It’s Not Bergman, but It Works for This Filmmaker

I lead with my tongue.

In the video, that is.

I’ve been chosen, along with a small group of other Angelenos, to film a video diary of my life since the Rodney King beating and the riots this spring. How has it changed me? Do I live differently? Has it altered my view of this crazy, mixed-up town and my job as a reporter covering the tumultuous Los Angeles Police Department?

The lives of others chosen for the “autodocumentary” have changed dramatically. Two friends of a gang member have been killed. A merchant, victimized during the riots, has buried a brother killed in a recent shooting. Once, at the production studio near MacArthur Park, I caught a glimpse in the TV of the merchant sitting at his brother’s grave, tugging at the grass, learning to reconcile his sorrow.

Now that is riveting television.

The best I’ve come up with in three months, however, is this little growth on my tongue. It most likely was caused by stress, the doctor said. Then, with the nurse filming the procedure, he froze the little bugger off.

Next morning, with the camera poised on a bookshelf at home while I tied my shoes, I talked about how I hate doctors and their offices, and how my blood pressure was 130 over 100 and how I had better start dealing with this stress that’s been eating at me since March 3, 1991--the day another video, the King video, shocked the world.

My producer is Selina Lewis. She is 26 and works for the World of Wonder, the agency assembling the video for the British Broadcasting Corp. The production will be aired a year or so after the riots and possibly be picked up for broadcast in the States.

Selina smokes too much, wears gray shorts held together by safety pins and offers me half-eaten doughnuts. To every single thing I say, she replies: “Oh cool!”

She just showed up at The Times newsroom one day, grilling me with questions about my life and explaining that I was one of dozens of reporters under consideration for the video diary project. She explained that video diaries are the hot ticket in England, much like, alas, video bloopers are here.

A police officer, a teacher, a child--a half-dozen people from different walks of life--would be given a video camera, a tripod and sound equipment to fan out on the streets in search of themselves and Los Angeles.

When Selina called and offered me the reporter slot--for a modest sum, I was to film my life through February, 1993--I said OK. She said, “Oh cool!”

My first days were tentative: learning to hold the camera still, how to adjust the microphones and focus, where to plant the video recorder for maximum effect.

One night I bought a drink at the Redwood saloon for an editor with whom I had worked for much of the King story. We set up the camera near the booth, then reminisced about Daryl Gates and Stacey Koon. We wondered what the British would think of us. We toasted the queen and Benny Hill. “More ale!” I said.

Later I brought the tape into the office. We snuck into the audio-video room, plopped the tape into the machine and waited.

The tape was blank.

Thankfully, my camera skills have improved. And one of the fascinating things is to watch how people react to the video camera--in the office and out on the police beat. And at home.

One editor worked very slowly when I turned on the camera as he edited my story about the LAPD six months after the riots. Another flashes obscene gestures when the camera pans his way. A reporter growls, “Turn that damn thing off.”

The best response, however, came from an editor on the national political desk, who was surprised I was involved in a serious film project: “I just thought you were a dork.”

At the Epicentre restaurant and bar, I filmed an editorial assistant having her first legal drink on her 21st birthday. That same night, I filmed a colleague having his 14,397th.

At Parker Center, I filmed myself interviewing a grizzled police lieutenant. He sat ramrod straight and politely answered my questions. After the taping, he went back to his old self, cussing and blowing his nose. I got my best quotes then.

I spent weeks wrangling an interview with Police Chief Willie L. Williams. I begged and pleaded with a lieutenant and a deputy chief to film the session. Both thought I was nuts. Or nuttier. I got the interview, but not the video.

I’ve filmed myself talking into the camera on crowded trains to San Diego and on airplanes to Detroit. At a Halloween haunted house, a charity casino night at church (the church won) and playing blackjack with my three sons--Mark, Nick and Vince--on the floor at home (they won, too).

I’ve tried to capture on film what I think of life in Los Angeles: traffic slower than I can crawl; smog so thick that I couldn’t get it into focus; my old neighborhood near 3rd Street and Vermont Avenue, blackened and hollow after the riots.

But I’ve also taped warm moments with my family and friends. And I once sat in the back yard listing endless reasons why life here is hard and still concluded that I wouldn’t trade my job with anyone.

We get to pick our own music for our videos. My hands-down choice is “Trouble No More” by Muddy Waters. Which gets me back to my tongue and the stress, and how I’m trying to develop a film theme of overcoming the pressures of covering such a monumental story as Rodney King.

My mother died the day the King video was first broadcast.

I’ve had one week off from work in a year and a half.

I’ve endured two separations from my family--once when it took us a year to sell our old house in San Diego, the other when I moved to Simi Valley to cover the King trial earlier this year.

Once, for an unexplainable reason, a purple rash appeared on my face. Another time, while working in the newsroom on a quiet Saturday afternoon, I suddenly developed ulcers in both eyes. My eyeballs just cracked. The doctor said it was like cracking a hard-boiled egg on a hard surface. Like the tongue thing, it was stress.

Is this complaining? If so, it’s a great way to relieve stress. Talking to the camera is also therapeutic. And happily, the city editor promises a vacation soon.

I had better get that on film.

I told Selina about all this recently. Polishing off a cigarette and halfway through a doughnut, she said: “Oh cool.”