Rod Denson - The TV Years

The TV Years

Mr. Denson began his television broadcasting career on November 11, 1963 when he was hired as WSYE/Elmira's first full time chief photographer by General Manager Art Kendall. Local news events of that era were filmed with 16mm cameras using negative film and Polaroid cameras with black-and-white prints. When the 16mm negative film was run through the projector in the control room the image was electronically reversed so it ended up a positive image on viewers home screens. To show the Polaroid prints they were taped to a board side by side, the board was then inserted into a slot on a wooden frame where the prints were moved horizontally. A studio camera was focused on a rectangular slot in the frame where the prints appeared one by one. As the anchor read news script the photos were moved in relation to the story.

In the late 70s Denson was one of the first cameramen in New York State and the nation to use portable color video tape recorders to shoot news events. Denson anchored the Saturday 11PM Newscast alone, doing the local, state, sports, national news and weather from Hawley Hill. There were times when the Saturday newscast was done with only two people in the building, an engineer in the control room and Denson in the Studio. Most of the time there were four people for that newscast, a director, engineer, studio cameraman and Denson.

Denson left WSYE in 1989, then known as WETM, after serving as an engineer for the station from 1987 to 1989. He later would join Elmira College's staff, managing the college's audio-visual department.

A video compilation of Rod's career can be found on YouTube.