I'm posting this because I thought it was interesting and I don't know where else to post it---
Really we don't give the cameramen enough credit
Journey to Emmy nothing short of amazing Local cameraman won for 'The Amazing Race'
Kevin Graman
Staff writer
September 13, 2007
You think chasing meth-crazed, shirtless criminals through backyards is tough? Try keeping up with yuppie fitness freaks for 40 blocks through Manhattan after you've been up all night at the Paris airport.
Freelance cameraman Bob Good says filming the hit CBS reality show "The Amazing Race" is even tougher than the Fox show "Cops." He knows. He's worked on both.
Good, who lives near Nine Mile Falls and got his start shooting for KXLY, won an Emmy for outstanding cinematography for reality programming on Saturday night along with nine other camera operators and the director of photography for the 10th season of "The Amazing Race." The show also won an Emmy for editing.
"It's by far the most physically demanding job I've done," Good said of the globe-trotting adventure series in which couples compete for $1 million.
Whether it's racing camels by remote control in Kuwait or navigating a sampan through a Vietnamese waterway, whatever you see "Amazing Race" competitors doing, a camera and sound crew is right there with them carrying their own clothing and equipment. Good, 47, is in pretty good shape after filming four seasons of the show.
The crew wants the team to do well, he said.
"If they run 50 blocks out of the way, you run 50 blocks out of the way," Good said. But if the team takes a wrong turn, all the crew can do is keep the tape rolling. Helping the team is strictly forbidden.
For this reason, producers rotate the crews through different teams on different legs of the race. A leg can go on for two or three days with little rest in between them. A season, 13 episodes, takes four or five weeks to produce.
"They don't want the crew with one team for too long," Good said. "They don't want us to become too friendly."
As the teams are whittled down, so are the freelance camera and sound crews. Sometimes, they are reassigned to "zone" cameras, waiting for the action to come to them. During one such assignment, Good got 18 hours to himself in Egypt, during which time he saw the pyramids at Giza and the temple at Luxor – nice work if you can get it.
"Otherwise, you sleep when the team sleeps, if they sleep," Good said. If the team has to book a flight, it has to book two extra seats for the crew. If it books a hotel, it has to book a room for the crew.
Last season, he spent the entire race assigned to teams. The race began in Seattle and passed through China, Vietnam, India, Kuwait, Mauritius, Madagascar, Finland, Ukraine, Morocco, Spain and France, among other venues, before winding up in Manhattan.
Good finished with the second-place team, Rob and Kimberly, an athletic couple from Los Angeles.
Then unexpectedly about four weeks ago, he got a letter from the Academy of Arts and Sciences saying, "Congratulations, nominee."
Last Saturday in Los Angeles, he won his first Emmy – well worth the trip.
link
