Candid Camera Cornucopia

Insight on the News, March 29, 1999 by Andrea Billups, Eric Fisher

Oscar-caliber cinematography it was not, but camera operators who converged on Washington during the Clinton sex scandal made big bucks working 13-hour days, six days a week.

Monica Beach long since has dried up. The Watergate once again is "home of the Doles." What's a poor camera operator to do, now that the stakeouts are over and the impeachment hearings are in the can?

Savor the memories and groove on record earnings from a year when a videographer's skills were much in demand.

"Once you're established in this business, it's not terribly difficult to keep working," says freelance cameraman Dennis Gaffney, 49, who, like many of his colleagues, appreciated the constant work but is glad the impeachment process finally is over.

"It's not a letdown" he says of Monicagate's sputtering snooze of a finale. "Nothing ever changed in this entire fiasco. Everyone was sick of this thing."

Ah, but there were glory days -- the endless hours camped at the federal courthouse, lawn chair, cooler and crossword puzzles in tow. The morning cluster gathered outside the Cosmos Club, waiting for a sighting of what's-his-name, that Ginsburg dude, now a footnote in President Clinton's stained (uh, make that blemished) historical record.

"Early on, there was a panic to get any material," says Peter Roof, who shot some initial Clinton coverage but later looked for work in other places. "Television needs fresh material every day, and people found themselves getting anybody coming or going" including presidential secretary Betty Currie motoring off to the safe haven of the Oval Office.

The need for news drove pay scales sky high. The standard day rate for a videographer is anywhere from $250 to $350, but during "Monicagate" the cost for such services ballooned to as much as $800 to $900, even more with overtime. Some longtime camera operators sheepishly admitted -- "Please don't use my name with that" -- that they'd "heard" some in their close-knit ranks earned more than $100,000 for recording the presidential sex scandal.

For a few who stuck it out over long hours each day, seven days a week, the windfall came at a price, says Roof. Marriages came unglued; family time was nil. And a few in-demand shooters left corporate clients in the dust, opting to pull in the big bucks for a three-second shot of Monica tossing her swinging new deposition do. Cameraman Elliot Klayman, who has worked in Washington since 1986, made sure he took care of long-term clients. Because of his foresight, he once again is busy shooting footage for other assignments.

One victim of the scandal: manners. Washington shooters, despite working in a dog-eat-dog town, observe a code of behavior that requires everyone get a clear shot. "Because the demand was so heavy, they didn't understand the protocol," says Roof of out-of-town camera crews. "One bad apple just spoils it instantly for us all. They came in and ruffled some feathers."

Unlike many in the Clinton White House, however, his Monica memories will be fond. "It was definitely a blip for people who do news," says Klayman, 38. "It was fun to be on the front lines -- definitely something to look back on."

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A Virginia company thinks it has an answer to the problem of digital music piracy -- a common practice by computer users who download popular songs free on the Internet.

Music Connection Corp., a music compilation service, and its part-owner, Illinois-based Platinum Entertainment Inc., plan to offer 20,000 songs online using a new, secure version of the popular MP3 music playback software. Downloaders will pay $1 a song.

It would come too soon for record companies. Digital downloading is turning the $40 billion music industry on its ear. Execs claim they're losing billions in royalties to the Internet annually.

Music pirates are copying songs from compact discs and distributing them free on the Internet to anyone with the patience to find a Website catering to his or her musical tastes. Even computer novices can download a popular ditty in a matter of minutes, thanks to MP3, which compresses songs into a few megabytes while retaining near-CD sound quality.

Music Connection's secure and legal MP3 player is designed to satisfy the massive demand for music online while protecting the intellectual property rights of artists and record labels. "We're still at the very beginning of digital download, but this is an important first step," says Robert Bernardi, chairman and chief executive officer of Music Connection, which runs the musicmaker, com Website. "People want convenient access to music, but we also believe that people are generally honest and don't steal things. What we're trying to do is offer up songs by recognizable artists and still make it clearly known that what they're downloading is legal."

Music Connection will offer exclusively the large playlist of songs owned by Platinum, the country's largest independent music label, starting April 1. The song files will be encoded with new MP3 software that provides copyright protection and tracking of royalty payments due to labels and artists.