The cameraman is still grinning. He’s just spent 20 minutes dodging the lumpy yellow cones of uniformed security personnel, and sprinting back and forth across the foot of the stage trying to keep the abnormally large-lipped frontman’s face in his tiny viewfinder. Speakers the size of Cadillac Escalades shoot gentle breezes onto his face, breezes which would be soothing if they were not accompanied by ear-bleeding blasts of noise accompanying each bass note or kick of the bass drum.
There is no room for error. He has to keep the shot steady.
And he succeeds, until a 120-pound emo kid wearing one shoe and a t-shirt from the concession stand with the price tag still on it comes hurtling over the barrier and slams squarely into his back, making him drop the shot. The engineer speaks over her radio to a small army of camerapeople below: “Jared just got nailed by an emo kid — you’d better switch him out.”
A tinny reply comes back over the radio: Jared’s fine, despite having had a personal record of three crowd surfers hit in the last five minutes, and he wants to finish his shift. Bruised yet triumphant, adrenaline flaring, he walks backstage to swap war stories with the rest of the cameramen before heading back in.
Not that every moment on a WinterFest film crew is a “dangerous pit camera” moment. After the token punk band leaves the stage, the supply of emo kids usually dries up, leaving our army of camerapeople the opportunity to mingle with the crowd, shimmy onstage for that all-important backup singer ass-shot, or just watch the spectacle unfold.
In the middle of the operation, a smaller crew sneaks into the band’s dressing room for an interview. What usually unfolds is approximately six minutes of drunken hilarity rivaling the finest Sun God moments, as band members attempt to answer stock career questions while sozzled to perfection on the finest liquor UCSD Catering has to offer.
“So, Dishwalla … how did your band choose such a name?”
There is, of course, an unintelligible rambling response, but far more entertainment lies in the unexpected arts-and-crafts talent of the bandmembers with their catering trays. Life-size vaginas crafted entirely out of ham or turkey seem to be the most popular choices.
But in a few minutes it’s all over and, armed with stories of drunken expression, the film crew heads back to the stage to face the crowd and keep the cameras steady so that every member of the audience has a fair chance to see the details of singing lips, thrashing guitar picks and thumping drumsticks. It’s not the easiest job, but the occasional emo kids and ham vaginas make it all worthwhile.
