezzi is that of a spoiled child, a rich spoiled child with no thoughts of what his actions result in. The equipment could possibly have broken, as could the cameraman. Broken arms, dislocated shoulder, a wrenched back that could put him out of action for a long while. If he is freelance that means with no pay.

If it was his own equipment, he would have to claim on insurance, lose work whilst things are fixed.

The cameraman should expect to be able to work in a safe environment, free from the danger of serious injury and damage to kit caused by a multi millionaire twat like Lavezzi. I hope he sues not only the pillock of a so called gentleman footballer, but the club itself for failing to guarantee his safety in a working environment. I would.

And being me, he would be lucky if i didn't get up and deliver a career ending blow to a highly tuned footballing knee, thereby teaching the idiot a valuable lesson in leaving other people alone whilst they work. Being a footballer, and therefore as thick as two short planks nailed together, he would probably only get a job washing dishes in his local takeaway.

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter.

The TV News Cameraman And His Email Careers Advice Centre.

Now, I'm no seen it and done it all TV news cameraman. You may say that I am a suave, sophisticated and incredibly good looking sort, with an all pervasive charm and wit, and who am I to disagree..? But here at the ukcameraman Institute of TV News Studies we get a lot of emails asking about the route into TV news camera work.

Be a TV news cameraman, and get an eye piece surgically attached to your face. (Please read our terms and conditions.)

I have no problem with this. Putting myself out as a news cameraman blogger and interweb D-List celeb, I expect and get a lot of emails asking the very same question. So here is a reply to an email that I received yesterday...

"Thanks for taking the time to email me, and thanks for taking an interest in the blog, I'm glad that you enjoy it.

With regards to being a news cameraman, the best thing to do is to make contact with the local BBC / ITV newsrooms and tell them who you are. We don't really work with scanners here in the uk although social media is a good way of finding and following up on stories and making all important contacts where stories regularly occur. (Emergency services / Companies / Politicians etc.) a good, old fashioned contacts book is a big bonus.

Personally, I am hired by the local newsrooms as and when they require my services, on a story that they want to cover (breaking news) or a story that they have planned for that day. As a freelancer, I come in as second choice after the staff crews and other freelancers with contracts, but I have been on their freelancers call list for many years and I am very well known to them.

Should you film anything newsworthy I'm sure they will take a look, but it is difficult to sell stories to them on spec unless you are well known to them or have something spectacular or interesting for them to warrant broadcasting it. The best route into a newsroom is to become known to them as a freelancer with the right kit that they require, or being extremely lucky at being in the right place at the right time. Bare in mind that different broadcasters require different recording standards and kit.

For example BBC are now using XDCam/DVCam, ITN and ITV are still using just DVCam at the moment and SKY News use P2. Contact them, send in a CV and make a call or two, but don't become a pain. Give them time to reply as they have many other applications for different roles within a newsroom, see what they say depending on what kit you have.

Another outlet for news video is of course local, regional and even national newspapers who don't have such a rigid requirement when it comes to recording on a certain bit of kit. DSLR's and other cameras are commonplace for use on the web. Make a film or two in the style of the paper, (do some research) and contact them. You never know.

Good luck."

I know that the above is a short and somewhat pithy reply with very little in depth advice and my personal contacts list, (If you come for my contacts, I will have to kill you.) but I hope it gives the recipient a small pointer in the right direction with something to think about.

I do try and reply to everyone who takes the trouble to write to me. I remember very few did when I was first starting out, which I found incredibly frustrating at the time. I have however, written about this very subject in a little more depth on this blog before, and if you have any news gathering ability whatsoever, you should be able to find it...

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter.

www.media-attention.co.uk.

From Lenslinger To Phoneslinger.

As a TV news cameraman, i started blogging mainly because of reading another cameraman's blog called Viewfinder Blues. Based in the U.S. his name is Stewart Pittman, aka Lenslinger, who i first wrote about here, way back in the mists of 2010 before the Royal Charter which founded the ukcameraman Institute of TV News Studies that you know and love today.

"Stewart relates his tales with a dry wit and savage verbiage that puts into sharp focus the job of us lens luggers." 

That's what i wrote way back then and has remained so until recently. To cut a long story short, Stewart's circumstances changed somewhat, and today sees Stewart become a news operations manager, instead of the full time Lenslinger i so loved to read about. The derring do and the stories of poking his lens where it wasn't always wanted, the good, bad and ugly of TV news camerawork.

An undercover shot of an average 'News Operations Manager's Office.'

He promises that he will still occasionally lift his fancy-cam and regale his wit when he does so. I will miss the regular Lenslinger updates of his life on the road, but i also look forward to his tales of life in the newsroom as a news operations manager.

I have no doubt that the tales of warm leather office seats, free flowing coffee and doughnuts, minimal paperwork, reading the papers and lounging around in the executive washrooms all day like most newsroom wallahs, will still give us a laugh along the way and an insight into the working day of a newsroom that may raise a few eyebrows with the suits upstairs.

I'm sure though that the working 'Photog's' and journalists will thank their lucky stars that the man in charge of the news operations desk is a man with 16 years experience on the road. I'm convinced that they will be well taken care of.

So, good luck Stewart in your new role. Don't let the office chair shine your trousers too much and remember to get out and about. Oh... and when you answer the phone, remember to say "Hello, news operations desk, Stewart Pittman speaking, how may i help you..?" instead of the cameraman response of "Yeah... What the hell is it now..?"

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter.

www.media-attention.co.uk

18 Must Have Skills Required By A TV News Cameraman.

Not so long ago, i wrote the Top 10 tips to being a TV news cameraman. Well, they were the basics. You see, most TV news cameramen have an inbuilt ability to do things that a great deal of other people are unable to. I have noticed this over the years as i have mixed with lens luggers from a multitude of TV news broadcasters.

These skills are learned from the hard and sometimes bitter experiences we find ourselves in, along with the must have abilities that come from being in a job that requires tact, diplomacy and the ability to function on minimum sleep.

Hello my love... Hmm..? No it's not late, go back to sleep. ( See No 18.)

Years ago, before the manifestation of the ukcameraman you know and love, i was in the Army. The Army taught me much needed skills like the avoidance of authority figures, the making of a perfect egg banjo and the ability to knock one out in a sangar whilst facing the enemy at 3am on stag watch... and to drink heavily. Sadly the BBC won't give me a gun, so these skills are no longer required by a modern, forward thinking, suave and sophisticated metrosexual cameraman.

So here is a list, curated here at the ukcameraman institute of TV news studies during my lunch break, of those skills that are required of a modern day TV news cameraman....

1. The ability to wake up at 4:00am for a breakfast news shoot, get dressed in the dark and leave the house without waking the missus. (Bitter experience has taught us this skill.)

2. The ability to achieve skill No1 at 4:30am after you dozed off, without being late for the live shoot.

3. The well rehearsed skill of finding and getting spot on, the bubble level on the tripod... In the dark.

4. The ability to sense and feel the oncoming rain storm and fitting the camera rain slicker before it hits, and not to tell your reporter.

5. The ability to find the one and only place in a 5 mile radius where you can make a cup of tea.

6. The ability to get along with the one person in any given news room that everyone else hates.

7. The innate ability to flirt with a good looking interviewee / reporter / Minister of State, without being labeled a drooling letch.

8. The ability to convince anyone that it can be fixed with a roll of gaffers tape and a Leatherman tool... And then showing them how.

9. The skill of staying cool and calm when your camera is on and working, when the sat truck engineer screams... "We've lost the signal...!" No, No, No... YOU'VE lost the signal...

10. The zen like ability not to throttle your reporter on the 15th take.

11. The hard won ability, through years of being on your patch, of not needing to switch on your sat-nav.

12. The ability to 'look busy' whilst in the crew room with nothing more than a small length of flex, a pencil and a soldering iron.

13. The ability to know that shit rolls downhill, and not being at the bottom level, sitting next to the new intern.

14. The skill of driving at warp factor 9, eating a bacon sandwich with a cup of tea and not to spill or drop any.

15. The ability to sleep whilst leaning upright on a tripod / in a sat truck / in a hedge / court steps, without looking like the local tramp.

16. The skill of knowing who to avoid whilst recording vox-pops / political interviews.

17. The ability not to laugh at a newspaper reporter, (to his face,) who is filming his news piece with an iPad.

18. The ability to get undressed, have a shower in the dark and get back into bed at the end of a long day without waking the missus. (See No1...)

So there you have it. By no means a full and comprehensive list, and anyway, it's late and 18 skills were all i could think of. So if you have any more skills that the cameraman world needs to know about, please leave a comment... Thank you very much and don't wake the missus.

Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter.

www.media-attention.co.uk