Live Truck Part 1

I finally got my live truck training. Is that a good thing? I'm not sure.

Several weeks back I was pulled from nightside to dayside so that I could get familiar with the microwave van, but unfortunately the old beast was in the shop with transmission problems. Even so, word of the mixup never reached Wendy, so she was under the impression that I had been trained on the truck. That's why, during the first week of January, she put a live shot in her show during one of my night shifts. Since I was the only photog on duty, I was the only one to do the shot.

We're down a reporter right now, so the reporters' schedules keep getting rearranged so that I don't seem to work with the same person from week to week. That particular week Mark was reporting nightside. Mark's a strange dude. He's blond, with very short hair he has cut weekly. He has bright blue eyes and a square jaw, but he looks... well, stupid. He may be an intelligent fellow (I really don't know yet), but he has this way of squinting and holding his mouth open, jaw forward, that makes him look like a dumb ol' boy. He carries a GIANT bag with him every day with a change of clothes, makeup and who knows what else inside. He likes to wear jeans and polos while covering the story, then change into his suit just for his standups or live shots. He also loves to stage video, but that's a story for another time.

Since Mark and I have hardly worked together, he had no idea I hadn't been trained on the live truck and didn't think anything about Wendy's instructions to plan for a live shot in the late show. We shot our story (a city government package) without incident. We went back to the station to put the story together. I thought I had plenty of time to edit, but about 45 minutes before the newscast one of the associate producers came back to ask me where our live shot would be.

"We're not live," I said.

"You're in the rundown as live," she said.

"Let me talk to Wendy," I said.

Wendy was in a mild frenzy, but that's not unusual. Evidently she was behind and scrambling, and the last thing she wanted was to talk to me.

"Hey Wendy, you have Mark live," I said.

"Yep." She continued typing without looking up at me.

"Who's running the truck for that?" I asked.

She stopped what she was doing and stared at me.

"I haven't been trained on the truck," I said.

"Yes you have," she responded. Um, I think I would know if I had been trained on the truck.

"Noooo," I said. "I was scheduled to learn the truck, but it was in the shop that day."

"So you haven't been trained on the truck?"

"No."

"Then... Who's gonna do my live shot?"

"That's what I'm asking you," I said.

"Well, I don't have anybody," she said. "You have to do it."

"Uh... I'm sorry, but I can't do it. I don't know how to run it."

"Well... Shit!" she said. "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

Yes, I thought. Shit is correct.

"You've seen somebody else run the truck, right?" she asked.

"Well, yeah, but--"

"Then you have a general idea how it works. Do you think you could figure it out?"

"Uh, no, I don't think so. Besides, I don't think I'm supposed to take it."

"Shit. SHIT! FUCK!"

"Can't you just put Mark in the studio?" I asked.

"No," she responded, "I need a live element in my show. If I put him on the set, I might as well just have the anchor read the intro."

"Well, I need to get back to editing," I said.

"Plan on being live anyway," she called after me. "I'll see if I can get somebody else to run the truck for you."

I wish I had been there for the next conversation. I heard it second hand from Al, one of the other photographers. He said she called him at home at thirty minutes before the newscast and asked him to come get the truck. He said she tried to make it sound like spot news going on over at City Hall, so he started to run out. But then he remembered that he was talking to Wendy and asked more questions. When he realized what she was doing, he went ahead and came in to get the overtime. But he didn't rush, and he didn't get the station to pick up the truck until the newscast was about to start. He wouldn't have had time to get the shot up anyway. At that point Wendy told him not to bother and put Mark in the studio, where the lights accentuated his squint to make him look another 10% less intelligent.

The next afternoon, CP Rick walked up to me and said, "I just had an interesting conversation with Wendy."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, she said that you refused to take the truck out last night to do a live shot for her--"

"Oh, now wait a minute," I interrupted. "How can I do a live shot for her when I haven't been trained on the truck."

Rick grinned. "No, don't worry about it. You did the right thing. You actually would have been in trouble if you'd tried to run the truck without the training. But I do need to get you caught up with that."

Thus was the impetus for my live truck training, which I'll describe in part 2...