"Usain Bolt gets taken down by cameraman's Segway" // A black eye for Storytellers

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"Usain Bolt gets taken down by cameraman's Segway" // A black eye for Storytellers

A black eye for all of us storytellers. A cameraman filming Usain Bolt clipped him accidentally and put a cut on his leg.
https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/o...n-bolt-wins-200-gold-at-worlds-134224052.html

Lots of the comments suggest not allowing cameraman to be that close to the subject. Many are saying to use a super telephoto lens and stay as far away as possible. Some people even suggested what the cameraman was doing was no different than the paparazzi.

This is horrible news for us storytellers as we all know using a 600mm lens from far away is different than using a 50mm up close. There is a different pyschology and portrayal involved.

Also when you look at the footage, the cameraman looked extremely over geared. To operate a Segway AND operate the camera at the same time at a live sporting event is asking for trouble. Especially if the surface of the field is not totally even. This is another reason why we need to keep our approach as simple as possible.
 
I feel more for Usain. The 'in your face total coverage' is just too much at times. The athletes are people and they deserve some space. This could have been career ending.
 
Ok, sports are maybe mainly a broadcast business but you see similar behaviour from people filming and photographing the performing arts. Lots of the video/photo people have just no clue what they are doing and seem they are the main thing and forget that everything that happens is for the paying audience's entertainment and they should always have priority. Even though they do a decent job of ruining it for themselves by holding up smart phones half of the time ;)

but in this case I can't feel sorry for the camera man. Anyone on a Segway deserves everything coming at them ;)
 
dmitrizigany said:
Anyone on a Segway deserves everything coming at them ;)
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Actually, the OP's link in the original post gives a different angle than CNN was offering a few hours ago. I didn't realize that Bolt took such a hit. It could easily have been a lot more serious. Thankfully, it was not. The cameraman should not have been that close.
 
The cameraman and Bolt have made up since then.

And, while this was a silly move, it's not like the first time an athlete ran into a cameraman. This happens in the US football all the time. Globally, most soccer matches also have an operator with the Steadicam on the sidelines. TV pays the money and that's what makes the top athletes rich.

PS. The advertising boards are even scarier because, though one can put impact absorbing padding at the top of the board, the screens themselves are 100% LED's. Last Saturday, I was watching an EPL match, where a player was shoulder shoved onto one of those advertising boards and immediately shoved the presumed perpetrator back. The foul wasn't called and the player in question was left stewing. The ref gave them both a talking and that seemed to be it. Then, a few minutes later, the same player gets fouled again, loses his temper again, finger slaps his nemesis ... and is immediately shown a red card (a permanent match dismissal for those not into soccer).

And the worst thing is - most Euro stadiums don't have a lot of room between the sidelines and these boards and someone can easily gets pushed onto them head first.
 
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