Cameramen and women, they can make you or they can break you. Sometimes we love them and sometimes we hate them; but we always need them.
When I started at the BBC as a naive and innocent trainee 16 years ago cameramen all seemed to be my dad’s age. They were all so old because it was incredibly difficult to get a staff job as a 
cameraman and BBC TV News only employed staff cameramen. Back then people would wait for years to get an “attachment” to the camera unit and then a few years more to get a proper job. They wore jackets and ties. The idea, they said, was to be able to blend in. It’s hard these days to imagine anybody wearing a tweed jacket putting a camera on his shoulder, but honestly, that’s how they dressed. With a few exceptions they had come up through the ranks at the BBC. Some had started out as motorcycle dispatch riders, or electricians. Others had worked with the old newsreels in the fifties. We had sound men and lighting men.
They were always punctual and treated ambitious young men like I was indulgently, as long as we did as we were told. I was in awe of most of them and terrified of some. They used to tell stories about Vietnam or Biafra and one bloke had even been a rifleman in the Korean War. They taught me a lot about the business.
It started changing and opening up at the BBC about the time that the Yugoslavia wars broke out in 1991. The BBC started hiring people and gear from outside. Suddenly all the old boys started retiring (there weren’t any old girls). In their place came a succession of young lads from the sunny countries of the world, mainly through the good offices of Pete Henderson and what was then his fledgling Newsforce empire. Instead of having the youngest date of birth on visa applications I suddenly had the oldest. It was a bit traumatic because I had only just turned 30 myself. There were no more jackets and ties. These guys also edited. (The older generation hadn’t). I am not saying which sort was better. They were just different. The best of the new bunch were very good. But the best of the old guys had been great too.
I have been lucky enough to work with some superb cameramen and women. They all have different styles, produce different sorts of shots but what the best have in common is that shoot pictures that look like the news event that we both just covered. That may sound a bit obvious and of course it is but it’s also amazing how many cameramen don’t get it. What I mean that the good ones capture the special moments, the little vignettes that bring the viewer the essence of the story.
They don’t just get the obvious shots. Instead they engage with what’s happening, understand it and bring back the real guts of the event. When that happens, it is so much easier to write the script.
The worst cameramen can’t be bothered, or rest on their laurels. They don’t use their heads. They put the camera on the ground and think about lunch. They aren’t equal creative partners in the team like their more talented colleagues. (Luckily, I haven’t had the misfortune of working with people like that for ages…)
Both reporters and cameramen ought to cover news with their heads and hearts. If they are not able to give the viewer a sense of what it was like to be there, to feel, almost to smell what was happening then they have failed. Putting good word with good pictures is the best way of telling the world what’s happening. And if you can do that, it doesn’t matter what you wear…
