Monday, September 27, 2010

3 Days-632 miles

Working with wazoosports is like having a girlfriend. They don’t tell you everything you need to know, you have to negotiate sometimes, and it takes a lot of work, but in the end there may be a payoff.

click for slideshow Last Thursday I was only suppose to work the North Hardin game. I wanted to work the Friday Lexington Catholic game, but they hadn’t yet set the crew. Wazoo had asked, more than once, me to go to Campbellsville University, but it was so far away and I wanted to get home that weekend. While at North Hardin they called and asked what it would take to get me to Campbellsville. I asked double rate, they countered with 35% increase. I thought about it and called back. I’ll work Campbellsville, with the rate increase, if I could work Friday. Okay, done deal. I hadn’t planned on a 3 day road trip, but I did have some clothes in the car, I just had to figure where to stay. Luckily, Kelly let me flop at his house in Richmond on Friday and that cut about three hours of road time.

Friday’s game, the wazoo crew was 90 late, was the only one of interest. North Hardin lost to rival Central Hardin 10-9. Friday night was a slaughter with Catholic crushing Lexington Christian 62-0!!!! Half way through the third quarter the crew is begging for the mercy rule and we got it not long after. There was no mercy with the weather, it rained during some of the setup and most of the first half. Saturday’s score was not as bad as it might have been. Campbellsville beat Lindsey Wilson 48-30. 2010 is the first year Lindsey Wilson has put a football team on the field and it’s mostly freshmen and sophomores. It was a decent game. The set up for the game did not go smoothly, some of the equipment was missing (there was a second crew in Murray doing a game), other pieces didn’t work, so we improvised, two of  the crew had not run camera on a multi-camera productions (i.e. the director, me, yelling at them), I had to rewire the switcher to get everything to work, and master control, in Atlanta, lost audio at the beginning of the game. Very hectic, but we got it all together with time left to eat lunch before kickoff.

The drive over the three days was beautiful. Friday, I went past Fort Knox. Saturday, it was beautiful morning drive, with the sunrise and fog, through the back roads on the way to Lancaster, Danville, Lebanon then Campbellsville. I didn’t get much sleep Friday night. The train crossing was not far away and the train whistle must have gone off five times that night. When I got home Saturday at 8:30, after a three hour drive, I only lasted an hour before I hit the sack and slept until 7am.

Today, I deposited three check instead of one. Payoff.

Satellite Media Tour

click for slideshow Had my first experience with a satellite media tour last Tuesday (9/20). An expert sits in a studio while news organizations around the US (or world) ask them questions.  In this case we had a researcher who had an new study on women with HIV. There was a 2nd interviewee with HIV who had set up support groups for women. We did 23 interviews with TV and radio stations or programs between 6am to 11:30am. A few interviews lasted 15-20 minutes while others went only a couple of minutes long. Some of the stations were one right after the other. They would say good bye to one and 10 seconds later hello to the next.  The markets ranged in size from number 1 and 2, NY and Chicago, to 172, Hannibal MO,. The difference between radio and television was funny. On TV the two were sitting up straight while smiling and looking in the camera. During radio, they were kicked back and generally not looking at anything, but maybe each other and occasionally with eyes closed . I am still amazed at how productions such as this come together. The producer was from Atlanta, the satellite truck from Alabama, the group organizer Dallas, and the client from New Jersey. Only the researcher was from Cincinnati. Well, most of the six crew (Including myself directing just two cameras) was local.   All these elements come together for one six hour period to get the message out, through a one-on-one interviews, that will reach across the US.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Bengals

click for slideshow The last Bengals game I went too was a preseason against the Packers in 2006. The last regular season game was about 10 years ago versus the Patriots the day after a big snow. The Bengals won on a last second TD and the fans were throwing snow in the air. Because of the cold, I couldn’t feel my feet for a few days, but it was a great game.

My friend Fitz texted to see if I was interested in going to the Ravens game. Absolutely. We started the day at Hooters. Of course. They had their A team working that day. Then we took the shuttle boat to the stadium. You can’t park much closer. In the stadium it’s incredible, a packed house, the energy during the anthem, the jets fly over, the player intros, and then the game. The seats were great, right on the goal line, row 22. Not much see, while the Bengals won they did it with 5 field goals and no TDs, but it was a win. Fitz would tell me how much the tickets cost so I just bought the beer at the game. Four beers at $7.75 each. I should have bought the tix outright. .

They only let down of the day was my iPhone. It didn’t work. And I mean it didn’t work. While I had bars, I had no calls. Now just how am I suppose to call my brother, and rub it in his face that I’m at the game, if I can’t call him? The crack up was AT&T is one of the stadium sponsors. The scoreboard had an ad where subscribers could post pictures. It was a professional’s sideline picture. Because NO AT&T CUSTOMER  COULD EMAIL A PICTURE!

Fitz, congratulations. You made the blog. Even if it’s only at the end of the video.

.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Tour de Kentucky Norte’

Monday 9/13 and Tuesday 9/14 I shot some footage for a NKY tourism video.

IMG_3068 Day 1 I drove to Augusta and took the ferry across the river. Then Maysville, Flemingsburg, Goddard, Falmouth, and Lake Kincade. Day 2 it was Dry Ridge, Williamstown, Owenton, Perry Park and Carrollton.  Many of these towns brag about their architecture, but most of the building are just old. The script called for video of The Outlets at Dry Ridge. It described it as a ‘shoppers paradise’, but the place is 80% empty with only a few retail stores, a karate school and a church. The highlight of of Williamstown was The Olde Town Mall with live country music. It was and rundown, old Tractor Supply store that was now a church. Thank God for the disenfranchised protestants filling up empty retail space. With so little to shoot in some places I did what I could. When in doubt, shoot the courthouse. The Quilt Box was interesting. located out in the country down a gravel road, it attracted quilters as far away as Dayton Ohio. I did enjoy seeing the Goddard Covered Bridge again. A friend of mine was married there about over 20 years ago and have always thought it was as quaint and beautiful as Kentucky can get. Owen County had the Elk Creek Hunt Club and Winery. What a beautiful restaurant and scenery. Maybe Trimble County’s will be as nice when it opens. I didn’t get lost once (wasn’t paying attention to the GPS) and the GPS took to a dead-end (never trust the GPS), but it was interesting way to get paid to see the back roads of Northern Kentucky. Oh yeah, the title comes from eating Mexican two days while on the road. 

Bettin’ the Spread

I would guess that some teams wouldn’t want me near their games. I ran camera when Ballard beat Madison Central 42-14, UC dominated IN St Univ. 40-7, and the Columbus Crew was humiliated by Seattle 4-0 (nil). Which, like dog years, in regular sport scores equals 40-0 (nil). So, by my math, that’s a combined score of 122-21 in the past two weeks.

IMG_3022 While in Richmond I decided to stock up on my EKU gear. I bought a T-shirt, a collared shirt (you know, for those nights I like to dress up), another hat and some stickers. Total cost, $70. Now I only get $150 to do camera at the wazoo games, so if you subtract the gas ($20) the taxes ($37), and the clothing ($70). I cleared $27. I got back from Richmond about 12:30am and was up 6am for a 7am crew call to run scoreboard camera for the UC game. These are pretty low key jobs with a great spread of food before the game. Running camera for the Crew game was tougher than I expected. I’m following the ball then a defender kicks it all the way to the other end and I have to pan quickly to follow. Only a little more exciting than having to watch a soccer game.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Labor Day

Thursday I worked another football game at West Jessamine with wazoosports.com. Uneventful game and day. The past few games the producer had made arrangements with a local restaurant for food in exchange for an on air mention. I didn’t happen this time, but we were told the concession would take care of us. Yeah, a hot dog and a coke. After the game I headed home to Bedford
IMG_3037 Friday I drove some the back roads of Trimble County and over to Madison,IN just to get out and enjoy the weather.  Went to see a friend that night and his daughter was at the football game. It didn’t take much to get him to go have a beer. At the bar he told me that it was the first one he’d had since December. DECEMBER! Man, you don’t know how good you’ve got it until you see another man’s problems. On the drive back to mom’s I pulled off the main road onto a gravel lane, shut off the lights, got out of the car and just stare at the stars. I was a clear, windy, beautiful night and the with no moon. I could see the armed cloud of Milky Way. Incredible.
IMG_3075 Saturday Donald had a get together for the UK vs UL football game. He was kinda bent out of shape because some Cardinal fans may be there and wearing their colors. One showed up with a pink “Louisville” jersey on. And the day was saved. It’s fun toIMG_3081 see a UK game with dyed in the wool fans. When the game finished I headed to Phillip’s where I was promptly shanghaied into playing cornhole. I embarrassed myself.  I improved after a couple of games. Marcia complemented me on getting better. Somehow I don’t feel that proud. I did kick 13 yr old Michael's butt in a footrace and that I am proud of.
IMG_3086 Sunday I went back to NKY to work the MDA telethon. Star64 does the local cut-in for the network. It’s a long two days (5-midnight Sunday and 6am to 7pm Monday), but a fun crew. All the years of effort seem to pay off at least for some. There were two kids, ages 16 and 4, there that had really improved with therapy. The stories of others and how hard their daily lives are just make you appreciate life more.
Man, you don’t know how good you’ve got it until you see another person’s problems.

Thanks for checking out my blog.
Click on photos to enlarge.
www.charlesegerton.com