Loss of Situational Awareness in Hereford, Texas

A few years ago I created a themed program for one of my transportation clients.

The problem was: Create a video that reviews railway accidents in a fresh, engaging way. Try to turn a negative into a positive. The other objective, or side, of this challenge involves at-fault employees.

Almost all railway accidents, and probably a number of accidents in general, arise from an individual’s, or several individuals’, loss of what is called “Situational Awareness.”

When there is a serious railroad accident, a discipline measure kicks in. I believe these are generally agreed upon between the unions and the companies. What happens is, the company tells the at-fault employee that he can either lose his job and all his extremely lucrative railway pension and benefits, or he can take some lost time, and participate in the making of a safety video.

By participation, he or she has to agree to appear in the video, and co-operate with its production. This usually entail re-creating the events leading up to the accident, and often-times the accident itself. This is where I come in.

I created a series of safety videos called, “In the Blink of an Eye.” Because, as my client says, most of these accidents unfold in the blink of an eye. It’s that fast. Hence the name.

I’ve produced three of these so far: A train collision in Seattle where the crew basically fell asleep at 2:00 in the morning.

An incident in Pampa, Texas, in which a switch foreman (conductor) was struck by his own train and injured.

A derailment in Bieber, California caused by a crew that left a switch misaligned.

This week finds me in Hereford, Texas. In this case, a track worker was struck and killed by a train.

My job is to interview this man’s co-worker, who was working with the deceased at the time of the accident. I will also shoot a detailed re-enactment of the events leading up to the accident.

In Hereford, the men were working without a look-out. A look-out’s sole job is to watch for on-coming trains, and warn other workers to clear the tracks. Evidently, these two men became so engrossed in their work that they tuned out the very loud crossing guard bells and lights, and the horn blasts of the oncoming train. The man who survived looked up just in time to warn his co-worker, but his co-worker never responded, was struck by the train, and killed.

Production:

For these jobs, I like to hire my own “A-list” crew. These are a top-notch Director of Photography, and an ace field audio technician. I owe much of my success to using top-tier people.

This time, the client got extra hands-on with this project. He assigned me a local crew to use. This does save some money. But the local crew also has to travel by air to the location. So it would have made as much sense for me to bring my own guys.

I’ve actually worked with this assigned DP once before. My first impression is that he's somewhat surly. He’s very type-A. I’m a little type-A myself, so there’s always this slight friction. The guy is a pretty good operator. But, when I last used him, I thought his gear was less than prime. Whenever camera and audio gear is in rough shape cosmetically, I start to worry. I also felt like he and his tech were trying to hide small technical problems from me last time I used him.

The other issue is that I shoot all of these shows in 16:9 format. 16:9 is a widescreen format. Some people might call it letter boxed, which is close enough. It’s a cinematic looking format compared to traditional, standard definition 4:3. The purpose of this choice is simply to set my safety video apart visually from the torrent of other safety video content railway employees watch every year. A secondary strategy for using 16:9 is that it is a better archival format since everything is going HD.

So far, this strategy of using an ace crew, top-notch on-camera talent, and digital Betacam 16:9 format, has worked well. Audiences really respond to these shows. And, since I've produced several, something's clearly working.

That’s why I was less than pleased when at the last minute, the client said I would not be able to use their 16:9 camera, which I’ve always used on these jobs. Instead, he told me I’d be using the camera operator’s old Beta SP 4:3 camera.

The dilemma here is figuring out how to gracefully get what you want. I pushed back a little by asking for clarification. Asking for clarificatin, “So I will not be using your digital Betacam camera? I will be using DP’s beta sp camera? And shoot in 4:3?”

This might seem passive aggressive to some. Fine. I can take it. But, as a contract producer, I can’t afford to go making waves. The client already knows I’m not real keen on using this crew. We just haven’t said it in so many words. I just know he knows how much I think of my guys.

So I’ve already caved in on the crew issue.

I’m not about to completely compromise the integrity of “my” show by changing the look and format, even as I allow a couple of “newbies” to my formula to be thrown into the mix.

In addition to seeking clarification from the client, I sought clarification from the DP. Any DP is going to push to use his gear, because he’ll make almost as much, or more, on the gear rental than he’ll make on his day-rate. So he has an agenda to satisfy a client’s need for gear with his own gear. And, the DP and the client are friends. It’s natural that the client would want to throw some cash-flow his buddy’s way. I do it for my guys all the time.

I made it clear to the DP that I did not want to shoot 4:3, and immediately offered to bring a 16:9 camera to the job with me. (I basically threatened to take money out of the DP’s pocket.) He quickly offered a camera swap with a buddy of his. This would give us a 16:9 camera, and he’d still get the rental. Fine.

But, it was still Beta SP, which is getting to be an old format. Almost all of my shooting takes place on digital formats, either DVC Pro 50, Digi Beta, or HD. The only advantage to using Beta SP on this job is that it’s not compressed. There’s more picture information there than some digital formats. That will come in handy as we plan to shoot some green screen shots to simulate the train bearing down on our unwitting employee.

In the end, shooting 16:9 on Beta SP may be the best way to approach production.

I'll report back upon wrapping production. We'll see how everything goes.