Cool story, thanks. Would love to hear some of your stories.
The point of the article is understandable to me. To spin off it, have you ever notice how you still don’t see some interesting things with the sideline cams?
Say for example, there was just a great “hit”...don’t you want to see both guys get up and wobble back to the huddle?
Instead we get nostril hairs.
It’s not the camera guys...they’re just following the directors orders.
Therefore, I submit that the directors, for the main, have never really played the game.
It’s queer.
It’s because the NFL says so, that’s all one needs to know. One does not question the most self important, self reverential organization in the world. There’s probably a rule against that too.
One of the jobs I did for a while was called “field stage manager”. Essentially, you stand on the 40 yard line and call the TV timeouts. The referees generally want you to wear something bright so they’ll be able to see you. Hands on hips meant “give me a time out”, arms folded meant “we’re in a commercial break”, and hands at sides meant “we’re back. Accidentally standing with your arms folded while watching the game got you yelled at.
Part of what you hoped for was to be as subtle as possible given the circumstances, so the crowd wouldn’t catch on and start throwing stuff at you. The good refs would help out, the jerks would make it obvious to the entire stadium that you were the reason the game had stopped.
One of the refs I really liked worked Chargers away games. He’d tell you ahead of the game to watch his right hand for a point to the ground. You’d give the signal, he’d point down and go on about business as if he’d never seen you, and you had exactly 60 seconds before he started the game. A few seconds later, he’d come up with some artful stall, clock checking, ball swapping, chat with the line crew, et cetera. Loved that dude.
On a 49ers game at Candlestick one Sunday, the 9ers ran a sweep right... over me. I saw it coming, started back peddling, and discovered some idiot behind me was standing on my headset cable, which was attached to my belt. I developed a respect for the kinetics of the game that day.
A sideline camera would have had footage of me wobbling... for about half an hour.
Fun times, though.
The field SMs are still there, usually wearing some Gawd awful colored sleeves or vest. They’re generally on one 40 or the other on the same side as the main cameras. You see ‘em in bench shots once in a while.
A comment from my brother who is a NFL cameraman:
“The ‘All 22’ shot is also used during the game for Telestrator Replays with the announcers diagramming a play.
Most Cameramen hate the ‘all 22’ because it is a boring camera to run and is considered a Rookie or beginners Camera.”