Hot, Hot, Hot!

Yes, it's hot. Everyone knows it's hot. But we still have to TELL everyone it's hot. So Brent and I headed out to find hot jobs in the western piedmont. And our co-horts Eric White and Danny Spillane headed out to find the same in their neck of the woods.

Inspired by a recent edition of "Dirty Jobs" I figured it wouldn't be too hard to find some roofers sweatin' it out. After a dozen calls Brent had a willing company doing a job in eastern Winston-Salem. We headed that way discussing interesting ways to tell the story. As we arrived things weren't looking good as 4 men leaned casually on a 1973 Dodge pickup. The only man working was on the roof with an oversize broom sweeping up some dust leftover from the FINISHED job. The owner could see our disappointment and said, "oh, you wanted us working?" And turned to one of his employees and shouted, "Carl, get up dar an rip sum dem shingles off, den... put 'em back dowwwwwn." Ummmm, no we can't do that. We'll find another roofer. No staging here.

As we drove back toward another possible site Brent thumbed through the Yellow Pages and struck paydirt. A crew was working in nearby Mocksville on an old country store roof. 30 minutes later we were climbing the ladder with them.

Once we got back to the bureau we started planning out the live shot. As Brent logged what we had shot and started writing the five package, I went to the roof of the Winston-Salem Journal, where our office is located. A few ideas bounced around later and our colleague Wes Barrett would be on the ground shooting us on the roof. The Chief, Keith Hale, rolled in with a prop I had seen used before and he manned the truck to give us three cameras (mine, Wes's, and the mast cam).

The five package focused on some other things we'd shot during the day. Some guys on window washing type scaffolding, and the pool. You can see it here if you click on the video link.

The six package ran as team coverage with Eric going first. You can see our three camera live shot after his runs first. Here's the package.