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What was up with the SNS cameramen?


fooledagainII
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I worked A/V full time back in '80, but never ran a camera other than to test and align them. I don't recall any specific instructions to stand at ease. OTOH, Joe C was always attentive to appearances and he always seemed to pick the sharpest corps to run cameras.

That summer in 80' that I was working A/V the aircon failed in the BRC. One of the cameramen actually collapsed from the heat during the SNS. He posts here time from time and I'll let him tell the story if he chooses to reveal himself.

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I wouldn't know, but would guess that there was a proper code of conduct for everything connected to SNS.

I do recall Wierwille going ballistic during advanced class '79, when one of the camera guys, or C*ulter behind the scenes, missed a shot. He tore C*ulter a new one, in one of those rants he did so well, and LCM perfected. One of my tech friends later told me he imagined Joe in the back room, looking at multiple images of vp screaming at him.

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Someone I had went to fellowship with years ago was working the camera one day. I greeted her and she wouldn't even look at me. I tried again and an usher came over and escorted me to my seat. I was a little hurt untill I learned later that it was policy not to talk at all when working hte camera. It wasn't even on yet as it was way before the service.

So an "at ease" stance dosent seem that unlikely.

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I was a Camera Man on the SNS, Corp nights and AV all other times during the late 80's, early 90's. I never recalled not being told to not to say anything to the guests prior to the start of the service it self. We had everything ready to go prior to any one walking in. I do remember Joe C asking us to keep an eye out for good crowd shots. Regarding the actual taping, we always had to adjust for the the spaeker movements. Those video productions were his baby and he let us know if we "missed the mark". He didn't bother me to much. What I grew tired of was always being the go to guy and working lots of hours. If fact, my interm year, I was so busy with that assignment and the "HouseHold Jobs", I hardly went to any fellowship just for that purpose other than working it. No one seemed to complained about it aslong as the work was done.

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Hey camera dudes and dudettes - I've thought of Joe C. more than once over the years. Joe and his wife Linda, loved 'em both. Joe was the right man for the right job, perfectly suited for what he did.

My wife and I had a photography business for several years, and during that time I did some video work. Hooked up with a director at the local PBS station and ran some camera for him at a few events, mostly the "talking head" stuff.

As I quickly learned, camera work is exacting, and repetitive. Boring, by any other word but still requiring concentration and a fair amount of skill and experience to do it well. I loved and was fairly good at on-the-fly stuff, getting framed and set, etc. For the speaker-in-a-box stuff there was a set of protocols for camera op's, can't remember them all but based on the show the director would cycle through them for each shot, the main camera, camera 2, 3 etc. You'd be set up, stand by, be on, then off, "stand down", something or other. Jim probably knows all of them, Karl.

You might as well be a 100 miles away on a headset, you can't be distracted or conduct other business or you'll screw up. (I set up a few queasy shots my first time out and even the slightest shaking of the camera or being off by an inch was the equivalent of running the Titanic into ice to the director calling the show) So I can imagine Joe C. maintained strict discipline on his crew. You have to.

To add on the topic: camera crews are usually staffed by union operators, hired on to work an event, broadcast, whatever. They drop in and out and are pretty much part of the woodwork, no one pays much attention to them or is supposed to. And usually the operators dress code is pretty loose, you see a lot of sweatshirts, jeans and sneakers, regardless of what kind of event it is. They tend to be in their own world but if they're union and they're working they're dead-on good at what they do, or they won't work much as there's no room for error in a live broadcast and a director doesn't want to go back and do a lot of unnecessary clean up in editing to correct bad shooting if it's being filmed. So the dress codes are pretty much anything this side of what you have when you got up but you have to be able do the job right.

SNS's were quite different of course - coats and ties and dresses were the dress code as I recall. I wouldn't be too surprised if Joe C. initiated protocols to cover demeanor when someone was at the camera, whether "on" or "off". It's like watching paint dry to be on camera in a fixed position and it's normal to develop a method of relaxing - the "at ease" posture for "standing down" might have been a little over the top but probably accomodated the type of demeanor they wanted to have during a SNS.

Edited by socks
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