During Christmas I took the time to drive to Portland where longtime friend Seth Fullerton has recently relocated. We had lunch with his buddy Jim (another Jim), drank coffee in his cool old house that he is restoring, and then we drove to his office and he showed off his Red camera. That is one major matte box. Very impressive. The camera is very sofisticated and does it all.
I look forward to seeing Seth again soon and certainly some of his work on TV.

I finally have a little time between family visits, anniversary (mine), and some Nashville production to add a few entries from the past few months. Before leaving California I had the opportunity to work on several projects with my good friend and colleague, Jim Piccirillo. One of which was a shoot at the Reagan Library.


This first shot is of the National Guard helicopter coming in for a scene with our actor and ANG crew. The whole project was for the "Discovey Center" videos. This one in particular depicted the invasion of Grenada. Cameraman Ed Riley and Sound Engineer Mike Curtis braved the cool temps up on this hilltop with the rest of us as we waited on the helicopter. That's Jim's hand and glove in the shot. He was there! I was too, and the proof is in the next two shots below. Lessoned learned, or should I say reinforced, is always over dress since you can always remove layers. I learned this at Marine Corps Officer's Candidate School and The Basic School. Ooh-rah!

After a short 1 year stint back in California we have been drawn away by a great job offer for my wife Pattiewack. We moved ourselves and all of our "stuff" to Nashville, TN for yet another adventure.


Music city here we come:



While in California from March 2007 until February 2008 I had the great opportunity to work on quite a few great projects with my buddies over at Valencia Production & Post. This shot of Jim Piccirillo-Mr. VPP- while I was working as the Camera Tech Supervisor on a production at The Reagan Library:



In the sidebar I mentioned I might add a few tips. Well on this shoot we learned that having an extra DigiBeta camera on hand (4 total) proved useful as we lost one
unit on our second day when it decided to "jump" off the steadicam C-Stand holder and crack the lens mount. Bye-bye insurance deductible. I think I saw a tear in
JP's eye later that day.

Here is a wild shot with my cell phone with Ed Riley and the ANG Blackhawk helicopter we were working with for this portion of the shoot. Crazy how the shutter speed of the cell phone gave the rotor blades the bent effect. I had to lay on the ground and guess when the Blackhawk would pass overhead and adjust for the lag in the camera shutter.



And just to prove I was there:


I know...not pretty.

The F-14 Tomcat on display brought back a few memories from my days on the USS Enterprise. The F-14 is one huge aircraft and it ist still a wonder of engineering that they flew at all, much less got launched off the "pointy end" of an aircraft carrier. "Eduardo" Riley appears to be in awe. Or maybe he is just wondering when we are gonna wrap this shoot.

After two years in Tulsa, Oklahoma an opportunity arose to bring our production company back to the west coast production hub. One of the first projects upon crossing the California border in early March was with my good buddies at Valencia Production & Post for The CW Network. With 5 days of "Upfront Development" shows it didn't take long for me to get my production brain screwed down tight. One cool tip that came out of this production was the use of some regular shop light type fluorescent lights to throw a colored glow on our small set. I hid the lights behind the short risers and wrapped the bulbs with colored gels. At first the light was a little intense so I went with just one bulb in each light and it worked beautifully. At only 8$ each for the fixture and a around a dollar per bulb this became one of the most useful "bang for the buck" tips I've discovered lately. Look for places to use this system on your next shoot and you'll impress yourself

Shortly after the first CW Upfront (the big one was to come) I ran a handheld camera for a Buddhist Monk Ceremony. We had 8 High Def. cameras including the use of 3 jibs. This was a production with Larry Cheong and West Coast Video Productions. It had been a while since I had worked with Larry and his crew...it might have been all the way back to the St. John UC Irvine Bren Center days.

Luckily the smoke decided to cooperate and blew mostly in the other direction. Stay tuned for more entries.