Heading to Florida

I leave for my next shoot tomorrow.  I'll be filming a show for Dead Meat about hunting pythons.  This should be interesting : )

Shell Shocked

I flew into Kansas today to film a show called Shell Shocked.  The show is fast paced with lots of quick cuts, so I had to bring 5 cameras down with me.  The flight went smooth, I got my rental car, and drove to Hutchinson, KS. I ran around the city and filmed B-roll during the day, and was supposed to meet up with the host, Patrick Flanigan tonight.
Anyway, I get a text saying he missed his flight for reasons I can't discuss.  Our shoot was only supposed to be two days, so cramming it into a smaller time-frame would be impossible.  Ginger, the producer, called me just a little bit ago and decided to cancel the shoot.  So, I fly back to Missoula tomorrow.  You never know what's going to happen with these TV shows.  I guess I can view it as a good little break from the Montana winter : )

Cinestar

I completed the cinestar and have had some awesome test flights.  Besides the accident on Valentines day, the cinestar took me about a weekend to build and then a couple of days of programming and making small adjustments to get it to fly smooth.  The cinestar is awesome!  It will be easy to travel with and films super smooth footage.  I'll put some of my test flights online later.  In the mean time, here's a photo of the cinestar and a shot of it compared the my octocopter in the back.

Epic Valentines Day - Seriously

So Valentines Day took an interesting turn and put Hannah in the hospital.  I built the new Cinestar 6 for filming aerial shots and was running some tests inside.  For the tests I was doing, the propellers have to be on, so I had Hannah hold the Cinestar down while I ran the motors.  Some setting was drastically off and the cinestar ripped through two wooden chairs and sliced Hannah's arm : (  Neither of of were expecting that to happen, and I'm not new to this programing, so it was a freak accident.  Her arm was sliced by the propeller and swelled up huge, so I took her to the ER.  It turns out her arm is not broken, but just needed five stitches.  I've known these helicopters were dangerous, but last night we really witnessed their power.

Hannah's arm will heal and the Cinestar settings are now adjusted correctly, so we're back in business.  This was a Valentines Day we will never forget.

Creating a Monster

I've officially turned my camera into a monster.  I've added a new lens to the collection and a bunch of awesome audio gear (sennheiser wireless mics with a juiced link preamp).  This is the sweetest rig I've ever filmed with.   I've used some pretty awesome $100,000 Sony XD cams, but they just don't compare.  The lenses on the XDCAMS are pretty amazing, but with this rig I can use any canon lens and it's much lighter and easier to switch stuff around than on the XD cams.  It is a little awkward and not super compact, but very versatile with superb quality.