Today was the mayor forum that my class has been studying to film. We had four cameras positioned across the two story auditorium. Everything was going just fine for the first fifteen minutes or so. Everyone was doing their job and no one was really interested in the candidates. I think I counted like ten yawns from the audience. I was pre-occupied with the title transitions and then something happened. Something so unexpected that I quickly looked up from my computer to see the action on stage. It was all about to go down when mayor candidate Paul Smith started to tell the audience that both current mayor Ron Littlefield and candidate Rob Healy were both rich white men that don’t care about poor people or hundreds of children dying on Chattanooga Streets. He went on to talk about MLK and his philosophy that the rich are too rich, with both Healy and Littlefield making over 100,000 while the city goes down an economical hole and people starve. He called Littlefield unimportant and pompous.
The audience then perked up and people looked slightly stunned as if he just broke out into a song and dance number. Ron Littlefield then laughed and said that the city is a great place to live because he brought the Volkswagen plant. He said he was ashamed by Mr. Smith and that he is just loud and obnoxious and people don’t need to listen to him. He went on to say that this man doesn’t care about anyone, but himself and that this is now a disgusting campaign. I must say that Mr. Smith was over 30 minutes late and he then just waltzed in and started calling them lazy and rich. This was slightly amusing because Littlefield is a pillar of old man angst, he's so bland and unhappy looking standing like a statue on the stage. Needless to say it was easy to film him, but Haley was also making accusations saying that this “homeless shelter nonsense” is a pet project to spend millions of tax payer money. When the men were sitting on stage Mr. Littlefield was in the center and the other men tried to lean away from him as if he just got sprayed by a skunk. It was all sorts of uncomfortable, but the stuff that makes amazing good TV. I was like…oh yeah…my time has arrived…It’s Springer Time! Okay so the men didn’t start fighting as midgets came out with pies, but hey this was good stuff. The men continued to bicker back and forth and after some shouting we went to commercial. The People at home didn’t get to see that the guys continued to go at it and that the moderator tried to calm everyone down. This was an old man throw down!
I guess filming was good, but I really didn’t pay much attention, because when you have grown men looking as if they are going to call their posse and fry each other then that is amazing.
