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HONORED FOR EXCELLENCE
Cameraman fecuses on winning news

TO TALK TO PAT BELL is to piug into 220 volts

of unbridled enthusiasm.

By TIMOTHY RENSHAW

The
24-year-old North Vancouver
resident loves his job with a
passion that is infectious.

On. April 9, this passion
paid big dividends. Bell, who
has been a T.V. news
cameraman for just over a
year, beat out 18 other T V

mews cameramen from all
over B “>to win the first Blair
Griffiths Award. The award,
named in hono r of Blair
Griffiths, the CBC
cameraman who died
September 2, 1982 on Mt.
Everest, recognizes excellence
in the field.

Bell’s victory is a tribute to
the work ethic and his own
burning desire to succeed. He

started work at CBC in the
summer of 1979 as a studio
cable-puller, where his
energy, effervescent per-

‘sonality, and eagerness to

walk the extra mile,
catapulted him up the CBC
success ladder. He did video,
he did lighting, he did sound,
and in every spare moment,
Bell learned how to use a
camera.

“As a soundman, I worked
closely with a lot of
cameramen. | stole good

points from each and made
note of what I thought could
be improved.”’

His efforts won him a
chance January 1, 1984,
when Helen Slinger, Ex-
ecutive Producer of CBC’s
News Centre, recognized
Bell’s sincere determination.
He was subsequently made a
news cameraman and has
been running at full gallop
ever since.

“He has incredible energy
and drive, a fine eye, and he
really, really cares about his

me

NEWS ph

TV NEWS CAMERA SHARPSHOOTER Pat Bell of North Vancouver shoulders his video third eye. Together the two won
the first Blair Griffiths Award in recognition of TV news camera excellence.

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job’’ says Slinger.

Bell says he aspires to no
particular idols in the TV
news camera field, but his
growing reputation as a
cameraman with the in-
testinal brass to try the un-
conventional and the
swashbuckling spirit to wade
into the precarious to get the
best shot possible is consis-
tent with the character of
Blair Griffiths. .

“Blair did things like clim-
bing to the top of the Lions
Gate Bridge and the top of
the revolving Woodwards
sign with his camera,’’ says
Bell, “if 1 aspire to anyone
it’s to Blair and his kind of
innovation.”’

Known as ‘‘the Kid’’, Bell
has skied Whistler Moun-
tain’s Torch Run, ridden
backwards on the back of
motorcycle at 60 mph, brav-
ed -30-degree temperatures
and 30-km winds to capture
the essence of Steve Fonyo in
grim determination against
the Canadian Prairies, ali
with a Beta-camera hanging
from his shoulder. Each ex-
perience, says Bell with
characteristic exuberance,
has been ‘‘phenomenal’’.

But he says that such shots
are only one side of the
business, the easy side. :

“Going to Frank Gold's
(murdered Vancouver cab

‘Worst pair
traded in

insults
i0t
accepted
PAGE 52

driver) house the day after he
was murdered, interviewing
his widow, spending 98 hours
staked out at the Penny Far-
thing site, those are the tough
assignments,”’ says Bell.

Perhaps no one has work-
ed closer with Bell than
CBC’s Fred Causey.
Together, the two have push-
ed team-work to its very
limits. When Causey tore
knee iigaments earlier this
year while doing a ski story
on Cypress Mountain, he in-
sisted Bell film the subse-
quent operation. The resul-
tant footage has since been
shown on telelvision.

Of his favorite
cameraman, Causey says,
‘the’s extremely engaging,
both as a person and as a
cameraman. With Pat an in-
terview will never go flat..I
have a strong visual sense,
my stories have to have lots
of juice, they have to come
off the screen. If I want to see
something wild, try
something different, Pat is
right there, willing to attempt
anything.”

Bell says he feels the
pressure of winning, the
pressure of topping himself.
But it is a challenge he thrives
on: “These are no limitations
to what you can do. If you
really try, if you really work,
you'll get there.

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