I am in Indianapolis for ESPN to cover the Pacer’s game tonight. When we showed up for crew call at 7:30 AM, we were greeted by a CBS camera crew. CBS PrimeTime is doing a piece on… of all things… “A Day in the Life of Television Production.” Our game was picked to represent “sports”. CBS also has crews at the “Ellen” show, (representing “boring TV”?) C.S.I., and several news channels as well. The point of their show is supposed to document what goes into producing television on this day (Wednesday Nov 9th)

We had a crew meeting on the basketball court, but it was mostly for the CBS cameras. During the meeting we had to sign release forms allowing CBS to use our likeness on TV. A star is born!!

It was interesting, at least to me, to watch the ESPN “behind the scenes” people hamming it up for the cameras. Some people feigned indifference, some were annoyed, others followed the cameras around trying to be in every shot. Everyone claimed they didn’t care if they were on or not. I don’t believe it for a second.

The other thing that amazed me was the fact that this CBS camera crew sat at the tables drinking coffee while all of the actual set up for the show happened. They were gung ho for the first twenty minutes, taping people working, then they found the coffee and muffins. THey sat for the next hour reading the paper and drinking coffee, while our camera crew set up. When the CBS guys were done eating, they got up to shoot, just as the ESPN camera crew sat down for coffee and muffins.

And that is what you get when you send a TV crew to cover a TV crew.

Author: frenchy