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.