Shooting News

This is a new page for archiving my posts on shooting TV news — the stories that I’ve done and posting on this site, as well as my blogs about what I do as a TV news shooter and one-man TV news reporter. This may expand into other things as well. I’ve had several people ask me lately about what my next book will be about and whether it could be about how I do TV news, a field that they are very interested in themselves.

If you have any thoughts or interests in such a book — especially if you’d be someone who would actually buy a copy! — please send me a note.

I’m also on Facebook and welcome hearing from people, what your interests are and if you visit this site and how often.

Many thanks — and more to come –

MIKE

Thinking Of A New Book — One-Man TV Newsmaking

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Thinking Of A New Book — One-Man TV Newsmaking

Buoyed by the reader response from my first book Naked Filmmaking about how I make films as a one-man filmmaker without a crew, I have been thinking about writing another about how I do TV news as a cameraman-reporter-writer-editor. It would tell the inside story behind the story — how I am assigned stories or come up with them on my own, then my process of shooting and conducting interviews, followed by my process of deciding the best way to tell a story and how I chose to write what I write. It would be intended for journalism students...

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One-Man Filmmaking – One-Man Newsmaking

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My paying gig as a TV news cameraman at KCRA in Sacramento has become much more demanding over the past year, and even more so in the past month. Frequently I return home late and exhausted, yet exhilarated at the same time. I have been a TV new cameraman since 1983 and I have had many strong, creative and productive streaks in that time, yet I feel that right now is one of my most productive and satisfying. The reason for this new burst of adrenalin for the job has been that I am now being allowed and encouraged...

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Nancy Siegler – Sunflower Success

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This is a reposting of a news story I did that ran on KCRA-TV a few weeks ago. The subject of the story, Nancy Siegler, is a breast cancer survivor who credited her winning her battle to the strength she derived from the beauty of sunflowers. She grew this garden of sunflowers as a testament to their power. Last weekend she opened up her garden to the public as a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. She hoped to have fifty people show up and raise perhaps $1,000. Instead, over six hundred people made the trip to her garden...

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Naked News with the Canon 7D

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Naked News with the Canon 7D

A friend of mine, Rick Stevens, is involved in the Land Park community here in Sacramento. When the city started having financial woes one of the first items to be slashed were the city’s parks. Maintenance staff have been cut by over 65%. To keep the William S. Land park running and beautiful the people who live around it are turning out to make up the difference and keep the park running themselves. Rick called me to tell me about this effort and I immediately promised to do a story on them. The Land Park Volunteers turn out the...

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Naked Filmmaking – Naked Newsmaking

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Naked Filmmaking – Naked Newsmaking

The face of the business of journalism has rapidly changed of late, due to both the advances in technology and the declines in the economy. News organizations have smaller, leaner staffs — yet still having to fill the same amount of news time. This is giving news shooters like me much more opportunity. Shooters are now encouraged to come up with stories, shoot, report and write them. Most then hand the scripts off to anchors to track the audio. But in keeping with my aesthetic “Don’t Do More With Less — Do Everything,” I prefer to do the whole...

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Sacramento’s Awesome Video Store

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It’s ironic that the more that creating video becomes available to the general public, the more the video store is becoming a thing of the past. First the mom and pop shops started disappearing as Hollywood Video and Blockbuster gobbled up their territory. Now we see those big corporation chain stores closing their doors as Netflix and internet downloads become more and more popular. In spite of this trend, a handful of the privately owned video stores are surviving – and even thriving. One of the last – and best – in Sacramento is Awesome Video at —— Freeport...

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