Party Gras. American Style!

In my years as a photojournalist, I've covered my share of parades as both a still photographer and as broadcast news cameraman. A World Series victory. St. Patrick's Day. Macy's Thanksgiving Day. Desert Storm Victory. A freed Nelson Mandela. Greenwich Village Halloween. Small-town America 4th of July parades. The Opening of Parliament. A May Day parade in Cornwall, England. Graduation Day in Oslo, Norway. Even a parade of the 'War of the Worlds' in Grover's Mill, New Jersey, complete with martians.

So, I thought I was prepared to cover Mardi Gras.

I was until my correspondent, Karen Brown, told me she wanted to hop aboard a float. Turned away by several New Orleans' police officers and turned down by a half-dozen float drivers on tractors, we finally found one to jump aboard. Karen had no problem climbing the ladder and being pulled up by the necklace-throwing army of men. My logistics were a bit of an issue: the float wasn't about to come to a halt for me. I handed over my knapsack to producer Reed Watson who stayed on the street and trailed us from behind. Then, I placed my PDW-510 Sony XDCam on the floor of the float (complete with battery brick, light and microphones weighing in at approximately 20 lbs.) while Karen reached down to grab hold of the handle. OK, full disclosure: it was probably only moving at five miles an hour! Yet, I had to climb up the ladder fast. It was awkward and seemed a little risky. (In the back of my mind I thought one of the officers who was adamant that we could not go on a float would see me and come from behind to yank me off!)

I made it and got my bearings. What a relief! And what a great view! Karen was right. We found a great spot for coverage of the parade. The music was blaring. The spectators screaming below as the men on this float tossed beaded necklaces like there was no tomorrow. It was, after all, Spring Break!

One of the funniest moments came when Karen was interviewing a float elder, an 80-year-old, whose face was covered with a shiny yellow fabric. Speaking through it muffled the sound, so Karen had to lift the mask and stick the mic underneath close to his mouth.

The other issue was the music. We were less than five feet from a mounted speaker. There was no way to get them to turn it off the, so we just moved away from it. Surprisingly, the sound came out better than I thought it would. Anytime there's a lot of ambient noise during an interview, I always dial back the levels and move the mic in super-close--almost touching the subject's mouth.

And then there was the lighting. There were hundreds of small incandescent (think Tungsten) bulbs all over the place. Street lamps were bright on passing but gave a blue/green cast. On my camera I stayed in Tungsten mode, 2800 Kelvin, with a Frezzi atop, but covered it with a layer of Roscoe Tough Spun so it would act as fill especially under the eyes and not be that obvious. And in low light, I upped my gain sensitivity to 9db--making the 720 x 480 SD image appear more grainy than I usually prefer.

Staying steady on a moving float shooting an interview was challenging. I leaned my body against the railing and sometimes found myself using my left arm over my head to cling to the ceiling above. In a moving situation you do what you must to find stability. At some point the float stopped, but we just kept shooting, grabbing any b-roll images off the float of the people cheering below, and finishing up our interview. Then, when it started rolling again, we shot Karen's standup bridge-to-camera.

So that was my introduction to Mardi Gras. A float-hopping, Fat Tuesday in and around Canal and Bourbon Streets. What a spectacle! Dodging necklaces being thrown our way, the incredible mass of people, the silly costumes and lack thereof, and the stench!

One near accident. While buying some orange juice at a fast-food place at 4:30 a.m., I was in the middle of two guys lunging at each other in a fist fight. It started when a very drunk and exhausted college-aged punk spilled his iced-tea on a very husky sober guy! Pushed aside and losing my balance, I high-tailed it out of there while police on horseback were racing to break it up and make an arrest.

My camera and I made it out alive. My lesson in a nutshell: Be prepared 'cause at Mardi Gras anything goes!