So this has been a busy week, not that that's a bad thing necessarily, but sometimes you have so much going on its hard to decide what to focus on and this past week has definitely been one of those: So before we even get into the work week, last weekend Aeryn and I took a semi-last minute day trip up to San Antonio (a 4ish hour drive away from Houston for those who don't know Texas) and by the time you account for the drive, it was a little exhausting, and I slept most of Sunday, but we had fun. We spent the evening on the riverwalk and had dinner before driving back - and while we were waiting for our table, I took the opportunity to play with my iPhone in the low light of the riverwalk at night: Mostly, I wanted to take the opportunity to see what I thought of Moment's camera app, since it allows you to take control of many of the shooting settings and shoot raw if you choose. Also, I've been agonizing over getting one (or more) of their external lenses for the phone, and part of that decision is what I think of the app, which can modify the image based on the lens I tell it I have on the phone. I've played with the lenses before, but not on my own phone, and I really like the idea of increasing the capabilities of the camera I always have on me. Overall I'm pretty happy with what the app offers. It also has video recording capability - including a log mode that I played with while we were waiting for our table. Hopefully I'll be able to push that through one of my edit systems and play with the color a bit before too long to see how that looks. Of course, once I've done that I'll share the results with you.
Meanwhile, the same Bloomberg talent started her day at our studio really early on Tuesday, where we shot her morning show live, which included some of her interviews from the day before. Of course, it obviously wasn't as simple as just running in and grabbing the interviews and getting out. Even though we ran a little light, we still had a decent sized kit that had to be set up before the guests were there Monday, and then we shot back to back interviews well into the afternoon both days. Not necessarily hard work, but definitely a couple longer days. The really cool thing about the location shoot was that we were feeding the video back to New York live via LiveU, and as far as I was aware those feeds were pretty much rock solid out of the convention center. Bloomberg was able to get the interviews turned around and on the air that day or early the following morning as needed, instead of waiting for us to FTP the footage or put it on a drive and FedEx it to them. No big sat trucks, no fiber feed to sort out. Just turn on the LiveU and hit the live button. I love working with LiveU units, while the technology isn't "perfect" just yet, I'd say 99% of the time that I've used them they operate flawlessly, even when you're testing it out and trying to "break it" - it was the same workflow we used with Bloomberg last year for the same coverage, so it was a very familiar setup this week.
Which brings me to today: A couple more small things to get sorted and then I spent the rest of the day working on prep for The 39 Steps. (Check out last week's post - my first behind the scenes production blog.)
Auditions are Sunday and Monday, and to be a honest, I'm a little nervous. Not that I'm concerned about my ability to pull it off or anything like that - just the anticipation is killing me. I've been planning and puzzling my way through the show off and on for months. There's so many moving parts and keeping them all in order is going to be a challenge. This has more going on both on stage and behind the scenes than any other stage show I've been a part of at the theatre, and that challenge is part of what drew me to it. This week the real work begins, and I'm ready to dive in and get started. I love the idea of playing in that universe and bringing a variation of a Hitchcock film to the stage. On that note, actors in the Houston/Clear Lake area who want to come out to audition - more information can be found here. And I think that covers everything from the past week. As always thank you for reading, and feel free to drop a comment below if you'd like to know more about anything I write about in this blog. Also, be sure to follow me on Twitter and Instagram: @tomameek Until next time. -Thomas |
AuthorThomas Meek is an independent filmmaker living and working in Houston, TX Archives
March 2021
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