Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/02/26

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Embedded Brit journalists now 60 minutes
From: Rolfe Tessem <rolfe@ldp.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 08:27:54 -0500
References: <200402252228.OAA25119@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>

On Feb 25, 2004, at 5:28 PM, Sonny Carter wrote:
>
>
> Sorry Rolfe, you lose.  The time from shoot to air in those days from 
> the
> Saigon Bureau was two days.  Sixty Minutes was the first real TV News
> Magazine because they insisted on timely presentation.
>
> I wasn't there, but have know a few News shooters who worked there.  
> It only
> takes 30 minutes from dry to dry to run Ektachrome though, and even if 
> they
> were shooting color neg, we're still talking under two hours to get a 
> print.
>
> I'm pretty sure they ahd a film processor in the Saigon Bureau, and if 
> the
> piece were being voiced by Ed, he would have probably assembled the 
> entire
> package before it went to the states. It is possible that he sent the 
> tracks
> along with the film.  We usta cut voice-overs on the sound-on-film so 
> the
> ambience would match the stand-ups.
>
> Sonny

Sonny,

There was no film processing in Saigon. What would have been the point? 
What would you have done with the film sitting in Saigon after it was 
processed?

Film went either to Tokyo or Hong Kong for processing and, depending on 
the urgency, was either satellited from there to New York or 
transhipped on to New York for editing there. Hard news such as the Tet 
offensive could hit air in under two days, but rarely a feature story 
such as a correspondent in the field with a unit. The satellite time 
was just too precious in those days. Those kinds of stories went to New 
York.

Anyway, what I was pointing out was that the idea of the North 
Vietnamese gaining any timely information from either Sixty Minutes or 
the CBS Evening news is pretty preposterous. B.D. is correct that Ed 
Bradley was working for the Evening News at the time.

Incidentally, to stay vaguely on topic, the wire services sent pictures 
to Tokyo via HF radio link, which was a very slow process. Then Tokyo 
would retransmit them on to New York. It all seems pretty dark ages 
today :-).

Rolfe

- --
Rolfe Tessem
Lucky Duck Productions, Inc.
rolfe@ldp.com

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Replies: Reply from "Sonny Carter" <sonc@www.sonc.com> (Re: [Leica] Embedded Brit journalists now 60 minutes)