Hurry Up And Wait

I'm sitting in the live truck right now. When I look up from the computer I look at the front of Lavell Edwards Stadium in Provo Utah.

Yay.

We rushed down here to an interview with a 15 year old boy who almost died in a hit and run accident while riding his bike.

Now I have 4 hours until the news starts and my reporter is viewing the tape so he can log the interview and write his story. I'm bored.

I wandered outside a few minutes ago and took some random pictures.






The mountains are covered with a springtime dusting of snow.

Some chick jogged by.

Twice.

John's a little distracted, he keeps talking to people on the phone.

Right now I don't care.

By the way, the 15 year old kid is mostly OK. They had just given him a shot of morphine right before we arrived so he was a bit loopy.

Stories I've Shot

A few months ago Fox corporate decided to invest in the local websites for it's TV stations. For us, that was a really good thing since out previous one was the absolute worst site for a TV station I'd ever seen.

Anyway, the new site has a great video component and most of the stories I shoot are posted for all to see. I will occasionally email links to these stories to friends and family. A lot of them aren't great but it gives them a chance to see what I do from day to day.

So if any of y'all are interested, here are some of the stories I've done in the past few weeks.

You'll have to sit through a commercial before each story. Sorry about that.

Three year old girl falls out of 2nd story window.

Woman impaled through head by debris on freeway.

Pet food recall.

East High School soccer coach dies.

Woman fires gun in Provo library.

Egg prices going up due to ethanol.

Petition against school vouchers.

Construction causes traffic problems in Sandy.

Update on woman impaled through head.

Mr. Show Quote of the Week!

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Woohooo!"

-Adam

Angry and Guilty

"Hey Mark. We need you to go meet Hollenhorst at the federal courthouse. The verdict for some trial is coming down."

"OK"

Some state official had been accused of extortion. He'd been taking payments from the owner of Envirocare (now called Energy Solutions), a nuclear waste storage company, to 'help him get some permits.'

The owner recorded several phone calls with this government official and turned them over to the Attorney General. An investigation and trial ensues and this guy is found guilty.

No sooner do I walk up to the courthouse than the accused and his family are walking out. John runs up and fills me in on who the players are.

"The old guy with the gray hair was just found guilty. He's not talking so just get me a good walk shot."

"OK"

In the world of TV news, a 'walk shot' is just that. It's usually a shot of someone involved in some story walking somewhere. In court cases, we walk with the person for 20 seconds or so and then let them pass. That way we can show this video while the reporter talks about what happened in court that day.

"Oh yeah, and the family has been pretty agressive toward the media."




Now these people knew what to expect. Here their dad, or whoever he was, was either taking bribes or extorting money from the owner of a storage facility to get permits. That in itself is a news story. He'd been found guilty - another news story.

They had been yelling at the media the entire trial but nothing like what they had done with me. Obviously they were a little more angry than normal at those they blamed for Dad's indiscretions. What I found interesting is not only did the dope in the glasses threaten me, but when I asked for clarification he not only repeated it but walked up to my camera and yelled it straight into the lens. That wouldn't have held up in a court had he decided to get physical.

An old lady who was a supporter of the family made the observation to John (read this line with a whiny, uneducated voice) "Can you believe that guy is putting that baby on TV?"

John brilliantly replied "You mean the baby that that lady is thrusting into the camera?"

I guess if you don't want your baby or your wife on TV, they shouldn't run right into the camera and announce "I'm trying to walk down the sidewalk!"

"Every Year" & "It's Not Funny"

I once had a professor in college who gave feedback on people's projects in front of the class. I also had a friend in college who I teamed with on most of my projects.

Once, the only feedback we got on our video was, "You know, every semester I have students take a video camera into a bathroom and think it's funny. This semester is no exception."

Ouch.

'Bathroom Rhetoric' was meant to be a humorous look at how graffiti is sometimes a mirror to society. In hindsight, it wasn't all that bad.

Perhaps Dr. Pierce didn't find it funny that we quoted him from a toilet stall.

Maybe he wasn't amused with the shot of feet lined up in consecutive stalls that damn-near showed the genitals of our host - or the fact we covered it up with a twirling heart.

Then there was the news story I did on Andrew "Dice" Clay protestors in Portland. I used footage from one of his concerts and did a poor job bleeping out the F word. So when the story ran in class, instead of hearing 'f***' - my class heard 'f*uck'.

Anyway this isn't about 'Bathroom Rhetoric' or a news story with audible swear words in it, it's about our next project which we named 'The Running Rodent'.

Our assignment was to produce a game show that broke the rules of broadcasting. It's a common way to teach students about the rules by allowing them to break them. Because if we tried to produce a serious game show that followed rules - it would suck big time.

My production partner, Sean Smith, and I decided our game show would have rodents as contestants (broken rule #1). We made the assumption that in the world of our game show, rodents were intelligent enough to answer simple questions (rule #2). We also decided that living through the entire contest was not a given (rule #3). There were some other minor rules that we broke also.

We lined up a couple of friends to host our show, bought our contestants at a local pet store and started chasing gerbils around in little plastic balls with a video camera. What ensued was a hellacious several weeks of uncooperative animals, over sleeping talent and all night edit sessions.

Feedback from Dann Pierce: "If these guys could get their tongues out of their cheeks, they could be dangerous." - Is that good?

The production values are mediocre at best.
The audio is poorly mixed.
The acting and writing are suspect.
The chances we take are bold and cutting edge (meaning we may have crossed a line somewhere).
Entertainment value is minimal.

It's kind of like a car wreck - you know hard to look away...well actually it is easy to look away.

It's not all that good.

Anyway, check out part 1 - and if you want to see how all the gerbils die watch parts Two and Three.

Why I Go To Starbucks

I try to support local businesses when I can. You know, the whole keep the money in our own local economy rather than send it to some corporate headquarters somewhere.

That's why I started to go to a quaint little coffee shop just down the street from my house. They roast their own beans. They have tasty and bold blends every day. And it's a comfortable setting.

So far, so good.

Now like most people in these modern times, I pay just about everything with a credit card. Apparently the problem is that when I pay for a two-dollar large coffee with a card, it makes the owners of this establishment unhappy. I first noticed it with the lady at the register. I handed over the plastic and she gave my card a look of disbelief and uttered a whispery "ahhh." I ignored her and finished my transaction and enjoyed my coffee.

So next time I gravitated to the man behind the counter. Ordered my coffee and handed him payment. This guy likes to look at the card, pause, and give a brief look at me that suggests a subtle "oh, come on."

I ignored him just like I did the lady but I started noticing a pattern. Everytime I paid with credit, I got some sort of look. Last I heard, I think that credit card fees are about 2%. So on a two-dollar purchase, the company might give up 4 cents. I know this adds up, but on each transaction, the amount is negligible.

The problem for them now is that they don't get my business from here on out. So instead of getting $1.96 profit several times a week, they get nothing. And the other problem for them is there is a new Starbucks about a mile up the road and they greet me with a smile and seem very happy to let me pay with a credit card.

So I tried. But good customer service goes a long way. Don't give me dirty look for paying for goods and services with a credit card. I know technology is a bitch. Sorry.

Conversation In My Head

Thursday night after work:

"Hmm. I wonder if I should eat this salsa. It's been in there awhile."

"Eh. I'm sure it'll be fine - it still smells OK."

Will I ever learn?

No.

I did it again and ruined my weekend.