Close quarters. Doug Mayes was for many years your Esso Reporter. Here his news "set" is jammed in among other studio activities, in this case a mattress commercial that had aired live just before the newscast, or was scheduled afterwards. The crew had to be adept at adjusting quickly from one setup to another. (There is reason to believe this photo was taken on January 5th.)

In those days the local early eveing newscast was only 15 minutes long. It was followed by another 15 minutes of the CBS News with Douglas Edwards. CBS's widely acclaimed news department was still focused mainly on radio news. They hadn't yet determined that TV was going to catch on, so CBS's heavy hitters ignored that tacky upstart medium called television. Most of CBS's news footage was provided by an outside outfit called Telenews Productions. It was awful—usually a day or more old, and resembled the news reels we saw at the picture show.

For the totally uninitiated, each crewman wore a headset to communicate with the director in a booth somewhere away from the studio, usually on another floor of the building. The cameramen (here it's Don McDaniel) would hear instructions such as "Camera One, tilt up just a hair...that's good" or "Camera Two, you're clear—go to a head-and-shoulders of Doug." The director would also be talking to others involved in the broadcast: "Projection, standby to roll film on Chain One" or "Video, can you bring up the level on the super card on Camera Three."

The other crewman in the picture, partially hidden by the balance weight of the sound boom, is controlling the speed of the script running through the 'prompter, keeping pace with Doug's delivery. In later years, overhead mikes became old fashioned, when tiny, easy-to-conceal mikes were developed, which could be pinned to the announcer's lapel.

Secrets revealed: Notice the "venetian blind" light pattern on the flat behind Doug. Great care was taken to give the scenes more depth and contrast, and to make the shot more interesting. A splash of light—and in later years a splash of color—could make all the difference between a visually appealing shot and a bland one.

Photo courtesy Don McDaniel

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