2008 shooting assignment #106-ish

First of all, I don’t know exactly which shooting assignment number I’m up to now. I’ve been sloppy with my records lately, so this is a ‘ballpark’ figure.

Anyway, today’s shooting assignment had me blasting down main street, rocking everyone’s faces by seeing me driving a Scoot Coupe. My photographer Stone made the comment, “JL looked completely ridiculous driving that thing around. It’s like he broke away from the track on a Disneyland ride and kept going.”

He’s probably right, but I don’t care. It was so much fun. For those of you who haven’t seen a Scout Coupe: it’s basically a miniature car contraption, sporting a moped motor. In South Carolina the laws on mopeds are more relaxed in other states, so many people drive them as an alternative vehicle after losing their driver’s licenses due to an DUI infraction. Now they have more options, while still sacrificing the about the same amount of dignity they have left. Speaking of dignity, I had Stone ride shotgun in the Coupe for this photo - that’ll teach him to make fun of me.

[I’ll be posting the promo for the segment in the next day or two, and the Scoot Coupe segment sometime on Friday.]

Wedding proposal: “newsroom style”

What’s with the elaborate wedding proposals coming from WYFF4 these days? Just a few weeks ago uber-editor, Benjie Newman popped the question from on-stage at the Emmy Awards ceremony. And now our nightside EP, Theresa Sechrist just was asked the question right in the middle of her evening shift (although it was a lot more endearing than I just made it sound).

Let me take you back to last Thursday night:
It was just before the holiday weekend and an unusually high number of dayside newsroom employees were sticking around until the very last minute of their shifts. That should’ve given everything away right there. At this point most everyone was in the know: Theresa’s boyfriend, Matt was going to ‘pop the question’ after we all watched a mock newscast in which a number of wedding clues would unfold. This would be just moments before he springs out of the nearby utility closet with the ring. Days before the event, several newsroom folks collaborated on shooting the elements of the video, and around 15 minutes before the event we all kept her slightly distracted while the producers sneaked Matt in the back door. For my part, I pretended to be shooting behind-the-scenes video and had managed to convince her to put on a wireless microphone, and then I would capture her reaction as all of it went down. Everything went according to plan, and now Matt and Theresa have a fun little story to tell all their relatives (who also appeared in the video in “phoner” interviews). The video above shows the mock newscast, alongside her wonderful range of emotions leading up to the big question. Also, there were like, a dozen other people in the room shooting the event, so Theresa was covered from every angle.

The new terminology is “idea showers”.

Dear diary blog,

I’m enjoying a nice, relaxing holiday weekend, and have just now found time to scribble upon your moldy, crinkled pages. Where to begin? I’ve been taking a ton of photos lately, and as usual, they only consist of two subjects, primarily: my baby and robots (occasionally in the same photo). My current media consumption consists of mostly catching up on the past 4 years of Adult Swim cartoons that I’ve missed, and the occasional episode of Mad Men. I have several, random web-based projects that I’m working on, that’re up in the air at the moment. However, I’ve come to realize that my baby has a preternatural ability to know when I’m working on a project and scream her head off until I abandon everything and roll around on the floor with her. I downloaded an application off the internet that translates baby noise into regular English words. It decoded her gibbersh to mean, “Welcome to fatherhood, bitch!”

Anyway, I have a ton of great ideas floating around in my head right now, and the challenge is to get working on them (or at least write them down) before the next brainstorm. On a side note, I recently read that some corporations are prohibiting the term “brainstorm” for fear of being sued by employees with neural disorders. They new terminology is “idea showers” - I’m totally not making that up.

I do like that certain corporations value input, or “idea showers” if you will, from their customers. Starbucks even has a website devoted to stealing taking ideas from their over-caffeinated fans. I’m trying really hard to think of a clever idea. It’s gonna be hard, considering that my last one was picked-up on so quickly: I suggested that they close 600 North American branches and then help relocate the displaced employees. Zing!

023 - 07/03/08

020 - 06/30/08

This post is about toilet matters.

While shopping for baby supplies in the downtown Publix, I came across the following Publix-brand package for adult diapers. The image on the front had me intrigued, so I snapped this photo:

I kinda feel sorry for this guy, on several levels, I suppose. The man portrayed in the photo looks like his life is really on the “up-and-up” - which just goes to show that you never quite know who needs adult diapers. I guess he sorta makes wearing diapers cool, right? Actually, the person I really feel sorry for is the actor playing young Mr. Turdy Pants. He was probably told by Publix that he was posing for a granola bar box or allergy relief medicine.

Alternate theory: He’s carrying a duffel bag, so perhaps he’s on a cross country journey and can’t afford to the extra time it would take to make a proper toilet stop. Although changing the diapers would also take-up time. Perhaps he’s a stowaway on a freight train or a cargo ship. I’d love to hear your theories on this mysterious character…

018 - 06/28/08

014 - 06/24/08

“We’re gonna get into the TV box”

I’ve been back in the tech reporting game (with more Click on JL segments airing in July), and I’ve also just finished-up a three minute PSA segment detailing the digital transition coming up in 2009. And with more JL video, comes more semi-ridiculous outtakes. [previous OT reels]

Without fail, I’m compelled to do weird(er) stuff whenever I can see myself in a TV monitor while shooting. I even got my co-producer, Benjie to jump in on the fun with our impromptu “TV Box” song. No surprise: the outtakes are about as long as the actual video. [Special shout to fellow tech-guy, John Sanders for providing a great template for our DTV promo in the first place.]

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