At the camera position, you’re an integral part of the event. In a multi-camera show such as a baseball game or a concert, you’re part of a team that’s creating the show’s visual story line. The Director calls the shots and creates the show’s plots and sub-plots with the shots he selects. On headsets, the cameraman has the Director in one ear, program audio in the other ear, and he’s completely aware of the crowd and the action at hand. In a single-camera production, you are the event — whether you’re shooting video for your own script or working with a field reporter. So how do you get the gig? I talked at length to cameraman Danny Zemanek, and here’s how he did it. “I knew that I wanted to be a cameraman, from early on. Not a director, not a producer, but a cameraman. At Versatile Video, a Bay Area production company, I worked as a utility guy in their remote truck division, and that put me around the gear. Our utility crew would set up the cameras, test them, load them in the truck and set them up at the event. That’s how I started. I learned everything I could, I put myself around the equipment, and I practiced with the gear to hone my skills.”
—Danny Zemanek, as quoted by Paul Berliner for Video World, PLSN, Jan. 2015
