Sony Shoot

Last week I went on my first location shoot with my new job. We were shooting promo videos for Sony's new 3D TVs. Mark (my new boss), Roy (a freelance cameraman) and I headed to San Diego early Wednesday morning. We met up with Jennifer from the PR firm the owns my company and made it to Sony headquarters that afternoon. The set designers and gaffer had been there most of the day, so the engineering space where we were shooting already looked like a mad scientist's lab when we arrived. It was great; there were waveform monitors and vector scopes everywhere, along with a ton of props brought by the set designer and of course the Sony TVs. We spent the next few hours tweaking the lights and finalizing the set design.

Before we left for the night, Ray from Sony gave us tickets to a professional woman's tennis match that his company was sponsoring. Most of us had never been to a pro tennis match, so we headed over there. It was really exciting. The #2 ranked woman in the world, who I had never heard of before that night, Jelena Jankovic, was playing. We settled in with some food and drinks and watched her lose.

The next morning, we arrived early and made the final adjustments to the set and lighting. Ray and Arturo (one of Sony's 3D TV engineers) were the stars of the show. They went through three half-improvised, half-scripted demonstrations about the features of Sony's 3D TVs. At lunch, we came up with some funny "that's what she said" jokes to go into the segments and filmed them at the end of the day, but I doubt they'll be seen outside of my edit suite.

The TVs themselves were really amazing. The image quality was, in many ways, better than what you see at the theater. The image was bright and clear and it really looked like things were popping out of the screen. Now I've got to start saving up for one.

Overall, the shoot went well. I really enjoyed working with a larger crew. When I was shooting news, I had to bring all the lights, camera and sound gear myself and I had to be the set designer and sometimes the makeup person. It was nice not having to worry about everything.

New Job, New Belt

I just finished the first week at my new job and so far so good! I'm now the director of photography / video editor at Proof. It's a small creative agency owned by a large PR firm. I like that it retains the small company feel, but draws on the resources of a larger organization.

I spent most of the week trying to get my head around all of the projects they have going on. I will have to learn quickly, because next week the main freelance editor will be gone for the political season and I will have to take over. On top of all the editing, we are going to San Diego for a shoot next Wednesday through Friday. Then in two weeks, we're going to Detroit for another shoot. I love shooting on location and I'm looking forward to all of the travel.

My other big news this week is that I got my blue belt in Jiu-Jitsu. I've been training for over a year now, but still don't feel ready to move past white belt. It's such a complex sport and there is still so much I have to learn. I'll probably never feel like I know enough. I guess that's a good thing and the reason I keep coming to class. Regardless, it feels good to be making progress and I can definitely tell I'm getting better. Emily has been taking kickboxing classes for a year as well, so if we ever got in a fight, it would at least be interesting to watch!