“Quit dragging your feet and pay the man, for god’s sake! Why would you wait until the car’s stopped to get your wallet out?! And get a receipt, dumbass! Hey, open the trunk, pal!” The voice filled me with dread, and sure enough, when Nishikido hopped out of the passenger’s seat, he scowled at me. “Hm? Whatcha doin’ here, kid?”
“My name is Kunieda.” I should ask you the same question… Oh, right, didn’t he say he gets loaned out to other branches all the time?
At first my enthusiasm plummeted, but after I thought about it, I realized I’d have a much easier time working with a cameraman whose personality and skill I was already familiar with. I briefly explained the situation to him.
“You’ve become a news magnet, haven’tcha?” he remarked. “Every now and then, when someone works on field reporting for long enough, the scoops start following ’em like a shadow wherever they go. Even on their days off.”
Hard pass. Miss me with that Detective Conan shit. “Did Shitara-san tell you about the remote broadcast?”
“Are you kiddin’? All I got was a call out of nowhere! He says to me, ‘Get over there, now!’ Right when I was about to hop in the tub…”
I ignored his complaints and looked around at the rest of the crew. The LiveU equipment was designed for maximum portability, and the team itself was as small as possible—probably because they were originally only here to film a soft news piece for a morning show. In addition to Nishikido manning the camera, we had lighting, sound, and a young guy who was ostensibly the assistant director. Four total.
“Excuse me,” I called out to Nishikido as he shuffled along the very edge of the caution tape, looking for a place to shoot. “Where’s the reporter and live director?”
For this to work, we needed a guy to stand in front of the camera and a guy to listen to the television feed and give cues.
“Not here,” Nishikido answered.
“What?”
“The ‘reporter’ we have scheduled for tomorrow is a local girl. She’s not a real journalist; she can’t cover this kind of news. As for the live director, his wife went into labor this evening, so he went back to the city to be there for her. Fella cried and begged us to let him go—said the baby might not make it, and promised to come back by the 4 a.m. film shoot tomorrow morning. Obviously we didn’t dare stop him.”
Fair enough, but still. “Then…we can’t do this broadcast.”
“I tried to tell Shitara that, I really tried, but he kept yellin’ at me to get my ass out here!”
Just then, Ushio walked back over. “Sorry, are you in the middle of something? Ooh, I’ve never seen LiveU equipment before! Can I play around with it after this is over? Do you even get service out here?” he blathered cheerfully while Nishikido stared back at him like an 11th-century Buddha statue. Dude, don’t talk to him. His ugly is contagious!
“I reckon we just need to film the scene of the fire. Up here in the mountains, I’m terrified we’ll lose service tryin’ to send a signal all the way to Tokyo, but… Wait, who the hell is this guy?”
“He’s an acquaintance of mine, and he’s been assisting me. Filming B-roll, that sort of thing…” Then it hit me: Ushio. Ushio could help with something. Thinking quickly, I pointed over at the young and very flustered assistant director. “Is the AD not Nagano branch staff?”
At a glance, he seemed useless, so the fact that he was standing here at all suggested that he was obligated to come for one reason or another.
“Oh, that’s Narayama,” Nishikido sighed wearily. “Technically, he’s an anchor like you.”
“Technically, sir?”
“Newbie who screwed up his debut performance. There was a miscue with the prerecorded segment—production’s fault, but the kid couldn’t recover. Deer in headlights on the air. They cut to commercial to salvage it, but ever since that incident, he’s too traumatized to speak on cam. So his only other option’s director training, and here he is.”
Can’t report, can’t direct—how useless is this pleb? I started to curse my rotten luck. I’m on vacation, damn it… I was gonna pass the baton and go back to my inn room… This stupid job’s nothing but catastrophe after catastrophe…
“What’ll it be? You wanna call the whole thing off, then say so.”
“We’re doing it,” I declared firmly. “We’ll toss it back and forth with the studio. He’ll do the reporting—I’ll be the live director.”
“You?”
“I’ve done a lot of field reporting lately, so I know the process. It’s more realistic for me to handle it than a beginner.”
“Tryin’ to get that wooden plank to talk is realistic? I dunno about you, but most folks get cold feet about going on national TV. Not only that, you think he can toss?”
“It’s less risky than trying to make him read cold copy. I’m confident Asou-san can smooth over any slip-ups.”
“Y’know… It’s crazy, but it just might work.”
We were quite literally scrambling to throw this thing together, but the grin on Nishikido’s face suggested he was having a ball. Next, I walked over to Narayama. “Could you tell me your full name?”
“Huh?”
Like most hired for an anchor position, he was reasonably good-looking, but his baby face made it hard to take him seriously. Or maybe I’d forgotten what the average college grad looked like.
“We need to give the SCR your full name so they can put it on the chyron.”
“Wait, but…”
“Sorry, but there’s no time for a debate. Narayama…Takahiro?” I asked, squinting at his employee ID badge.
“Uh… Y-yeah…”
“I don’t know if you overheard just now, but in short, we need you on camera.”
“I can’t.”
Oh, sure, now you grow a spine! “It’s okay—you’re not flying solo. I’ll make cue cards in advance. All you have to do is read them.”
“I can’t.”
Who do you think you are, punk? I’m giving you my most compassionate smile, goddamn it! “It doesn’t matter if you can or can’t. This is your job.”
We were flying by the seat of our pants—we didn’t have time to coddle this one guy and his insecurities. Nishikido put me through to Asabi; we tested the connection, then planned out the questions and answers. Meanwhile, Ushio attempted to reassure Narayama that he’d be fine. “There’s a soccer game tonight, remember? Nobody’s gonna be watching the news.”
“That’s not the issue…”
“Tsuzuki-san,” I called, then handed Ushio the cell phone currently connected to the SCR. “I need you to stay on the line and give us updates. Once the broadcast goes live, I’ll be listening to the studio and directing Narayama-kun, so I need you to stand next to the camera and relay everything you hear—how many seconds we have, things like that.”
“Got it.”
“Hey, you’re in the way! What are you people doing?!”
Just then, a cop came bristling over, waving his hands. After all the field reporting I’d been sent on, I’d learned to tell the difference between “you’re sincerely in the way” and “I’m just annoyed that you’re here.” This was the latter.
Before Nishikido could pipe up, I held out a hand to stop him, then bowed in greeting. Times like these, a little fame came in handy.
“Hello, there, officer. I’m Kunieda with Asabi TV, here to report on the incident. We’re outside the caution tape and we’re not obstructing the fire hoses, so I don’t think we’re violating any regulations. But if there’s anything specific you’d like us to adjust, we’re all ears.”
“Well, no, but… Gah…” The cop faltered at my unwavering eye contact, then walked off, grumbling.
“You’ve got balls, kid.”
“Hey, Nishikido-san?”
“Whaddya want?”
“A while ago, when we were covering that food poisoning story…did you pick a fight with that man on purpose to divert him away from me?”
“Yeah, so?” He shrugged like it was no big deal. “It’s our job to protect the talent, and in return, you talk to the camera. Ain’t that right, Narayama?!”
“Eeegh!” Narayama let out a shriek as Nishikido suddenly rounded on him.
“Your flagship station senpai’s busting his ass over here! If you call yourself a man, then grow a pair!”
But of course, a live broadcast didn’t operate purely on grit. We didn’t even have a reference monitor, so we’d have to wing it with no knowledge of how the footage would look on the air.
If I took my cues from Shitara, then it would likely be better for the viewers that I reported this; I’d be tossing back and forth with Asou, so we could probably figure it out without a live director at all. But if I didn’t throw Narayama in front of this camera for some off-the-cuff shock therapy, he was likely to drop out of the industry altogether. Sure, maybe he could do radio or something, but he’d still be branded a failed news anchor.
Granted, not that it would impact my life whatsoever. I’d just met the guy; it wasn’t my responsibility to accommodate his needs.
But come on, man, isn’t this your dream? Didn’t you work like hell to make it happen? And now you’re wussing out with an “I can’t”?
These were the thoughts on my mind as I scrawled out a script in magic marker on a sketchbook I found in the equipment bag. I could feel sweat dripping down the back of my neck.
“They say we’ve got five minutes,” Ushio reported, still on the line with the SCR. And at that exact moment, my phone rang. I answered, thinking it would be Shitara. It wasn’t. It was Asou.
“Sorry, but I’m not tossing with that amateur.”
Just like that, all of our efforts to make this happen were threatening to come to naught. I nearly caved, but somehow managed to push back with, “He’s not an amateur. He was trained to be a news anchor.”
“If he has no experience with field reporting, then to me, he’s an amateur. National television? Are you out of your mind? Stick to local news if you want to parent him so badly. My show is not your training ground!”
“Don’t worry, sir, I’m going to coach him.”
“For what purpose? Instead of wasting your breath, you should do it yourself. My point is, I’m not speaking to him.”
“Asou-san, please,” I pressed.
In response I was met with mirthless laughter bordering on derision. “This isn’t like you, Kunieda. What are you so fixated on? It might be a big fire, but it’s out in the mountains, and there are no casualties. It’s just not the kind of story that’s worth slapping together an unplanned broadcast that has every chance of falling apart.”