This past weekend I spent working in Kansas City, MO for the NPPL live webcast of their Super 7 tournament event. I worked with friend and producer Jayne Romyn formerly from Outdoor Channel shows “Inside Paintball” and “Inside RC”. She was running a really tight crew of about 10 people that worked to get the live 8-hour a day streaming webcast running on www.nppllive.com.
This was my first time working a paintball event and my job was to go out and shoot, capture, edit and deliver small 3-5 minute segments that could be played during breaks in the action that gave people a taste of the flavor of being at a live event. I had a really good time working with the crew - they were all really talented individuals and incredibly efficient at their jobs. Here are some pictures from the event, followed by a short 2-minute hightlight reel of what I shot during the weekend.
Here’s a little tutorial I just made that shows a quick and easy way to get a pretty convincing bleach bypass film look using nothing but Final Cut Pro’s color correction filters.
Most of you who know me are very familiar with this project that I am working on, but for those of you who don’t, here is a link..
I invested A LOT of my time into this project. I traveled to Sri Lanka with Eric Klein and James Sicignano in early 2005 to document the tsunami that happened in December 2004 - and spent countless hours, with the help of Eric Klein and Matt Bieler, cutting this trailer for a movie that we are still in the process of making.
Next weekend I’m going to be travelling to Kansas City, MO to shoot an NPPL paintball event that is going to be broadcast live over the Internet on www.nppllive.com. This is going to be the first time that I’m going to be working an event like this and I’m looking forward to the run-and-gun shoot, edit, and deliver process that we’re going to have going.
Basically, the event is streamed live over the Internet with a production switcher that I imagine handles 3 or 4 camera angles. Since there is down time during the day that would normally translate to dead-time if you’re watching the live stream, the producer Jayne Romyn ( a good friend of mine and producer of former Outdoor Channel series ‘Inside RC’, ‘Inside Paintball’, and ‘Circle of Honor’) had the idea to have me shoot, edit, and deliver short segments from the field that can be shown during these periods. We’ll probably do some interviews, some highlight/profiles or people there, some fun/humorous stuff, and whatever else she feels like throwing in.
I’m going to be shooting on a Sony Z1U (HDV camera) probably in DV mode and then be editing on my Macbook, and delivering in Quicktime. Then I’ll repeat the process and do it over and over again. I look forward to the opportunity as most things I shoot aren’t very high pressure at all. The event is taking place at Kemper Arena, September 21-13. Hopefully the weather is decent and the plane ride not bumpy.
Last Saturday I shot an Indian wedding reception in Huntington Beach, CA at the Hilton Waterfront Hotel. Strangely enough, this is where my sister’s wedding reception was 12 years ago - brought back memories of her wedding photo album.
Just before the shoot I was able to stop at Samy’s camera in Santa Ana, CA to pick up a circular polarizer for my Cokin P series filter mount (I just recently purchased it and hadn’t yet bought any drop in filters for it). It was pricey - $91 with tax - but I really wanted a polarizer (I lost my last one… I have no idea what happened to it) and the cool thing is I’ll be able to use it on both my video camera and my still cameras with the cool P series deal.
So the shoot was flawless - the bride and groom were good people (not to mention well dressed). It had been a while since I shot photography for a wedding and it made me realize I should probably start taking on some non video gigs from time to time. This was the 7th wedding that I shot this summer (6 video, 1st photog).
I recently got a job teaching at John Paul the Great Catholic University in San Diego, CA. JPCU is welcoming their second incoming class of freshmen and I’ve been blessed enough to be able to welcome them to the world of web design and development. This is going to be a really cool class - it focuses on Adobe Dreamweaver CS3, Adobe Flash CS3, and Adobe Photoshop CS3 - all three in one class. It’s going to be hectic - that’s a lot of software for only 10 weeks of teaching - but I’m up for the challenge, and hopefully it will be a successful romp through cyberspace.
In addition to this new position I’m still editing, coloristing (my word), and motion graphic designing at Outdoor Channel in Temecula, CA. I’ve been there for 2 1/2 years and everything is still going well on that front.
Well, hopefully I’ll spend a little bit more time on this new and improved blog than I did on my last one - I lost interest pretty quickly. I’m going to try to focus this one more on the professional side of what I do - that being the video editing and the teaching. I’m starting to also teach Final Cut Pro classes and will soon be getting my certification as an Apple Professional Trainer - so I might as well keep the focus on that. Plus, nobody really wants to hear another person’s random political, social, or religious views on any given topic. Or do you? What??! You do?! Okay… I’ll relent. There may be a little of that too!
For those who are interested - my wife and I do have another blog at http://www.theescandons.com - that is more family oriented so family and friends can see what we’re up to. In fact, 90% of the blogging on that site is my wife and her beautiful ideas about motherhood and wifery. I’m leaving that one for her as I do this new one.
