Shooting indoors sometimes has its advantages.
After shooting video inside, I walked down the street to frame up a building on a corner. The camera almost always attracts attention. Two men walked up to me. One asked me to put them on camera.
As a TV reporter, I was accustomed to strangers walking up and asking, half jokingly, to put them on camera. They often had no good reason to appear on camera, but they wanted to be on TV. In college, I was shooting exteriors of a Chicago high school. Students leaving school saw the camera and went bonkers, actually falling over each other trying to compete for position in front of the lens. I turned off the camera, but the students still acted as if I were broadcasting a live shot to the rest of the world.
In North Carolina, I sat atop of a vehicle as part of a parade. Feeling embarrassed to wave to crowds like a beauty queen, I placed my camera on my shoulder and pretended to shoot video of crowds as I passed. I never turned on the camera, but people waved at me with great enthusiasm.
In this case on the street corner, I tried to explain I was shooting a business-type video and standing before my camera should not interest them. My logic did not appear to matter. They hovered, one of them asking me questions about the camera and telling me part of his story.
He then asked if he could rap for me and requested I provide him a topic. I learned long ago people want you, if nothing else, to respect them, so turning him down or brushing him off was not an option I considered.
I put in a request for him to rap about football. He asked what team. I said, “The Dolphins.” The other guy acknowledged the Dolphins had just visited to play the Cardinals. The rapper indicated the Dolphins are on the right track, leading me to believe he might be a fellow fan. But then he asked where the Dolphins play. Miami, I answered.
During this conversation, I continued shooting the building on the street corner. I wondered if these men expected me to turn the camera toward them for the football rap. I didn’t want to, but I would shoot video of their impromptu song if necessary.
But I took too long to shoot that building on the corner and the rapper indicated they needed to move on. We exchanged pleasantries and they crossed the street.
Shooting simple video of a building can get complicated especially when standing on a street corner with a camera.