25 Part One: Recorded Coverage

stand out and touch your audience. Good lighting, beautifully framed shots, slow zooms, dissolves, and symbolic images can come together in a feature story to touch even the most hardened news watcher. If you can feel with your camera and your editing, then the viewer will also feel. The audience should come away from the piece affected by what you have shown.

Many feature stories take on the air of a Holly- wood movie. They might be a parody of a harder story, such as a tongue-in-cheek piece on a profes- sional baseball league strike. The production of the story might become just as involved as any commer-

cial shoot. The thing that separates pure journalism from this style of TV news is its goals. A general news story on the success of this year’s must-have Christ- mas toy would discuss the toy’s creator, sales, and so forth. A feature on the toy might simply be about a character (perhaps the reporter) trying to understand how this unlikely toy became this year’s Christmas bestseller, with people camping outside stores to get it. The character might demonstrate other tongue-in- cheek uses for the toy, such as a door stop, and end with the toy being run over by a steamroller. The first piece informs; the second entertains with little regard for information other than to point out that the toy is popular.

Do not mislead the viewer. If the piece is to enter- tain, make sure it is obvious that is what’s happening. Blending fact and fiction can be a dangerous game. Make sure that what you are doing has clearly defined goals and that facts are never lumped in with staged material—keep them separate in the viewer’s mind. A feature on a new private fishing lake might be mostly fact, but a shot of the reporter pulling a three-foot shark out of the water might lead some viewers to think sharks are in the lake. Make sure there is only one possible interpretation of what you are doing in the story and that any jokes are clearly understood to be just that.

Sports News

Many videographers love to shoot sports. If there is a slot on the staff for a full-time sports shooter, it’s never without a waiting list to fill it. Shooting sports has be- come an art form all its own. Sports video falls into two categories: features and competition.

Features

The ENG photographer shoots a sports feature much like the news feature—with the maximum amount of creativity and involvement. If you are doing a piece on a boxer training for a fight, get in the ring (if they let you) and have the boxer spar right at the camera lens. This type of involvement can bring the subject up close for the viewer and give a perspective not available during a match.

Figure 2-6 Shooting extreme close-ups (XCUs) and layer- ing shots, such as this frame from a feature story on hum- mingbirds, can enhance the visual experience.

Figure 2-7 The framing of this audience member at a me- morial service uses selective focus and foreground to give added emphasis to the tears on her cheeks.

26 Chapter 2: Part One: Recorded Coverage

You can do something similar for any sport. Use the fact that it is only practice to get the camera in- volved in places where it normally could not be used. Gymnastics is a good sport for features: put the camera under the gymnasts, let them jump over the camera, or put the camera right on the balance beam. Make these stories fun to do and fun to watch, while trying to show the hard work taking place.

Competition

As an ENG photographer, you will shoot sports com- petition mainly for highlights or to capture a very short portion of the event, whereas competition cover- age for EFP is often live coverage of the entire event. Almost all sporting events should be shot from a tri- pod, unless other footage is being obtained from the company covering the event. Choose a good vantage point from which all the action is visible.

The public is used to seeing sports shot with many cameras. Most of the time you will have only one cam- era, but be required to do just as good a job and not miss any of the action. The best location for almost any sport is from above and as much to the center of the action as possible.

Basketball and Football For basketball, the ideal lo-

cation is on the half-court line, about one-third of the way up the rows of seats. Floor angles are nice, and you should get some if they let you, but if a major play is at the far end of the court you stand a good chance of missing it or having your view blocked by the referee or other players. The high shot gets all the action clearly and allows you to zoom in or out to include as much of the action as you want. The same is the case with football. Field-level shooting is very exciting, es- pecially from the end zone, but the best view is always from the press box or the equivalent.

If many plays are to be used as highlights, it is im- practical to use a cutaway between each of these plays. Good football plays usually end with a long run, or pass, or the score itself. The ending shot should look sufficiently different from the beginning of the next highlight, and there is little worry of a jump cut. In basketball, the field of action is much smaller, and therefore most of the players tend to be in the shot most of the time. For this sport it is a good idea to zoom in on the playmaker just after the points

are scored. Besides emphasizing that player, this tech- nique allows the editor to cut from that tight shot to the next highlight (which might be at the same end of the court), or to allow time for the reporter-anchor’s voiceover to talk about that player. Even in football, it is a good idea to zoom in to the key player as the play ends, unless you are already on a tight shot of that player.

Sideline photography, usually done off your shoul- der, is a way to add a closer, more dramatic feel to your highlight shots. Field-level perspectives can really distort distance and speed (remember the “half-the- distance, twice-the-size” concept). The big risks are missing something or being run over. If you are cov- ered by being able to take video from another source, such as the company broadcasting the game, then any- thing you might miss on the sidelines can be obtained elsewhere. The biggest problem with ground-level shooting is the perspective of the camera. It is hard to tell relative distances between players, which makes some plays actually look rather nondramatic. When you are learning how to shoot these two sports, it is better to master the high shot before moving to ground level.

Races Races of every kind—human, car, horse—in-

volve tracks. As with basketball and football, the best angle is usually above the action at the center. This po- sition allows you to see everyone in the race and to have the action pass in front of your camera. (See Fig- ure 2-8.) If you are allowed, you might also set up a camera at the far end of a straight track or at the end of a straightaway on a circular track. From this perspec- tive, you can shoot the racers head-on as they ap- proach. Keep in mind, however, that you obviously cannot be on the track, so you have to use a telephoto (zoom) lens from far away. Because this compresses distance and makes moving objects appear slower, this angle causes the racers to seem closer together and moving at a slower speed than they actually are.

Baseball This sport is difficult to shoot with only one

camera. Action is taking place in two areas at the same time, and it seems you should be following both the ball and the runners. Usually it is best to follow the ball until it is caught, then you can pan quickly to the run- ners. Just following the ball often gives you all the ac- tion anyway, but if it is a long double and a runner is headed for home, it can be difficult to show both. Do

27