Being in graduate school for almost a year now, I have gotten used to carrying my tripod and camera almost everywhere I go. Freezing polar vortex…no problem, beach…sure. I’ve even gotten used to sharing camera space with other news outlets in designated press areas. However, nothing I had ever done was quite like shooting video at the campaign headquarters of Democratic senate hopeful, Alison Lundergan Grimes in Lexington, Kentucky.
Going in, I knew it was going to be crowded, what with Kentucky being one of the major senate races in the nation. I was expecting a tight fit on the press-designated risers. In reality, tight was an understatement.
The first challenge I encountered was actually getting up to my tripod, which I had set in place earlier that day. Two risers, one directly in back of the other, were jam-packed with tripods, cameras, wires, mult boxes and cameramen eating pizza.
Once contact with my camera was attained, the next difficulty was positioning myself to look through my screen finder while staying out of everyone else’s shots. I found if I positioned my elbow just so and tilted my neck 20 degrees everyone would be happy. Except… when the woman next to me needed to be live at six and asked me to crouch down on my toes for six minutes while her cameraman panned the area where my head used to be.
Readjusting myself into my previously successful position, while trying not to knock over the surrounding sticks with thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment on top of them, went rather smoothly.
But then my sticks and thousand-dollar equipment fell over.
After making friends with the guy whose camera my camera fell into, I nestled into my cubic-foot of space and kept my head straight forward, lest I should hit my temple on the camera perched over my left shoulder.
However, despite everyone being literally stuck between equipment, there was a certain sense of camaraderie among the camera folk. Duct tape was shared, advice offered and assurances made that everyone was indeed receiving a buzzing noise through their molt box connection.
Nothing quite compares to being “on the scene” with a camera, ready to capture the sounds, emotions and pictures around you, experiencing that thrill you get when you know you just got great b-roll and your video is going to be awesome, (at least b-roll wise,) and making connections with that person whose leg has been rubbing up against your leg on and off for the past three hours.