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 However, the term "cameraman" is quite outdated and annoying; the word is never used within our industry.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!