EXCERPTS
From The Cameraman in Clogs - Always Rolling
Three short excerpts from the stories. Each takes a few minutes to read
• MAY THE SCHWARTZ BE WITH YOU • FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS, HAITI STYLE
• YOU’RE UNDER ARREST
May The Schwartz Be With You
-A moment with Mel Brooks I’ll never forget-
Before I became the cameraman in clogs, I’d walk into a room, and someone would call out, “May the Schwartz be with you,” from the comedy Spaceballs.
The line followed me everywhere.
On sets. Sidewalks. Inside stores. Sometimes it was shouted from across the room. It was my punchline and my personal greeting, all rolled into one.
Then one day, I met the man who created it. Mel Brooks.
I was shooting behind-the-scenes on the 2005 remake of The Producers. His interview took place in a quiet midtown office, steps from the real Broadway. We weren’t sure what mood we’d find him in, since his wife, actress Anne Bancroft, had recently passed away.
We rode the elevator up, knocked, and waited.
The door creaked open slowly.
No assistants. No security. No entourage.
Standing there alone was the unmistakable, mythical Mel Brooks himself.
In his raspy Brooklyn accent, he welcomed us. My producer and soundman introduced themselves. My heart was hammering. How would he react when he heard my name? Would he laugh? Ignore it?
I stepped toward him, set my camera on the floor, extended my hand, and said, “Hi, I’m Jeff Schwartz,” my Queens accent, unmistakable.
He looked straight at me and said nothing.
Then he stepped closer.
Reaching out, he took my hand in both of his and held it tight.
Our eyes locked.
Several long seconds passed.
His hands slipped from mine. His gaze stayed.
Then, with perfect theatrical flair, he stepped back, bowed his head, raised his hands like a rabbi giving a blessing, and spoke in that oh-so-familiar voice,
“May the Schwartz be with youuuuuu.”
My jaw dropped. The biggest smile spread across my face.
I relived that moment every time I heard my name. The line I'd heard a thousand times no longer felt the same way.
It carried the creator's blessing.
More excerpts from behind the camera ↓
Free And Fair Elections, Haiti Style
-We tried shooting the journey of a market woman in Haiti. What happened next still haunts me-
We met Rosa in the Port-au-Prince market. She sold limes from a sliver of a stall and smiled often, even when it seemed there wasn’t much to smile about.
She lived deep in the countryside, about ninety minutes away by car. She didn’t have one, so she took tap-taps, colorful pickup trucks packed with passengers. The trip took most of a day each way.
She’d stay at the market for several nights, selling fruit until every lime was gone. Then she’d head home with a few dollars. Two, if she was lucky.
Our producer, Marvin, bought out her stall and asked if she’d let us film her story, a video portrait to be included in our broader coverage of Haiti’s first democratic election. She agreed.
Driving through the countryside, houses made of mud, tarp, and metal scraps sagged by the roadside. Canals overflowed with fecal sludge. The smell kept me breathing through my mouth.
Rosa’s home, a two-room hut shared with her husband, children, and extended family, lacked electricity and plumbing. They cooked over a fire pit, used a hole in the ground as a toilet, bathed and washed in the river, and drank water pumped by hand from a communal well.
Her children stared at Joanne, my sound person, fascinated by her pale skin and strawberry-blond hair. One girl hesitantly reached out to touch it.
“Bel,” she said with a smile, meaning “beautiful” in Creole.
Joanne smiled back and snipped off a few strands for them to keep.
“I hope it brings them luck,” I said.
I thought about my own kids at home. Their clean sheets and school lunches.
We came to Haiti to cover a story. For Rosa and these kids, this wasn’t a story.
We followed her to the fields. She showed us how she picked limes, filling a heavy burlap sack. Hoisting it onto her shoulder, she strained under its weight. About forty pounds pulling her shoulder down as she walked.
We decided to shoot a reenactment of her trip to the market. It felt simple enough.
She climbed onto a tap-tap. I joined her briefly in the back with the other passengers, camera rolling. At the next stop, I hopped out and got into our jeep to shoot from different angles.
She started to climb down to follow me. I waved her back. “Stay there. We’ll catch up.”
She nodded, but I wasn’t sure she understood. I didn’t stop to make sure. Our jeep pulled ahead so I could shoot the approaching tap-tap at the next stop. When it arrived, Rosa wasn’t on it.
We drove down the road toward a gathering crowd. Fruit was scattered across the road. I jumped out.
Rosa lay on the ground, bleeding and unconscious.
I felt sick. Sweating and chilled. I couldn’t move for a second. No phones. No medics. I never saw how she ended up in the road. How did it happen?
We lifted her into the back seat, her head resting on Joanne’s lap, and sped back to Port-au-Prince. Marvin gripped the wheel. Ninety silent, jarring minutes over rocky roads.
Every pothole sent a jolt through Rosa and all of us.
I kept replaying that last shot, wondering if our filming had anything to do with it. Wondering if she tried to follow me.
Was she robbed? Pushed? With every bump came more questions.
Blood seeped from her head. Her body was limp but still breathing.
Inside the hospital, bloodstains covered the walls and floor. The smell of disinfectant and something worse spoiled every breath.
No mattress. No bedding. So hot inside, yet a chill raced through me.
For twenty American dollars, we had a doctor examine her. He spoke English and had trained in the States. He handed me a list of medications and supplies and told me where to buy them.
“Patients must buy their own,” he said.
I went to get the medicine. Joanne stayed by Rosa’s side. Marvin went to the German embassy looking for better care. The elite didn’t come here.
Helpless, scared, and ashamed, I didn’t know what else to do.
I had a camera, not a cure.
I came to tell stories of democracy and hope. Now this was our story.
That night, a quarter moon hung in the sky as darkness covered the city. We left Rosa behind in that hellhole hospital and drove back to the hotel.
We had clean sheets and air conditioning. She had a grimy gurney. While we sat down to a three-course dinner, Marvin assured us she would be okay.
I wanted to believe him.
Another excerpt from behind the lens ↓
You’re Under Arrest
-A routine shoot in Manhattan turned into something I never expected-
“Move on. You can’t shoot here.”
The cop came out of nowhere.
We were already rolling.
It was a gray, drizzly day in May. We were scheduled to shoot a segment for CNN’s World Beat, an international music show featuring artists from Tony Bennett and David Bowie to U2.
We were at Sean John’s headquarters in the Garment District, preparing to shoot Sean Combs, P. Diddy, Puff Daddy, whatever name he was using that week.
Our host, Brooke, an actor and model, often taped her stand-ups on city streets. Diddy hadn’t arrived yet. The rain had just stopped, and the pavement still glistened, so we went outside to shoot.
You’ve probably noticed how many outdoor scenes look like they were shot right after a rain. That’s a common Hollywood trick called a “wet-down.” Spray the streets, let the light bounce, reflections pop, and colors glow.
This time, nature handled it for us. The rain was real, and so was what came next.
Brooke’s voice cut through the hum of traffic as she walked down the block delivering her lines. That’s when a New York City cop walked up between my camera and Brooke, "Move on. You can’t shoot here.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“You can’t film on the sidewalk. Do you have a permit?”
“We’re a CNN news crew,” I said. “We don’t need one.”
New York City rules allow handheld news crews on public sidewalks without permits as long as they’re not blocking traffic. We weren’t blocking anything.
The officer didn’t care. He stepped closer. Brooke started writing down his name and badge number. He snapped at her, spelling it like he wanted it remembered.
“MCDERMOTT. M-C-D-E-R-M-O-T-T.”
I raised my camera and hit the record button. He saw it. That’s when everything changed.
He lunged toward me. His summons book slammed into my lens. Before I could react, he twisted my arm behind my back.
“Now you’re creating a public disturbance,” he said. “You’re under arrest.”
“Are you serious?” I yelled. “Under arrest for what?”
No answer.
The cuffs came on tight, cold metal biting into my wrists. Too tight. He called for backup. I didn’t move.
My soundman pulled the camera off my shoulder and kept rolling. The audio cable came loose. The whole thing was recorded in silence. No one would hear it, but everyone could see it.
McDermott shoved me against the building, using the weight of his body to pin me there. He read me my rights.
People stopped, stared, and hurried by. For them, it was just another day on 39th Street.
Brooke called the CNN office.
A squad car pulled up. He walked me over, hands behind my back. He pushed my head down, guiding me into the back seat, then slid in beside me. On the ride to the precinct, I asked him to loosen the cuffs. They were digging into my wrists. He didn’t.
Arrested for shooting a stand-up. I almost laughed.
At the precinct, the desk sergeant sat perched on his desk. He looked down at me, then at McDermott, then back to me. He paused, then shrugged.
“Do you know what’s going on here?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
McDermott went through my pockets. He took out my wallet, driver’s license, and cash. He counted the cash, noted the amount, and returned it to the wallet. Then he pulled out a small tin from my pocket and opened it up. It was filled with little white pills.
“What’s this?”
“Starbucks mints,” I said.
He held it in his hand, turned it over, then looked at me. For a second, I thought he might call it something else. He didn’t. Not on that day.
He frisked me from head to toe and shackled me to a metal pole in a holding room. In the adjacent cell, two women dressed for a working night on the streets could walk around and sit on a bench. I was locked on the pole.
McDermott walked out.
I stood there, cold and almost shivering, trying to decide if any of this was real. Then another cop walked in, grinning. “Your crew is waiting in the lobby,” he said.
He looked down at my feet. “So, what did he arrest you for? Wearing those clogs?”
He laughed, but I didn’t.
At that point, it could’ve been anything. The clogs, the camera, the mints. No one was going to stop him. The call for backup had gone out over the radio. No one asked me a question when I arrived. No one questioned McDermott. They stood by him. That’s how it works.
My crew stood with me. Brooke had been right there on the sidewalk, writing down his badge number and arguing with him, yet he didn’t touch her. He took me.
Forty minutes later, McDermott returned with two summonses.
One for disorderly conduct and another for obstruction and failure to comply. He never told me what I did wrong.
He did tell me to sign on the line. I refused. He signed for me and wrote “Refused.”
With a court date set in two months, I was free to go.
We weren’t doing anything wrong, but a badge said we were. I walked out that day. I had a crew, a network, and a lawyer in my corner. Not everyone does. Most don’t.
I’ve filmed on military bases and in prisons. Inside the UN and at foreign embassies. I’ve had Secret Service clearance and filmed Prime Ministers, Kings, and five U.S. Presidents.
None of that mattered.
I wanted to fight it. I wrote letters and looked for a way to push back. Then 9/11 happened. The city changed overnight.
A week before my court date, a CNN attorney called. The charges were dropped. My record expunged.
I walked away clean, but not everyone does.
