Production Prep

It is that time of year again... Time to begin another film project as the fall sports season gears up. What does that mean for me? A few things:

First, life is about to get VERY hectic. In a few short weeks, the volleyball game schedule will kick in, putting us out of the house and on the road (whether its a home game or away, it's still a lot of driving time!) almost every other night. One night well be here in Eugene, two nights later over the pass in Bend, or Cottage Grove, or over to the coast... Let's just say that we'll easily log several thousand miles during the course of the season. If it wasn't for my video involvement with the team, heck, I would barely see my wife between now and mid-November.

Second, I will get to spend much of the next few months in my "happy place", with a large camera firmly attached to my shoulder, chasing around the action of the team both on and off the court. While the shooting times are fairly straight forward, its the times away from the court that make for a very busy lifestyle. Take the last two weeks (and on-going for the next several) for example... Although shooting doesn't officially begin until Tuesday, I had to:

• Pull out last years video backdrop and repaint it to reflect this years production style. (Little Calvin eagerly helped with this one..)
• Begin to establish music lists of songs we have collected over the last year for possible use.
• Storyboard the scenes I have mentally put together over the last year and begin penciling these onto the calendar so there is time to get everything shot
• Pull all the video gear (spread out amongst many storage boxes) to make sure everything works
• Establish and practice new lighting designs to get this year's desired effects done correctly
• Begin graphic design for the team's t-shirts, sweatshirts, and eventually the DVD covers (although that will be much later in the season before those are finalized)
• Practice set ups and take downs of the gear to get back into the flow of doing this quickly. Many days, I leave the office for lunch break, drive to the campus, set up my gear, do an interview, take everything back down and get back to work.. all in under an hour, so as not to get busted at my regular job. This requires speed, coordination and great timing, all of which has to be practiced.
• Coordinate space on campus to shoot all this stuff including the ideas new to this year's production
• Play with the new "toys", to learn their tricks. For instance this year, I am adding a dolly track system to my gear that I'll be using for shooting some of the "more-specialized" sequences. The tracks and dolly system are all currently being custom built for me so I can begin shooting with them in the next week, but getting their set up down and actually filming with them will take some work!

This last weekend was the "final prep" weekend. This was my chance to get everything out, lighting and sound tested and the newly painted backdrop in place. I am sure my wife loves this, as I turn our living room into a studio... lights here.. backdrop there.. wires all over the floors, computers and software boxes strewn about.

Finally, it all came together in my test run. And who better to put in front of the camera for this first trial but Little Calvin. There's nothing like attempting to keep a 6 year old (7 on Wednesday.. yikes) occupied and holding still while sitting on a stool in front of lights, microphones and T.V. monitors (as he makes funny faces to himself in the monitors as I fix a focusing issue). But eventually I got everything worked out.. and a rather bizarre interview done with my son, as he filled me in on his favorite movies, the challenges of designing a theme park, along with cameos from his two pet gerbils. (Click below to see the results, or, if the video doesn't come up, click here to access it directly)

But, I think it is all coming together. As I have attempted to analyze in past blogs..this is the most crazy, hectic and insane time of year.. and yet I thrive on this.. loving every minute.

The season is beginning.. so for the first time this season, I can now say.. Go Spartans!

Vacation Report: 2007

It is time to sleep! It is time to recover! It is time for a vacation!! Oh wait.. that's right I am just getting back from my vacation. Ok, so I need a vacation... to recover from my vacation!

In case you are wondering about my absence from the blog, well, I have been on our annual family vacation to the Oregon Coast. This is the trip where my folks come out from Colorado and we all rent a beach house somewhere on the Oregon Coast to relax and have fun in. This year, after several years in the Pacific City area, we did something different and headed to the south coast, a place where none of us have been (and that includes me, an Oregon Coast lover who has lived here for 13 years... pathetic).

So this year, Bandon was our home base, with a great, two-story ocean front beach house overlooking the rocky beaches of the area. Highlights from this years vacation included:

A speed boat trip up the Rogue River. Beginning in Gold Beach Oregon we boarded Jerry's River Jets and headed east up the river. For those of you who have never had the opportunity to take one of these trips.. I highly recommend them! The speed boats do go quite fast, rocketing their way up river, in some places appearing only inches deep. In some stretches of water, the captain will actually spin the boat in circles, making for a fun (and wet) quick thrill!

The captains also know the rivers very well and provide area history and ample wildlife sightings. In our trip we saw deer, ducks, beavers (notice I say ducks BEFORE beavers...), a bald eagle actually pulling a fish from the water, and even a bear munching on some berries.

As we reach the midpoint of the journey, the boat stops for dinner as we picked from several restaurants. We chose the all you can eat, home cooked buffet. The food was outstanding and at the end of the meal, we all had to almost be rolled back down to the docks in wheel barrows from our over eating, and dessert bar trips.

Finally, as the sun dropped below the coast line in a spectacular sunset, we arrived back at the coast, a little sun burned, wind blown, wet and still full of dinner.

The other major trip of the week was down south to the California Redwoods. This was a first for the family, all of us having wanted to visit, but never taking the opportunity. After spending several hours in the van, we eagerly got out at a sign pointing to a "Big Tree". This made me smile... like they have to point out the big trees in this forest. Yeah.. Ok.

Well, they actually had a point here. This was one BIIIIIIGGGGG tree, my kids looked like tiny smurfs standing in front of the beast.

Also in the Redwoods was the "Lady Bird Johnson" trail, where the park was dedicated years ago. This was close to filming locations for "Return of the Jedi" thus dooming my kids to all my stories and comments and trivia about the little planet of Endor and its Ewok inhabitants.

And speaking of movie locations, we also visited locations from Jurassic Park: The Lost World. Most interesting was the "Fern Canyon", a thin yet deep canyon where both sides of the canyon are totally covered in ferns.

It is a strange, yet pretty site to hike through. (Movie fans will remember watching some poor hiker get chased and eaten by the Packies in the Lost World, filmed in this spot) After a day of hiking, it was time to head North again, back to the beach house.

The rest of the time was spent doing the simple things the family loves: building with sand on the beach, hiking, exploring light houses, roasting marshmallows on a beach fire, and card games lasting way too late in the evening. And after all were in bed, I finally had my few free minutes each night to finish getting through the final Harry Potter book.

And thus concluded yet another family trip. Now it's time to get back to work and all the realities of life. Now.. is it nap time. I have to recover from my vacation!