It's COLD out there!

January is traditionally the coldest month of the year in most parts of the Northern Hemisphere, and the Big Country is no exception. But below freezing temperatures are one thing....throw in precipitation, and we've got a mess!

So far this month, we've had two winter weather "events." The first one, on Monday, Jan. 5th, was somewhat limited in scope. A round of freezing rain moved through the area, causing chaos on bridges and overpasses during the morning commute. Of course, KTAB/KRBC was there, live, telling all of you to stay home....and not to get out on the nasty roads like we were. But by afternoon, temps were above freezing and everything was back to normal. (If you'll recall from my earlier blog, our own News Unit 11, a very nice Chevy Trailblazer, was a casualty of the ice on I-20. 11's still in the body shop, but the reporter is back at work!)

This week's "Deep Freeze," however, was the kind of winter weather event we only experience about once every year or two, on average. From 5pm Monday, until noon on Wednesday, the temperature was below freezing....and near continuous freezing rain/drizzle/fog coated everything with a slick sheet of ice, only to be covered by up to 1/2 inch of sleet on Tuesday evening.

I'm VERY proud of the efforts our entire staff put forth to bring our viewers the absolute best coverage possible. This includes all of the 100+ employees of KTAB/KRBC. In addition to the 30+ News Department employees, there are dozens of people behind the scenes in the Production, Operations, Engineering, Sales, Promotions, Business, and Traffic departments.



Anyway, back to the very cold weather! Here is a picture, taken by KRBC reporter Brittany Pelletz, of me and KTAB reporter Victor Sotelo standing behind one of our live trucks, ENG-2 (Victor is faking a frown because it's so cold). It's Wednesday morning, Jan. 28, and the three of us were doing live shots from the Olive Garden parking lot at Southwest Drive and Clack St. We had been there since 5am, informing everyone of the treacherous road conditions. Suddenly, around 8am or so, as Britt and I were sitting in the van with the heater at full blast (it was about 13 degrees outside), the generator died, and everything went silent. It turns out the generator overheated; this unit, putting out 12,000 watts of electricity, is powerful enough to power an entire house, is mounted in the rear of the van (most live broadcast trucks use on-board generator systems to provide power for all of the equipment). Since this generator was just recently installed, our engineers haven't yet finished installing the ventilation system...so, to keep the thing cool, at least one of the back doors of the van has to stay open. I guess a gust of wind closed both doors....the generator's engine overheated, and we were out of service! Luckily, since it was 13 degrees outside, it wasn't long before the generator cooled back down, and we were once again ready for live shots!

And as you can see in the picture, the roads were totally covered with nasty frozen stuff. Our live vans weigh up to 5 tons, and are very top-heavy. So what's the best way to drive on frozen roads???? VERY SLOWLY! However, there were still the large number of morons in their pickup trucks who think they're better than everyone else, and have little regard for laws, safety, and common sense.....

High Speed Chase!

Breaking news is always what makes our work worthwhile. It puts our skills to the test and allows us to be the best that we are. Last night I got my first high speed chase. It was a dangerous event that spanned all of 2 and a half hours through the highways and back roads of Abilene. We had Andrew or Chief photog, Tyler Edwards with KRBC Megan Dobbs with KTAB, and myself all out on the streets following the chase as it ran through the city. At times cops were flying past all of us. It was a difficult situation to stay safe while still trying to stay on top of what was playing out. The chase began just after the 6 o'clock news ended and the guy finally surrendered just before nine. Megan and Tyler ran back to the station to start writing and get info on the web as Andrew followed the chase as it went high speed out of town. I came back to edit and flew from the station to set up a live shot for the 10pm show. We were running out of time to set up so I had to just pull over in a large median on I-20. This was most definitely not the safest option but with time running out before the show we had to do what we had to do. Megan and Tyler showed up for the live shot as I was running about setting up lights, audio and video gear and getting everything connected to the station. Meanwhile, Andrew was in Eastland where the guy finally gave up. He got close ups of him detained in the cop car and some impressive video of the scene where it all ended. He rushed back toward Abilene and realizing he couldn't get back to the station in time for the shows with the video he had, he stopped in Clyde and set up a live feed to the station so we had the video on for the 10 show on KTAB. We did our live shots and broke everything down but what a crazy night.

A very melodic Artwalk!

Danielle's last blog talked about how we did live shots from January's Artwalk with Randy Turner. Well, between the 5pm and 6pm shows, music filled the streets of downtown. I looked across the street from where we were set up, and in front of the Cockerell Building there was a 12-year-old girl playing the flute, all by herself.

She seemed to be the biggest hit all night, as people gathered around her, requesting songs, and throwing money into her flute case!

Once I had a chance, I grabbed my news camera and went over there....she was playing for a couple of teenage girls, who were amazed with her talents!

This is a perfect example of how, as journalists, we're always on the lookout for a "human interest" story. Unfortunately, a short video of a girl playing the flute doesn't fit in with the format of a t.v. newscast, but it's perfect for a blog! So, without further ado, I present a short video of this wonderful girl playing the flute:

Live Shots

Live shots (meaning when we go live with a reporter or one of our on-camera personalities from a location outside of the studio) are one of my favorite things to do. We are able to get out in the community and it allows us to be a little more creative and really show our capabilities as a news team. However, there is a lot involved in setting up and executing a live shot - I've had some pretty strange things happen during live shots...

Tonight for example... I was live downtown at the art walk with Randy doing weather for KRBC. We went live for weather during the 5 and 6 shows which means we cut in several times for different shots. The 5 o'clock went just fine - Randy is the greatest at live shots! He never misses a beat. During the six o'clock show we had a little "technical difficulty" attack us. We had a problem receiving a cue to let us know that we were coming up and whoops there were were on the air! Randy was in mid-conversation with one of the ladies he was about to interview and thank goodness he's so great at what he does! He just jumped straight into it but it wasn't without some adjustments and a bit of confusion with me trying to convey in sign language what our producer was telling me in my ear. We got through it with a few hiccups. Andrew was there to document the whole event in photos so I'm sure we'll be seeing that addition to our blog soon. That is just one glimpse at what is actually happening when you see us fumble a few things on air.

Tonight also reminded me of another live shot that took place at that very street corner just a month or so ago...
Maria and I were live downtown and Andrew was live with Dan Edwards near our location. When we do a live shot there is a lot of running of cables - video, audio, power cables and then some. We try to be organized about it but sometimes we have to run the cables across sidewalks, pathways or just in some awkward way have it reach from the live truck to where we are at. So in this case I had run my cables across a sidewalk. Maria and I finished our live shot at 5 and had to wait around for the 6 o'clock live shot so we went over to check out Dan's live weather. To open up one of his segments Dan actually interviewed a bulldog... haha - leave it to Dan to interview an animal. Well... after Dan's live shot was over, Andrew held down the fort at the live vans while Maria and I went to get the team hot dogs and hot chocolate. When I returned I find out that the bulldog that had just had its five minutes of fame had promptly turned around and number two-ed on squarely on my cables... Andrew made the owner clean it up before I got back but I still had to touch those cables when we finished... Yuck. Above is a photo of the culprit and another photo of Maria and I doing our thing that night.

"Getting the story no matter what the cost!"

As Danielle mentioned in one of her previous posts, in order to cover the news, we have to go places and see things that "normal" people wouldn't. On Monday morning, Jan. 5, as we're telling people to stay off the icy streets, we had our entire news department out on those same icy roads, getting video of wrecks and doing multiple live shots.

Unfortunately, we're not immune to Mother Nature. One of our newest news vehicles, a very nice Chevy Trailblazer which we affectionately call "Unit 11," became an "ice victim" on Interstate 20 while responding to a car wreck. Thankfully, the reporter who was driving wasn't hurt; but Unit 11 is now spending a few weeks in the body shop....

The Photogs

I know I can speak for Andrew as well when I say that we both love our job very much. It's not hard to suddenly become a news junkie when you love your job like we do. Working at a news station has been a great change for me. Before two months ago I worked independently doing videography and post production freelance in Dallas. I love the production and post-production (meaning editing, mixing and special effects) part of film and television. I have for a long time. I love coming to work everyday and exercising my capabilities as a photographer/videographer. Everyday I have to stretch myself to learn something new or be able to do something faster, more efficiently. I love it. I love learning.

On another note... We hope to be putting some faces with names so we'll work on taking some photos and videos of what we do and some behind the scene stuff of the personalities that you know and love already. But for starters, here are a couple of photos from a shoot about a month ago. Andrew and I were both out live downtown for the Christmas parade with Maria Oliver and live with Dan Edwards and because of the crowd we were blocked in until the event was over so we made the most of it and got on top of the news van for a nice view of the parade.

Photos by Dean Carter.

This is me... and ...Severe Weather Day

I'm Danielle Reeves - news photographer here at KTAB/KRBC - one of the members of the news team who's role is often invisible and when done right should be invisible. I'm from the Dallas area - went to college in east Texas - I enjoy good music, fine wine, art and news. As a news team we all live and breath what we do. As photographers we are often close to the action - first on the scene and last to leave. This lifestyle fits me well. I like change and no day is the same for us.

Like today for example...

My day began at 5:40 this morning when I got a call from my assignments editor - Abilene roads were icing over and there were accidents all over the city. Andrew (our Chief Photog) and I were up before the sun with live trucks in different parts of the city with the rest of the news team shortly behind us. It's interesting sometimes how it's our duty to deliver the news that may help protect others, but we still have to be out there in it. This morning I found myself on a bridge that was completely iced over. A 12 car accident had taken place minutes before on this particular bridge and in order to get to where I needed to be for the live shot I had to get across it. We love what we do and the purpose behind it. We are held to a very high standard as a team of journalists and as such it's not difficult to do things I might otherwise think ridiculous. We cross icey bridges, set up on the side of highways and sometimes shoot Santa Clauses' arrival at the mall. It's a very intense game and I love the ups and downs. Today's severe weather live shots, extended broadcast and subsequent hectic news-day are what make it all worth while.

Until next time.

Welcome to Behind the Lens

Welcome to "Behind the Lens!" This is my first blog, ever, so bear with me.

First, let me introduce myself. My name is Andrew Carlson, and I'm the Chief News Videographer for Nexstar Abilene, aka KTAB/KRBC.

Second, let me describe my title. To the general public, I'm one of the "cameramen" at news scenes or events. However, the term "cameraman" is quite outdated and annoying; the word is never used within our industry. Within the t.v. news biz, our official title is photographer..."photog" for short. I've chosen the newer title of Videographer, however, because when I tell almost anyone I'm a photographer, they automatically assume I take still photographs, even though I work in t.v. news, which just confuses people even further....

As Chief Videographer, one of my primary duties is the oversight of the entire news video product that you see on the local news. I train our videojournalists on the proper use of the cameras, and the specific techniques of shooting t.v. news.

Most of our videographers are actually the reporters themselves; in the business we call them "one-man-bands." Basically, the reporters usually work solo, shooting, writing, and editing their stories all by themselves; in fact, Danielle, who also joins me on "Behind the Lens," is our only other dedicated videographer. One-man-bands are the hot new trend in t.v. news in both small and large markets. Traditional news crews consist of two people: the photographer and the reporter (and in the largest markets or at the network level, a third person running audio). And at the larger station, there were/are sometimes editors whose sole job was/is to edit the news stories. Thanks to new media sources such as the internet, blogs, etc., local t.v. news isn't the cash cow it used to be. So managers have decided to do away with the more specialized positions, thus creating the one-man-band....why pay two or three people to shoot and edit and report when you can train just one to do all three? Add in the fact that broadcast-quality cameras are now a fraction of the size and cost that they were 15 years ago, and voila...you have a station like KTAB/KRBC!

I'll be adding many more pictures and videos of "behind the scenes" stuff, to help ya'll get a glimpse of "real life" inside the small-market t.v. news biz. But for now, here's a quick video of a guy dancing.

Why am I posting this? Because the world is full of weird, crazy, funny, sad, outrageous, heartwarming, and tragic events, and people of every imaginable background. They're everywhere, if you just look for them. And in the news business, it's our job to find them and tell their story.

Anyway, here's the story behind this clip: KRBC reporter Brittany Pelletz and I were working on a story about the City of Abilene's plans to install red light cameras at certain intersections. Just before noon on New Years Eve, we were at the intersection of S. 1st and Sayles shooting a "standup," the part of the story, usually in the middle, where you see the reporter on-camera. Just behind us, stopped for the red light, were some jerks in a pickup truck that kept revving their engine every time we tried to record (they were doing it just to mess with us....). So, while I was waiting for the light to turn green (and the jerks in the truck to leave us alone), I saw this guy across the street joyously dancing by himself. I don't know why he was there, but he seemed to be enjoying himself, and the passing motorists seemed to enjoy his "performance." So, I just started rolling.....you can hear Brittany talking about the guys in the truck as they're revving the engine; she didn't even realize I was shooting this guy!

Enjoy!