Good evening, 919 Gang. A big thank you to Joe Holly, who
came to my rescue tonight. Thane McIntosh sent a message written in a Macintosh
program that my computer could not decipher. I asked Joe for help, and he
translated it.
THANE
McINTOSH reports:
We have been on an extended vacation
and missed most of the chatter about the San Diego police. What I did read made
me realize that in the course of 40 years of working as a Union/Tribune staff
photographer I had been witness to a rich and memorable civic and personal
journey.
The
two examples of the San Diego police at work I offer below are also a testament
to my history as a “street shooter”. Both photos were made on a 4x5 Speed
Graphic. The bird cage shot was originated by a phone call from the police
reporter about a patrol officer finding a beautiful bird loose on the street.
On arrival at the U-T press room I found only the bird in a cage being eyed by
interested cops. Someone suggested that maybe the bird could answer a few
questions. With a little prompting I convinced a detective to sit down and
assume the role as an interrogator. I didn’t want to use flash because the bird
might scare. The detective managed to express just the right amount of gravity
for the situation. This picture ran on A-1 of the Green Sheet. It was my first
published news photo.
I
believe that the anguish on the San Diego police officer’s face caused Union
photo editor Jack Cooper to work very hard the night this photo was made. He
had to convince several other editors that the child was still alive when the
picture was snapped because the paper’s policy did not allow running photos of
dead people. Jack had a reporter call Mercy Hospital for confirmation that the
child was alive at press time. This was apparently enough for Herb Klein and
the picture ran. It is one of my favorite news photos.
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JERRY McCORMICK
writes:
Hello 919 Gang.
I've been AWOL for a while so let me
catch you up. In March 2014 I set off on a great adventure to the Pacific
Northwest with my domestic partner Richard. But before we left, we got married
on Feb. 14, 2014 at the County Clerk's office surrounded by a few family and
friends who were available to come that day. Then on Feb. 26th we said goodbye
to San Diego. Portland was good for the first few months and then I learned
being a manager was not for me. I was the Executive Producer of the KOIN 6 News
in the Morning show at the CBS affiliate. Unfortunately I experienced a lot of
racism at the station (I was the first black manager EVER at that station) and
people had a hard time following my direction. In addition, I wasn't getting
the support I needed from other managers. June 2014, was a HUGE month for me. I
ran my first marathon and a few weeks later I won an Emmy for Broadcast News
Special, an Award I share with (Nel Cepada and Kristina Le (more on her later).
Back in Portland, life sucked. Both
Richard and I faced constant racial slurs and after a year and half, we both
decided enough was enough. So I quit and we packed up and headed back home here
in San Diego in August of 2015.
The News Director of Fox 5 snapped me
up in October 2015 and got me in the door as a writer and then hired me full
time in February 2016 as an Associate Producer. He allowed me to teach at
Southwestern College, and I picked up a new gig as the newspaper adviser for
the student newspaper "City Times." So for the past couple of years,
I've been working three jobs nonstop.
Now, I work for the City of San Diego
in the Communications Department. My job is in Public Utilities where I oversee
the water division. I handle all the reservoirs, the wastewater and clean water
(but NOT water main breaks). It's a huge department with more than 2,000
employees all wanting my attention. It's a GREAT job with very nice people.
It's been an interesting ride since the 2009 layoffs. When I walked out of that
building in May 2009, I didn't know what my future held, but I think I turned
out okay.
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The federal government this month will raise the price of its lifetime national park pass for seniors from $10 to $80.
The price hike, the first since 1994, takes effect Aug. 28. The pass is called the America the Beautiful -- The National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Senior Pass and is available to those 62 and over.
So, if you have travel plans in your senior years, this is the last call to save a few bucks. You can buy the pass at the entrance station at Cabrillo National Monument on Point Loma (or online with a $10 surcharge). It's good for entry to 2,000 recreation sites managed by the National Park Service, Fish & Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Corps of Engineers and the National Forest Service.
In comparison, a regular price in-season vehicle pass to Yosemite is priced at $30, and is good for seven days.
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DAVID FARMER writes:
I'm
always surprised when a "civilian" uses a fairly esoteric term from
the broadcasting world. Example: "crawl" -- type that crawls along
the bottom of a screen, usually giving information in addition to what's on the
air. How do people know the word? I guess they heard a broadcaster say it.
Then
there's "chyron," type that appears at the bottom of screen, usually
identifying the person shown. Unlike crawl, the word chyron is not descriptive
of its function. It comes from the Chyron Corp., a company that makes
technology allowing "vidifonts" -- a less common term for the same
thing -- to be superimposed over whatever else is being shown.
Sometimes
TV folk will say "font," a shortening of vidifont, or
"super," from you know where.
What
got me started was hearing a non-broadcaster say "lower third."
That's such an ancient term for a chyron that I thought it had died of old age.
It was never totally accurate, since a font doesn't require a third of the
screen.
Chyrons
can be used on any part of the screen, even as a vertical crawl. These are used
to list credits of people who work on a show or film. They can also supply
additional information before or after a movie starts or finishes.
Here's
a truly over-captioned picture:
Most chyrons consist of two lines: the top, usually
capitalized, with a name; the bottom, usually clc, with an identification. This
one has five things going on: at the top of the screen, a closed caption for
the deaf or hard-of-hearing; in the lower third (pardon me), a kind of banner,
in red; another banner, in white; finally, the guest's name and ID, both on one
line; finally, what looks like a news crawl.
And
that doesn't even count the anchorwoman, with three images behind her, and the
guest with just one. I blame video games for the apparent need to have one's
eyeballs flooded with pictures.
Some
other TV terms are applicable to films as well. Probably everyone knows that a
"green screen" behind a weather person, for example, allows almost
any other video to be placed there--a weather map or video of a hurricane. And
such screens are often used in movies for much the same reason.
CGI--computer-generated-imagery
-- is rapidly replacing green screen techniques. It does what a green screen
cannot, such as turning an actor into a temporary amputee if the script calls
for it.
And
on the subject of greenness, guests waiting to come on a TV show are placed in
a "green room." That term for a waiting lounge for actors was in use
as far back as the 1800s. Movies tend to use trailers instead.
The
word "pan" was adapted from films and is still employed there and in
TV. It refers to a camera shot that moves smoothly from one side of a scene to
another. In other words, a panorama. A very fast pan, probably with blurring of
the scene, is called a "swish pan."
In
both movies and TV, a "zoom lens" allows the camera to push in from a
wide shot to an extreme close-up. Even small digital cameras can zoom, either
optically or digitally, but without the depth of field change of a real zoom
lens.
I'm
talking here about the news side of TV. Made for TV movies generally use the
same terms and techniques that film production does.
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PRESTON TUREGANO
writes:
In Wednesday’s U-T Life Tributes (obits): A 29-column-inch
obit with color photo (I’m guessing that at U-T rates a $3,000 effort) of
21-year-old Cpl. Samuel F. Peterson of Blaine, Minnesota, a Marine who died
last week in that small city. No cause of death cited. I thought perhaps KIA,
but apparently not. The obit was written in almost a conversational, or news
story, style, including some raw language (e.g. “pissed off”) and two
obscenities the deceased apparently used regularly. Starting with “…our warrior
lost a war he fought alone,” the writeup suggests he was emotionally troubled
most of his life. Anyway, other than being a Marine, I cannot see any San Diego
County connection. Services and burial in Blaine’s Fort Snelling National
Cemetery. For an obit, this one just seems mysterious and strange. At the end
of suggested donations (after the Wounded Warrior Project and Patriot Guard
Riders), there’s a hint to this young man’s untimely demise: “or a local mental
health resource group.” So sad.
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REX SALMON writes:
Oh,
it was a disgrace associating the U.S. Marine Corps with America’s No. 1
nuclear enemy.
Dave Farmer, if it were humor you were attempting this time
with your very odd thinking and commentary, you fired a dud intellectual
missile.
P.O. Box 2239
Ramona, CA 92065
U.S.A.
