American Cinematographer - January 1993 - 71

away, you can see the details before
your eye adjusts.

"Guys who've been bred

someone
gets gunned down, it's a
great shot if you're quick enough to
get it, even if the shot is shaky.

video trust the camera more
than I do. There's a switch on the

Sometimes when the shot is shak¬

for example, called the 'ze¬

motion adds realism. The bottom
line is, if it happens on camera,
that's a magnificent shot and it'll be

on

camera,

bra

stripe.' Most of the guys leave
it on, and when you flip that switch,
you know if your white is being
properly exposed. If you've got an
anchor in front of a white wall, and
the zebra stripe is on, the stripe
should be all over the wall, but not
on the anchor. If the
stripe is on the

anchor, he's overexposed. The cam¬
era

has

an

automatic exposure

ing, it seems even better because the

used
time

over and over
again. Every
they talk about Tienanmen
Square, for example, you think of
that shot of the guy standing alone

in front of the tank." (The famed

shot was taken for NBC by
African
cameraman

Wasserman.)

meter anyway,

but the biggest
problem a video cameraman has to
deal with is when the background
is hotter than the subject. Since the
camera's automatic, it will shift the
level down on the subject. A white

background can be murder if your
correspondent walks outside into
bright sunlight with a white shirt
on.

When the

camera sees

that

white, it really stops down. The best
way to shoot, if you're in a hurry,
is to put your correspondent in a
shaded area. If you have time, you
can control the
light by putting up
scrims and other stuff. Most of the

time, you don't have that luxury.

If

a dangerous area, you
don't worry about finding a shaded
area. In those situations, it's
good to

you're in

South
Tony

Although his return to the
U.S. has allowed him to spend
more time with his
family, Purdy
still sees his share of action. Just two

years after he returned home, he
found himself in the middle of the
L.A. riots. "I was a little frightened,
because there was no control," he
confesses. "I saw policemen duck¬

ing for cover and ignoring what
was
going on, covering each other's
backs. I said to myself, 'Geez, even
in Beirut there

was some

control!'

"On that

assignment, the
network pretty much left me to my
own devices, so I
adopted a com¬
mando routine; I went from South
Central to Koreatown, and then

moved somewhere else. I didn't

stay in one spot for too long, be¬
I knew that someone would
home in on me. We listened to the
scanner to find out what was
going

carry around a portable HMI light.
"You might occasionally
see some terrible
footage on the lo¬
cal news, but we're network, and

cause

they expect high-quality pictures,"
he points out. "They also want the
correspondent to look good! I went
to Haiti last February with every¬
thing I could possibly need, but I
never got the chance to use it. The

tion

Purdy speculates that the
unique role that video footage
played in the riots - both during
the beating of Rodney King and the

on,

and then went to where the ac¬
was. Our motto was 'Shoot,

move

Meet

Stuffy,

our new

stock

...uh,
stock dragon.
man

Keeping track of our huge
inventory...batteries to zip
cords, lamps, gels, lighting
equipment and expendables
...is a dragon of a job.
We stock top lines, at
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Exclusive East Coast Distributor for

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of

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soldiers there didn't like us, so if we

violent aftermath - may make his

The

were

going to do a quick standup
we'd jump out of the car with the
camera, put a tripod up, turn the
light on and shoot. We were with
an expert correspondent, George

job

more dangerous in the future.
"There was nothing political about
the L.A. riots, in my opinion. It was

barbizon

Lewis, and he didn't miss

just an opportunity for looting, and
people took advantage of it. The
fact that they used news video to
catch the people who beat up
Reginald Denny really changes

.2

things for [the media]," he says. "If
it happens again, we'll be in a lot
more
jeopardy."
▲

.G 6437G General Green Way,

a

beat;

he'd get it right in one take and
we'd be off again."
In the world of journalism,

the quality of one's pictures is often
based on immediacy rather than

stylistic considerations. "If you're
shooting in a fire zone in Beirut and

source

ui

New York:

G

426 W. 55th

O
U

.2

with the

answers.

St., New York, NY 10019
(212) 586-1620FAX (212) 247-8818
New England:
3 Draper St., Woburn, MA 01801
(617) 935-3920 FAX (617) 935-9273

O) Mid Atlantic:

^ Alexandria, VA 22312

g (703) 750-3900 FAX (703) 750-1448
South East:

D

.O
January 1993

2401 Mercer Avenue
West Palm Beach, FL 33401

(407) 833-2020 FAX (407) 833-3582
69
American Cinematographer - January 1993

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