03/22/2007

Originally appeared in the "FROGS" newsletter, September 2005, pg 3. 

The Transition Years-Philip Ronney

 It was a hot, muggy August morning on the back lot of KNXT.  The year was 1977.  Lou Verala and I stood in front of the open door of our new Mini Cam van staring at the tangle of wires and thick cables enveloping our slightly used Ikegame video camera.  Our careers were about to start over.  We were being wrenched, kicking and screaming into a new era of television journalism.  Yes, we had volunteered and yes, we were both scared to death of the reality that today we would be expected to make this stuff work.

The rumors circulating in the news department about this new invention which was about to turn our lives upside down had been true.  Film was out and ENG (Electronic News Gathering) was in.  For the past 20 years the film cameramen had been king of the hill.  They plied their trade with 16 mm Mag Stripe cameras.   Many were legendary for both their courage and artistic flair.  They were a cult unto themselves.  They were the heroes of the news department and had helped build “The Big News,” into the mega-ratings getter envied throughout the county during the 1960’s and early 70’s. Yet today, in an instant of time, they had become obsolete.   I was a sound technician.  I carried my little two pound amplifier and my microphones around behind my cameraman.  All I had to do was “get the sound.”  I had gotten comfortable with my little job.  I was out of the office, and I got to see news events unfolding in front of my eyes and  got paid pretty well thanks to good old IA 695.  Now, I was going to have to work for a living. 

In March of 1976 we knew officially that the change from film to ENG was going to happen.  I was working in our Sacramento bureau at the time, and I officially notified our newly appointed News Director, Bob Shaffer, that I wanted to make the transfer.  KNXT (now KCBS) could lay off all the film people if they chose to do so and bring in all new people to man the new electronic cameras because the union jurisdiction controlling these jobs had changed.  IBEW was now the controlling union, and the Technical Operations Dept. would be in charge of all ENG personnel.  The news department could make recommendation about hiring, but the final hiring decisions belonged to the head of Technical Operations.  In the end they invited two film cameramen, three soundmen and several editors to make the switch.  The rest of the film crews were unceremoniously laid off.  Fortunately, Lou and I, we were asked to stay on.  Both of us had spent months studying electronics and had successfully passed the FCC first class license test.  We had been told getting a “1st Phone” would be a requirement for the new job since we would be operating broadcast transmitting equipment. 

Because Lou and I were the new guys on the block, we were given the oldest and heaviest of the first generation ENG cameras. The Ikagami camera, although not too large, needed a monopod to help balance it when hand held, and it was attached to a large box called a CCU.  The CCU was the size of an orange crate and weighed in at about 25 lbs. which included a bulky ten pound battery that, fully charged, could run the equipment about 15 minutes.  The camera and CCU were joined by a two inch diameter cable which was about ten feet long and weighed an additional 30 lbs.  That was our “portable” camera.  All of that, was supposed to be carried by the cameraman who would soon be nicknamed, “The Gorilla.”   Then there was the Tape recorder.  At that time we used three quarter inch, 20 minute, cassettes which were loaded into huge, heavy Sony tape decks.  The deck was nicknamed “The Bozo Box” and weighed about 30 lbs.  It also was about the size of an orange crate.   The second man had to carry the bulky “bozo box” by a strap around his neck and was connected to the camera with another long heavy cable.  He also had to carry extra batteries, cables, and microphones.  At first we were given big metal dolly’s to assist in carrying the equipment.  But the dolly’s were often more cumbersome and awkward to use than simply carrying the equipment by hand. 

So there we stood, two film guys, looking at this strange new gear in a truck filled with racks of unfamiliar electronic gadgets.  When you started the generator, there were flashing lights, switches, knobs and monitors that lit up accompanied by lots of beeping.   The truck had a huge mast that could be raised by air pressure and handles attached to the mast inside the truck so you could turn the “Golden Rods” on top of the truck. You could point the two golden rods at a repeater site miles away and “get a signal.”  There was a jump seat for the reporter in the back and lots of two-way radios that squawked incessantly.     

True, we had been given a two week orientation/training program, but the fact is you never really learn how to use equipment like this until you’re on your own.  We were convinced that management put us two film guys together because they thought we wouldn’t be able to handle it.  We would fail, and they could fire us.  Both Lou and I used that thought as an incentive to prove them wrong.   

We spent the better part of that day covering reasonably easy, routine news stories.  We took our time handling the heavy gear and by the end of the day we had turned in several usable pieces of video.  Lou knew how to shoot news so his big adjustment was more about familiarizing himself with a new camera that felt different.  I managed to record some sound with the cumbersome, heavy recorder, and we thought we had made it through our first day.  Later that afternoon, as we approached the station, totally exhausted from lugging that gear around on a hot summer day the two- way radio crackled.  “Unit 6, Unit 6! Come in Unit 6.”  I responded, “This is Unit 6, go.”  A frantic voice from the desk jumped out at us from the speaker.  “Unit 6, we have small plane down at the Hawthorne airport.  We need you stop by the station, pick up your reporter, Ken Jones, and head out there now.  As soon as you get there, set up a signal and prepare to go live.”  Lou and I were about to be initiated into the new world of fast, live coverage of breaking news.   

Our little world was about to change dramatically.  Our comfort zone was about to be drastically violated.  We were being harshly introduced to a new term called “Crashing.”  Crashing means you absolutely have to get your story on the air “Live” at a particular time in the show.  Your story has been “slotted” for a fixed time.  You must make your slot.  The term comes from feeling that the entire world is crashing in around you as you rush and struggle to get your story on the air.  One of trying desperately to avoid the ultimate disgrace sometimes referred to as “Crash and Burn.”

Ken Jones climbed into the rickety jump seat in the back of the van.  The desk kept calling us every ten minutes.  “How far away are you?” Of course we were fighting rush hour traffic, and the show was already on the air.  About 45 minutes later we hit the small private airport.  We saw the plane out in a grassy field and we stopped about 50 yards from the crash scene.  We spent ten frantic minutes videotaping the crash.  That part, we knew how to do.  But now we were moving into uncharted territory.  We had never done a live shot without a training supervisor watching our every move.  To this day, I don’t remember how we did it, but we did it.  Somehow we made that beast work.  I do remember those six little words every ENG operator longs for as you twist that mast in the sky trying to establish a link.  “Unit 6, you’ve got a signal.” We shipped back tape via our newly established microwave link.  We stood Ken Jones up front of a live camera and did our first live shot.  Our reporter was happy, the station was ecstatic, and we were on cloud nine.  When we re-entered the news room late that afternoon we felt like heroes.  For the next thirty years, until the day I retired, I never got over the thrill of doing live television news.