Vince Gancie was the best cameraman I've ever known. Every time he pushed the record button, you got solid gold... every pan and tilt liquid smooth, everything always in focus, framed perfectly with the right background behind the subject every time... and lit perfectly too. His lighting schemes consistently produced a national-quality look in his interviews on par with anything on PBS or major network television.

I had the pleasure of interning at NBC Washington under the expert tutelage of Vince during production of their 50th Anniversary Special, working out of Vince's studio / offices in the basement of the building. Documentary filmmaker Dr. George A. Colburn, a long time family friend set the internship up. I learned as much in those 2 months about how big-time production works as I did my 4 years at University of Michigan's outstanding film school... even things as simple as how to wind an extension cord up after taking down lights so the next time you use it, you can throw it forward across the room and it will untether in a perfectly line.

Years later, I worked with George Colburn on his 2007 Navajo Code Talker documentary, serving as editor, working with all of Vince's HD footage, maybe sixty 1 hour tapes worth. It was as an editor, scouring each tape for the right soundbite or b-roll clip, that I realized Vince never makes an error while filming. Before, in my  internship, I wasn't able to see what he was recording. I just saw that he conducted the shoot with the utmost professionalism and was impressed with the way he dressed sets and lit them. I tried to employ some of those techniques when I started my own company, Hartwell Digital Media, around 2003... but could never attain his level of perfection behind the camera. I had plenty of my own raw footage tapes where maybe there were 10-20 usable clips out of a 100... but every single shot Vince took during that Navajo session, at the reservation and in visits to key Pacific Island battlefields, were framed perfectly the first time, and smooth as silk with camera motion (perhaps because of his patented rubber band technique from wrist to tripod arm), so there were no second takes. He would just move onto another shot or framing of scene just as good as the one before it. What a gift to an editor was Vince, the ultimate cameraman... and I KNOW George Colburn would agree.

-Rich Hartwell

I started working with Vince my first week at Dateline NBC in 1997. He was a relentlessly creative and innovative Director of Photography. I learned a lot from him, and admired his work ethic and almost magical way of making people enjoy hours of difficult and sometimes painstaking work. (What they were enjoying was Vince.) I knew we'd hit it off the first night out of town at dinner when I cracked an off-color joke and Vince exclaimed in front of the crew, "Oh thank God, with the last producer we had to talk about current events!" (Looking at you, Michael Kosnar 😏)

In recent years, Vince shot and cut innumerable interviews and stories for Danny Cohen and me as we highlighted the work of the country's nursing and pharmacy schools. He helped our greener DPs and editors bring it to the next level, and generally set the high production values we wanted to maintain for every project. Over the last year, Vince had started doing the same thing for Urban Health Media Project, the brainchild of his great friend Jayne O'Donnell.

As Jack Cloherty kindly mentioned, we are starting a fund to help Lena and Luca finish their college educations, and will be sharing details soon. Please see the post by Lena about Vince's funeral mass and reception on September 10th.

Below are two photos of Vince and me: one taken by our favorite NBC correspondent Lea Thompson on-location (note Vince's red hair); and the other a selfie I took Sunday afternoon at Vince's favorite dive crab place in Arlington where we celebrated his 68th birthday the day before. He was looking forward to a year of working hard, helping his kids, and loving the two of them as much as ever. Life is uncertain, clearly, but Vince knew it didn't end here. Godspeed my friend. Looking forward to seeing you again someday.