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!