Ray Rice’s Barbershop

          E:60 pushes for access to celebrity athletes off the field and away from the spotlight.   Sometimes the personal door is jammed tight.   Other times it creaks slightly ajar.  And then, on occasion, it swings open to unfiltered light and sound.

          Such was the case with Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice in “Like Mother Like Son”.   Producer Frank Saraceno asked Rice if he could shoot him at his barbershop, in his hometown of New Rochelle, N.Y., because Rice had worked at a barbershop as a kid.  Rice agreed, and invited Saraceno and reporter Rachel Nichols to join him, on his bye week.

          They met at “Flavaz” just before noon and Saraceno sized up the layout.  The shop was large enough, he determined.

          “The only real concern were the mirrors which of course are everywhere in a barber shop,” said Saraceno.  “I told my two-man crew to shoot like they weren’t there so they wouldn’t be concerned about being seen in the shots.

          Regulars - tipped to Rice’s visit - crowded the shop.  This put to rest another concern - that the scene would lack energy and atmosphere.

          To encourage relaxed banter, Saraceno urged Rice and the others to forget that a camera crew was in their midst.

          “It took a few tries but once they finally got going, the conversation started to become very natural and free flowing,” Saraceno said.  “By the time Rachel stepped in to ask Ray questions the room was primed.”

          The scene yielded one particular gem - Rice’s anecdote about his first encounter in pads with Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis.

          Nonetheless, in the first cut, Saraceno downplayed the barbershop.  The first cut began at the public housing project where Rice grew up.

          But after a staff screening, coordinating producer Michael Baltierra urged that the barber shop lead the piece, to highlight Rice’s outgoing personality and his close relationship with Lewis - who spoke of it in a separate interview.

          “In retrospect it was a brilliant decision which helped give the piece a great kick-start and pacing,” Saraceno said.

Posted by Steve Marantz on  November 4, 2011

Subtitling Ernest Willis

          “The Good Life” is the story of Patrick Willis, All-Pro linebacker for the 49ers, and his ascent from rural poverty and an abusive father.

          The story takes Willis back to his childhood in a rusted trailer outside of Bruceton, Tennessee.  His mother abandoned his family when he was four. His father, Ernest, a part-time logger who drank and used drugs, raised him and his three siblings.

          Willis and his siblings describe the physical beatings and threats they endured from their father before state officials placed them in a foster home.

          Ernest Willis was interviewed by E:60 producer Beein Gim, and denied the allegations of his children.

          But Ernest’s diction - colloquial and rapid - raised a question in edit: should he be subtitled?

          Executive producer Andy Tennant asked E:60 staffers their opinion after they screened the story.  Ernest was subtitled in the version they watched.   The result was a 50-50 split.

          Feature producer Lisa Binns, who did not work on the piece, opposed subtitles.

          “The first time I watched I relied on the subtitles and the second time I avoided watching them to see if I could understand and I did,” said Binns.

          Typically, subtitles are used to translate language foreign to the intended audience.  They may be used for the same language as the intended audience - if the speaker has impaired speech. Subtitles can be used for song lyrics, rapid dialogue, and for accents unfamiliar to the intended audience. They are used to keep the viewer in the moment if speech poses a potential distraction.

             Said Coordinating Producer Michael Baltierra: “When you subtitle somebody in our own language there’s always a concern of why are you doing this.”

          In this case, Tennant and senior producers sought out multiple opinions, including that of senior vice-president/director of news Vince Doria.  They reviewed the raw footage of the interview.  And they asked the E:60 staff for its vote.

          In the end, the decision was to subtitle Ernest Willis.

          Tennant explained it thusly:

          “If half the room can’t understand him clearly - if 50 percent of our audience is not going to understand his side of the story with clarity - maybe the way to go is to subtitle.

          “Several factors came into play.  One, he was not the main character...he was a secondary character.  But more important, he was responding to accusations against him by his children - serious accusations.  To be fair to him and to give him a platform to respond we thought it was an absolute necessity that people were 100 percent clear on what he was saying.”

          E:60 logged no complaints about the Willis subtitles,  Tennant pointed out.  And if the decision had been reversed, perhaps nobody would have complained, either.

          “When you produce this type of TV clarity is the most important thing,” he said. “You want to make sure it’s easy to follow and that the characters are easy to follow.  We did what we thought was the fair and right thing to do.”

          Going forward, Binns suggests that when a judgment call arises, the staff first should view a version without subtitles.

          “I’m suggesting as a best practice to show these things without subtitles to see how the room reacts,” she said.

posted by Steve Marantz on October 24, 2011

Jamie Convey, Radio Dreams and Judgment Calls

          “Radio Dreams” is the story of Jamie Convey, a 10-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, his own Internet sports talk show, and indomitable spirit.   The making of “Radio Dreams” raised a couple of sensitive issues around Jamie’s disability.

          One was subtitling.  Jamie’s speech can pose a challenge because cerebral palsy affects a part of the brain that controls motor skills such as speech.    Producer Heather Lombardo and E:60 brass considered subtitling Jamie’s comments.

           Typically, subtitles may be used - for the same language as the intended audience - if the speaker has impaired speech. They also are used to translate language foreign to the intended audience.  Subtitles can be used for song lyrics, rapid dialogue, and for accents unfamiliar to the intended audience.

          “If he says something and the viewer has to stop and think, ‘What?’ and then misses the next ten seconds, it takes the viewer out of the moment,” said Lombardo. “With subtitles there would be no questions about what he said.”

          But Lombardo was wary.  She once produced a story that involved an aging heavyweight boxer, James ‘Quick’ Tillis, whose speech was slurred from his life in the ring.  She subtitled Tillis, and incurred the wrath of his girlfriend.

          “You made him look stupid!” the woman complained.

            Lombardo stands by her decision, but says it can be a tough call. 

          “It’s sensitive because you are dealing with pride and ego and emotion,” she said.

          In Jamie’s case, because speech is central to his role as a broadcaster, subtitles were deemed “insensitive”.

          With careful screening of Jamie’s shows - archived as well as the two shot by her crew - Lombardo found ample bites that were clear and understandable.

          “It’s about a kid doing a radio show,” Lombardo said.  “We want people to understand Jamie, but we don’t want to embarrass him.”

           “Radio Dreams” posed another sensitive decision.  Just past the five-minute mark it includes a scene with Jamie and his father, at an outdoor track, where Jamie goes for exercise.  From a distance, the camera catches Jamie, on his walker, exhausted and discouraged.  At one point, he collapses onto his walker, with tears in his eyes.  Then, with his father’s help, he collects himself, and completes the circuit.

          Lombardo’s first inclination was to leave out the moment of discouragement, and show him at the moment of completion.  But the more she thought about it, the more she liked the scene.

          “In order to show what Jamie has accomplished - for the story to resonate - we had to show the challenges that he endures on a day-to-day basis,” Lombardo said.

          Yet, Lombardo knew that “Jamie might not be happy with that scene because it captured a vulnerable moment.”

          Another judgment call, but this was different.  The track scene, she decided, is more about Jamie’s courage and spirit than weakness.  She used it.

          After the piece aired Lombardo talked with the father, Jim Convey, and sure enough, Jamie is not happy with the track scene.  On the other hand, as a veteran talk show host, he knows to respect her professional prerogative. 

          “He understood,” Lombardo said.

Posted by Steve Marantz on October 13, 2011

In the Moment

         

          Producer Dave Salerno was under pressure for his August piece on Tulsa quarterback G.J. Kinne.  Another story was cancelled at the 11^th hour, and Salerno was asked to pull off a tight turnaround.

          Kinne’s story involved his father Gary Kinne, his former coach at Canton High School in Texas.  In 2005 a disgruntled father of another player confronted Gary at the high school and shot him in the stomach.   He was rushed into emergency surgery, and a police officer told G.J. that his father had died.  But he hadn’t.

          Salerno moved into production mode without a script in mind.

He interviewed G.J, his mother, another coach, and Gary, and elicited detailed and emotional accounts of the shooting and aftermath.

          In edit he had two choices. 

          One was to use Gary’s voice in the re-telling of the incident.

          Another was to create a “reveal” - an editing technique in which crucial information is withheld until the middle or end for a surprise.   In this version, the reveal would be Gary’s survival.  Reveals are desirable for their dramatic tension. 

           E:60 has used reveals in stories about retired NFL-er Marvin Harrison, MMA fighter and bank robber Lee Murray, double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius, and brain-damaged college football player Preston Plevretes.

          An effective reveal requires interviews that stay in the moment, meaning they describe action without giving away the outcome of that action.  The subject knows the outcome, but is transported back in time to when he or she did not.

          “I knew there were things we had to hit,” Salerno recalled.   “I wanted to go into detail and build up the events of that day.”

          Salerno and reporter Lisa Salters managed to elicit G.J.’s description  - six years after the fact - in the moment.  In edit, Salerno went with the reveal because “we had the sound to support it.”

          At the top, when reporter Salters ask G.J. for his thoughts at the time of the shooting, he says “I’ll never see my Dad again. He’ll never get to coach me again. He’ll never get to do the things that Dads do because someone had taken that from him.”

          The first hint of Gary’s survival comes at about eight-and-a-half minutes into the piece.  Gary doesn’t speak until 9:10 - a powerful and uplifting moment for those unfamiliar with Kinne’s story.

          The reveal proved persuasive at the E:60 screening and became a segment titled, “Back From the Dead”.

          In retrospect, Salerno credited the interviews.

          “With material like that it’s much easier to hold the reveal,” he said.  “Sometimes you can do it, and sometimes you can’t.  In theory it’s great but in practice it’s more difficult to pull off.”

posted by Steve Marantz on September 22, 2011

Finding Emotion

          By the time producer Hillary Horgan caught up with the 18-year-old Coppola triplets in December 2010 their unusual story was well along.  Brandon Coppola had fractured a cervical vertebra in a 2008 scrimmage that ended his football career.  Jared Coppola had suffered the same injury in a 2009 practice, and was in a wheelchair. 

          The third brother, Tyler, was the star running back of St. John’s Prep of Danvers, Ma.   He was “Running for Three”, as St. John’s went into the state championship Super Bowl at Gillette Stadium.

          Horgan had two challenges.    Her story had three main characters, and two (Tyler and Brandon) are identical.  She had to minimize confusion to viewers.

          “Typically in a feature we only put name fonts to identify a person one time - the first time they show up on the screen,” Horgan said. “But in this case, to alleviate any confusion, we put name fonts up each time a triplet was on the screen.”

          Problem solved.

          The second challenge was more difficult.  In their interviews with E:60, the triplets and their parents had a flat affect.   This may have been because they had ample time - and local media coverage - to move beyond the initial trauma.  Or it may simply have reflected their personalities and priorities.

          “The parents, Dawn and Skip, never really got emotional in order to stay strong for the family,” Horgan said.  “They never felt sorry for themselves or their situation.  They always stayed positive.  The children saw this and did the same.

          “I give them a lot of credit, because I think the positive attitude helped Jared to continue to work as hard as he has in order to one day walk again.”

          A flat affect is okay for people, but not for stories.  Horgan had to find a way to tell what in essence was a dramatic story - of three brothers tied to a cruel fate - without emotion from the main characters.

          She took two approaches.  First, to put viewers ‘in the moment’ as the triplets and parents experienced the injuries and aftermath.  Second, to emphasize the close bond of the triplets, with photos and video from their infancy and youth.  

          Especially powerful were images of Tyler and Brandon helping Jared with his rehab.  The defining image came as Tyler carried Jared up a flight of stairs, to the second-floor trophy room at St. John’s Prep, where Horgan shot their interviews.

          “The shot happened by chance,” Horgan said. “There was no elevator and no way to get Jared up the stairs without someone carrying him up.  Without even giving it a thought, the boys said ‘no problem, we can carry him up, we do it all the time’. So when we were ready for Jared, I asked one of my camera men to get in position and shoot them going up the stairs.”

          The special brotherhood of triplets takes over the story.  There is Jared, on a walker, making his way to the center of a football field, with Brandon and Tyler at his side.

          At Tyler’s final high school game, Horgan has her cameras on Brandon and Jared, riding the team bus, watching from the sidelines.

          Horgan wraps it with a specialty shot, with Jared between his two brothers, arms entwined, standing tall, about to head off to three different colleges.

          By that time it’s hard not to cheer - and feel a lump in the throat - for the Coppola triplets.

Posted by Steve Marantz on August 17, 2011

Comfort Zone

Production assistant Toby Hershkowitz writhed on the floor while a frail 7-year-old boy twisted his arm and stomped on his chest.
E: 60 meets WWE? Not exactly.
The vignette occurred July 7 at the E:60 roundtable shoot in midtown Manhattan, as producers, talent and film crew relaxed between segments.
By way of explanation, later, Hershkowitz, 26, said, “I still consider myself a kid.”
But that’s only part of it.
Rewind to last fall when E:60 ran a story about the little boy fastened onto Hershkowitz.
Josiah Viera suffers from Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome, which causes accelerated aging in children, and has a life expectancy of eight to 13 years.
Baseball, a sport without a clock, is Josiah’s passion. The story, “Josiah’s Time”, with footage of his first Little League game in Hegins, Pa., touched viewers near and far, and garnered an Emmy nomination.
For E:60’s summer lineup 2011, executive producer Andy Tennant proposed a show of Emmy-nominated features. Feature Producer Ben Houser, who produced “Josiah’s Time”, suggested that the boy and his mother sit in on the roundtable - a simulation of a news meeting in which producers and reporters discuss the news value, characters and themes of stories. The idea was to use the roundtable to update Josiah’s story.
That’s where Hershkowitz, who produces the roundtable, came in.
When Houser arrived with Josiah, and his mother, Jennifer, Hershkowitz called for a break.
Houser introduced Josiah to Hershkowitz. They shook hands - and Hershkowitz took note.
“An incredibly firm handshake for a 25-pound kid,” Hershkowitz recalled. “A lot of kids are shy whether they have issues of not. He was not shy.”

Josiah took a shine to Hershkowitz. He told the producer that he planned to go to a park to play baseball after the roundtable.
“You can come and be on my team.”
Soon enough, Josiah and Hershkowitz were on the floor in their best WWE imitation. Hershkowitz was not entirely surprised - though not a father he has young cousins and he babysat in his younger days.
“I love being around kids and I usually have a pretty good rapport with kids,” Hershkowitz said, later. “I still consider myself a kid. Anytime I refer to myself in conversation I probably use the word ‘kid’ more than I use the word ‘man’ because that’s just how I feel. I don’t mind rolling around on the floor and pretending to play dead when he punches me in the chest. It’s as much fun for me as for him.”
But behind Hershkowitz’s playfulness was a professional calculation. In a few minutes Josiah would be on camera.
“We’ve had guests at the roundtable before - it’s always important to let them know what we’re trying to accomplish and to make them feel comfortable,” Hershkowitz said.
“He was in a room full of adults and I could tell he wanted to play - little kids just want to run around and play all the time. And I’m probably among the goofiest most childish people on this show so I was a good candidate to play and make him feel comfortable.”
Indeed, Josiah and his mother appeared relaxed when the cameras rolled. At the table - actually a rectangle - were Tennant, Houser, coordinating producer Michael Baltierra, and reporters Rachel Nichols, Chris Connolly, and Jeremy Schaap.
Jennifer told about wondrous events, about gifts from Terrell Owens, a trip to Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke, the 15-games Josiah played in little league, the Harlem Globetrotters’ show at his elementary school, and about countless requests for autographs. Josiah, in his squeak of a voice, talked of the batting glove and bat he received from Ryan Howard.
Neither mentioned the several strokes he has suffered in the past year, or the increased fragility of his health. Those demons will return soon enough. But not now - not with Josiah feeling chipper and surrounded by a roomful of adults and cameras who adored him.
The group arose from the table. Tennant tossed a plastic ball and Josiah swung a thin wooden bat. The ball soared over Tennant’s head and caromed off a wall. Another pitch came back on a line at Tennant’s face. Then Josiah ran around the table. The cameras got all of it.
Later, after Josiah, his mother, and Houser departed, to eventually visit Diane Sawyer at the set of ‘World News Tonight’, Hershkowitz pondered the edit.

“This is a situation where they will let the roundtable go a little longer - maybe two to 2 ½ minutes,” he said. “Because it’s easy to feel for this kid - but maybe tough to connect to him on a personal level because of the unique situation facing him. That’s what the roundtable does. It lets us connect with him just as a person and forget for a minute that he’s a little kid with this terrible disease. It lets us see him just as a little kid who loves to have fun and play baseball and interact with adults the same way other kids do. I hope we can get that across.”

Posted by Steve Marantz on August 15, 2011

E:60 Jib and Boom

For two days last August E:60 producer Ben Houser followed Mike Reeder around two of the lesser-known of the five courses at St. Andrews in Scotland. On the third day Houser arose well before dawn.
Reeder, 63, of Franklin, Tennessee, was about to become the first wheelchair golfer to play the Old Course, the ancestral home of golf, one of the most iconic locations in all of sport.
Reeder had lost both of his legs below in the knee in 1970, in a mortar explosion, while serving as a medic in Vietnam. He took up golf in 1988, shot par at his home course in 2001, and dreamed of playing St. Andrews with his golf buddy, Mike Bilbrey.
But Bilbrey never made it - cancer took him in 2009. Before he died he asked Reeder to spread his ashes on the Old Course. Reeder made the journey in August 2010, funded by the Challenged Athletes Foundation.
Which is why Houser found himself, with a local Scotsman, assembling a jib camera near the Swilcan Bridge - the most iconic landmark at St. Andrews - before sunrise.

The jib, which reaches 36 feet at full extension, was essential to Houser’s game plan.
“The jib gives you a different perspective,” Houser said. “It allows you to see the majestic nature of that course, and also gives you very smooth movement.”
At sunrise, when Reeder rolled across the fairway in his wheelchair, the jib was ready, as were Houser’s two other cameras.
“We waited for the sun to come up on the horizon, so that it framed our shot,” Houser said. “It was between the bridge and Reeder as he wheeled toward the bridge. When he was on the bridge we had this big jib overhead.”
The sunrise shot in “Dead Solid Perfect” speaks for itself, for sheer beauty.
But the emotional climax came later in the day, after Reeder teed off on the 14th hole. He climbed out of his golf cart, accompanied by his wife, and carried Bilbrey’s ashes to the sand trap known as Hell Bunker. Houser’s main shooter positioned at the edge of the bunker, while Houser held a second camera from another angle.
As Reeder spread the ashes over the sand, and bid farewell to his friend, he was seized with grief. When he walked away from the bunker, he sobbed. Houser got it all.
“A guy with a boom mike was standing there right over top of him - but out of the frame so you can’t see him,” Houser said.
From the Old Course to your screen, another E:60 trail of tears.
“What you saw was real,” said Houser. “Witnessing it, obviously not knowing Mike Bilbrey, and only knowing Reeder for a short time, to have him open up his world and allow ESPN to document what happened, to be a fly on the wall as he’s doing that, takes a lot of trust. I was thinking from a producer’s standpoint, what an amazing moment to capture. Most of the time you don’t have people open up the most intimate things in their life.
“Lots of times a story will just cover that moment with a track, ‘oh, and he spread the ashes’. Or we’ll do a recreation or cover it with a photo. But we literally had it. The way it happened is the way you saw it.”
Reeder emoted for E:60, Houser suspected, because he had come to know Houser and his crew in the two days before he played the Old Course.
On the second day, Houser recalled, one of the cameras had moved too close to Reeder as he hit a tee shot.
“Hey, you got a little close that time,” Reeder said.
That moment, Houser later realized, was crucial in establishing rapport and trust.
“By Day 3 he had played 36 holes with us,” Houser said. “He knew we weren’t going to talk or interrupt his golf game. He had a comfort level with us.”



Posted by Steve Marantz, August 1, 2011