Cora’s TV Adventure

Before we get to the main topic, let’s start off with where else you could find my writing late. In mid January, I was at Galactic Journey, reviewing the 1969 science fiction crime anthology Crime Prevention in the 30th Century, edited by Hans Stefan Santesson, and the 1970 science fiction thriller Drug of Choice by John Lange a.k.a. Michael Crichton, two books which very much address social issues and anxieties of the early 1970s. It’s fascinating how good Crichton was at the start of his career. Also it was depressing to write about the sense of hope and optimism that flowed through West Germany following the 1969 general election, especially compared to the fact that pretty much everybody only views the general election coming up this February with dread, because incompetent as the last government was, what’s coming is likely worse.

On a less depressing note, I was also at the Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow Blog of the Seattle Worldcon, writing about how the sword and sorcery genre got its name.

But now let’s get to the main event. For last week, I had a somewhat unusual experience, because I had a TV team in my home. No, it had nothing to do with SFF or the Hugo, but  was for a completely different reason.

NDR is a public regional TV and radio station in North Germany. They’re licence-fee financed, operate several regional radio and TV channels and also contribute programming to ARD, a joint TV program supplied by the various public regional TV stations.

Some time ago, NDR initiated a project called #NDRfragt (NDR asks), where they ask viewers/listeners about their views on various topics of the day. The idea behind this and similar projects is that the public TV and radio stations have been accused – not without reason – of being politically biassed and generally too far removed from the actual concerns and views of the viewers/listeners, who after all have to support these programs via the mandatory licence fee. So several public TV/radio stations initiated projects to give their viewers/listeners a chance to share their opinion. In general, this is a good thing.

The way it works is that they send you a link to a survey about the topic du jour by e-mail. When you fill out the survey, they ask you if they can quote from your answers (because they need your permission) and also if you would be willing to participate in a radio or TV interview about the topic.

I signed up for the #NDRfragt project some time ago. I don’t even know what it was that prompted me to sign up, whether it was a specific topic or a general sense of “This is a good project and I want to support it”. I often sign up for surveys, research questionnaires and the like, because I remember from my university days how difficult it is to get people to participate in research surveys and questionnaires. At any rate, I always tick the “Yes, you may quote from my answers” box and the “Yes, I would be willing to participate in a radio or TV interview” box as well.

I didn’t really expect anything to come from it, but then last Tuesday afternoon, I got a call from a journalist from the NDR asking if I wanted to participate in a TV interview about the topic of their latest survey – “Were the covid measures too strict and do we need some kind of political post-mortem?” I considered for a moment – it is a sensitive topic, after all, and there’s a chance of pissing off people – and then said yes.

“We’ll be shooting the interview on Friday or possibly Monday,” the journalist said, “Are you home?”

“I work from home and am generally flexible,” I said, “And I don’t have any appointments on those days.”

The lady from the NDR also asked me if I was a member of any political party. She said it wouldn’t be a problem, if I was, just that they’d need to mention it. This is probably a response to an uproar which erupted, when a TV team from a public channel did street interviews and one of the people interviewed turned out to be a member of the Green Party and the local town council. The TV channel was accused of political bias, though the interviewer likely had no idea about the party affiliation of this random person they interviewed on the street – it’s not as if journalists can be expected to recognise every single member of every party. Ironically enough, one of the other two people featured in the TV report, did turn out to be a member of the Green Party, which is mentioned in the report.

Finally, the lady from the NDR promised to call me back the following day about the exact time and date.

So now I was about to be interviewed on TV and would have a TV team coming to my house. Which meant that I needed to accelerate the post-holiday clean-up to get the parts of the house the TV team would see up to speed in two and a half days. And there wasn’t much left of the half day, especially since I had an appointment on Tuesday the early evening.

In particular, I needed to clean up the dining room/hall – basically a large room on the ground floor, from which you can access the other rooms. It’s a room that’s used a lot, so the floor tends to get dirty and stuff also tends to accumulate before it’s moved somewhere else. So I had to move stuff that had accumulated elsewhere – either final destination or intermediate storage – clean up the place a little and – most importantly – vacuum and mop the floor, which is tiled. And I really hate vacuuming and mopping the floor, because it’s hard on the back and I hate my parents’ vacuum cleaner. We do have a vacuum bot, but you basically have to empty the room before using it, because it tends to get stuck on chairs and the like.

On Wednesday afternoon, the lady from the NDR called me back and said they would like to film on Friday morning. Also, since I work from home, could they film me in my office? “Sure,” I said, “But I’m mostly sitting in front of the computer typing, which isn’t particularly exciting.”

The lady from the NDR also said, “You mentioned taking walks by a lake during the covid pandemic. Could we film there? And can we use a drone?” I replied, “The lake and the park are maybe 600 meters away, but I don’t think it’s a problem to film there. As for the drone, we’re close to Bremen airport, but not that close that drones are banned.”

So in addition to cleaning up the hall/dining room, I also had to clean the office. Which meant more vacuuming and lugging the bloody vacuum cleaner up the stairs. Honestly, I’m getting myself a new vacuum cleaner, because this thing is barely usable, too heavy and kills my back.

Anyway, I got everything cleaned up by Friday morning – even though I managed to knock over a plate with cookies and had to vacuum part of the floor again – and was ready for the NDR TV team to arrive. Which they did – ten minutes early – when I was on the toilet in my underwear. So hurray for that. I also realised that though I had vacuumed and mobbed the entrance area and guest toilet, I had forgotten to move some of the stuff in the entrance area like keys and the like that I need to grab quickly.

The TV team consisted of three people in a van. The lady I’d talked to on the phone as well as a camera operator and a sound technician. The sound technician seemed to be fairly new to the job, probably still in training. The camera operator was the oldest and most experienced of the three. They were all very nice. They even took off their shoes.

A lot of equipment – camera, tripods, sound equipment, etc… – was lugged into my house and the reporter and the camera operator examined the dining room/hall. The camera operator in particular liked the light in the room – there is a large window and the glass backdoor – and was he also liked the vintage rocking chair, the early 1970s interior and Else, my department store mannequin. He was also fascinated by my Masters of Universe figures who have taken over some of the shelves (I really need to rearrange the shelves, since they’re still full of my parents’ books, which I don’t want to throw out, but don’t want in the entrance area of my house either). The Hugo trophy was duly admired as well. The sound technician managed to knock over some of my Masters of the Universe figures and profusely apologised, though nothing was damaged.

The reporter asked if they could see the office now, so everybody went up the stairs. “Oh, there’s more figures here,” the camera operator noted. Though in general, everybody agreed that they liked the dining room/hall better, because it’s much bigger, has better light and has a more exciting interior. And could I maybe just take the laptop downstairs? Okay, so I had vacuumed the office for nothing, though it did need to be cleaned anyway.

Back downstairs, the camera operator became interested in the living room, which is separated from the hall by a glass door. “Can we switch on the light in there, so it won’t look like a dark void?”

“Sure,” I said and switched on the lights.

Now the living room is in the process of being transformed into the collection room/toy room and has a big diorama style Masters of the Universe display, which of course fascinated the TV team.

“Oh, there are even more figures in there,” the camera operator exclaimed, while the reporter asked me if we could go in there. I said, “Sure. But there are still some holiday decorations in there that I didn’t get around to clearing away yet.”

So the TV team moves into the living room to admire my collection, while the camera operator asks if we can open the blinds. I said, “We can open one of them, but the other one is broken. There’s a cable damaged somewhere. My Dad tried to locate the damage, but then he died and I don’t think anybody else will ever be able to find the damaged cable, so it’s permanently down.”

In the end, the TV team decided that they preferred the dining room/hall and asked me to set up the laptop. The camera operator also asked if we could put some of my Masters of the Universe figures onto the dining table.

I said, “Of course. There actually were some figures on the table until yesterday, but I moved them away. Do you want any specific figures or should I just pick something?”

“Could we have these ladies?” the camera operator asked and pointed at three different Teela figures.

So I took the three Teelas and when they turned out to have problems keeping their footing on my quilted tablerunner, I also grabbed Battle Cat to hold them upright.

“Could we also have the King?” the camera operator asked, so I grabbed King Randor and positioned him opposite the three Teelas. You can see what it looked like below.

King Randor addresses three Teelas and Cringer.

Here we have the Masters of the Universe Classics Battleground Teela a.k.a. Brass Bikini Teela a.k.a. Teela in the style of the early mini-comics, Masterverse Revelation Mercenary Teela and the regular Masters of the Universe Classics Teela leaning against the Masterverse Battlecat/Cringer and being adressed by the Classics Filmation style King Randor.

King Randor addresses three different versions of Teela“So let me get this straight? When I asked Zoar for reinforcements, a portal spit out three different versions of Captain Teela?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Ready to serve, Sire.”

“Your wish is our command.”

“Well, I’m sure the Guard is in good hands. As for Prince Adam…”

“We will protect Adam, Sire.”

“With our lives, if necessary.”

“We won’t let him out of our sights, Your Majesty.”

“Sigh. I just hope Adam survives three of them.”

*** 

The sound technician then hooked up the microphone. A small mike was clipped to the collar of my sweater (later replaced with a slightly different model), then I was asked to run the wire under my sweater. Finally, the wire was connected to a receiver that was clipped to the waistband of my pants.

Once the Masters of the Universe figures were set up, I switched on the laptop, pulled up a random document (it turned out to be my latest post for the Seattle Worldcon blog) and started typing some stream of consciousness stuff, so I would look busy, while the TV team filmed.

Then I was asked to sit down in my Grandma’s old rocking chair and answer the interviewer’s questions about the topic of the week, which I did.

And then it was time to go to the park. Now the park isn’t far away, but it’s quite far when lugging heavy equipment. So we all piled into the TV team’s van and drove to the park.

Once at the park, the team surveyed the area and zeroed in on the lake, which is really the most interesting part of the park.

The camera was set up and a wind protector was added to the microphone, so it looks as if I have a Tribble stuck to my sweater. Then I was asked to look straight into the camera and give a short intro and outro statement of my opinion. After the end statement, I was also asked to turn around and walk up the path until I vanished behind some shrubbery. Rinse and repeat about two or three times, especially since a dog walker and a woman on a bike interrupted the filming.

I was also asked to walk across a bridge in the park (twice) and then I was asked to position myself at the lake and look out across the water.

“Can you take a step forward?” the camera operator asked.

“I’m sorry, but this is as far as I can go. Another step forward and I’ll end up in the lake.”

Then, the camera drone was unpacked and I had to look out across the lake some more, while the drone circled me, stirring up the ducks who live around the lake. I watched the ducks, which made it easier to ignore the drone buzzing around me. On top of everything else, it started to rain.

While the camera operator and sound technician were packing up, the reporter asked me if I had TV experience. “Sort of,” I replied, “I was active with the local public access channel almost thirty years ago. I did interviews, filming, editing, anything that needed doing.” This cued a discussion about how many things had changed – when I was editing, it was all analogue and we didn’t have drones at all – and how a lot of things had stayed the same. The lady of the NDR said that a lot of her colleagues had gotten their start at the public access channels. This makes sense, since Germany only has very few universities that offer TV and film classes – it was two in all of Germany, when I was a student, and I don’t think it’s more now – so public access channels offered everybody who was interested in working in film or TV a way to gain some experiences. “Back then, I wanted to become a director and go to Hollywood,” I said, “Eventually, I found out that writing was a better and easier way to tell stories and channelled my filmic ambitions into taking photos of toys.”

The TV team got back into the van and took me to the street corner. They would also have taken me home, but since they had to return to Hannover for the next filming assignment, I said, “It’s fine. I can walk the rest of the way.”

Once home, I had lunch. And then, because I was tired, I laid down to take a nap. I was woken about an hour later by the phone. It was the sound technician of the TV team. “I’m sorry,” he said, “But we’re missing a tripod. Could you check if it’s in your house?”

“I didn’t notice any stray tripod,” I replied, “But I’ll check again.” So I went through every part of the house where the TV team had been – including the visitors toilet – but found no tripod. “Maybe it’s still in the park,” the sound technician said, “I know it’s an imposition, but could you maybe go and check?” The TV team was shooting the next interview in Hannover at this point, about a hundred kilometers away.

So I got dressed to go back to the park. However, it was raining steadily outside and besides, I didn’t want to lug a tripod all the way back from the park (cause it felt wrong to just leave it there), so I took the car instead, parked it by the roadside near the entrance to the park and went in search of the tripod in the rain. I found it, too, leaning against a line of trees and bushes alongside a path, pretty much invisible, unless you were very close.

I picked up the tripod, carried it to the car and put it on the backseat, because it was too big for the trunk. Then I called the number the NDR reporter had given me. “Good news. I found your tripod. It was between the trees along one of the paths. I took the liberty to take it home, cause it’s safer here. You can pick it up whenever you want.” The reporter told me they’d call me back, when they would pick it up and that was that.

Tripod leaning against the coat rack

Here is the lost tripod leaning against coat rack. I used a wollen hat as a buffer to capture moisture (the tripod has been out in the rain for two hours or so) and keep it from scratching the wall.

As for the actual TV report, it aired during the Hallo Niedersachsen (Hello, Lower Saxony) regional news program on Tuesday evening and you can also watch it here on the NDR website. The entire report is six minutes long with the intro and it features three people. In addition to myself, there is a chimney sweeper/volunteer fire brigade member from Hannover and a disability advocate from the Weser Uplands who is a member of her local city council, raises hedgehogs and has long covid. So the two hours it took to film were condensed down to one and a half minutes, which is far from uncommon. The vast majority of footage shot for anything is never used.

I also briefly show up in a different report about the same topic on the NDR Info TV channel, which you can see here. Oddly enough, both reports picked the same quote about how school closings negatively affected children, which is something I did criticise.

However, I also criticised a lot of completely senseless measures which didn’t protect anybody, but were just senseless harassment such as the federal “emergency brake”, which postulated that a county exceeded a certain number of covid infections, there would be a nighttime curfew imposed (because the covid  virus is apparently vampiric and only operated by night) and schools closed. My country Diepholz is very big – thank you, stupid and unwanted 1974 Lower Saxony community reform. In the spring of 2021, there was a covid outbreak on an asparagus farm near the town of Sulingen, which is at the other end of the county 45 kilometers away. So the schools were closed in the entire county and a nighttime curfew was imposed, even though the covid numbers were normal in our part of the county, which encompasses the southern suburbs of Bremen and is far more densely populated than the rural area around Sulingen. I like taking walks alone late in the evening or early in the morning, which I wasn’t allowed to do because of the bloody curfew, even though this was probably one of the safest activities you could pursue. Even worse, the asparagus farm was not shut down, but was allowed to continue operating, as long as the workers stayed isolated on the farm (asparagus farms usually employ migrant workers from Eastern Europe in not very good conditions), so the farm owner was even rewarded for exploiting his workers, while the entire county suffered and not a single life was saved. I talked about this in the interview, but it never made it into the video.

Anyway, that was my TV adventure.

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