NASCAR Wrap up

WoW! That’s what I got to say about this season with NASCAR on FOX, This coming weekend will be my Final Race in Kansas. I’ve Never experienced anything like it before and looking back it was an amazing experience. I didn’t realized how much I learned. Even though I didn’t know anything about NASCAR when I started, I definitely have a new appreciation for it. There is a LOT more to it than cars going fast in circles. There is an element of strategy that you don’t see at first glance. As far as the TV part goes, Its awesome to see the spectacle come together, every weekend! Its definitely made me much better at what I do just by being in the super fast paced environment. Huge kudos to Skip, for being able to turn out such spectacular results in such a short time and and space, yes definitely the space it worth mentioning. I cant thank him enough for letting me in and running behind him all this time. I enjoyed every moment, really.

The races after Martinsville each had their own charm. The anxiety I used to have going into each weekend slowly went away as I became more confident with my job and what went on. I had the chance to shoot some video myself and even light a small room for and interview. At times we had lots of rain and recently lots of sun. I got to see and feel Talladega nights, yes, Ricky Bobby was mentioned and I tasted alligator on the grill. Saw the Real Hudson Hornet, (He was a character in the Pixar Movie “CARS”), and even met Larry the Cable guy. Here are some highlights from the past six races.

 

 

Fun Times in Charlotte

I had a chance to have to have some fun outside in Charlotte, I snapped some pics to give an idea of what I’ve been up to here.

Spent a day at the US whitewater center here. Its great! I havnt tried the actual rafting yet, but I have tried the adventure climbs and the Mountain bike trails are some of the best around. US Whitewater center

I also have been running into a whole bunch of snakes down here!

This guy was just hanging out in the parking lot.

Navy Seals Part 2

 

Had to start off with a good picture!

We went back to spend another day at the Navy Seals Camp. This time to find out if our reporter, Diane McInerney  from “Inside Edition”, could hack it.

If was a full day of scaling walls, smashing through windows, helicopters, explosions and firing some pretty big guns. It was literally an action packed day!

My job was to run audio this day, as usual. This time it was a bit more intensive. I had 3 wireless mics on any 3 people at one time, depending on who would be talking next I had to be johnnie on the spot moving a mic to someone new. The audio ran wirelessly to the camera from my bag so Jimmy would have the freedom to move around. Since we were running around a lot of times it was awesome not to be tethered. 

Jimmy at the Hands of a .50cal rifle. This thing is such a monster, your picking grass out of your teeth after firing this sucker. The ammo is the size of my hand!!

More on the story here:

Inside Edition's Diane takes on the Navy Seals

Navy Seals Part 1

One day I got a call to run audio for the Show “Inside Edition” doing a story on the training of the Navy seals. I was really excited about this shoot, who wouldn’t be! I set off to Chesapeake, VA where Paul Boyd from Inside Edition was going to go through some of the rigors of Navy Seal Training. It was an awesome day. Jimmy Hall was camera, and things went so smoothly that they hired us again to come out for round 2 next week. I’ll keep you posted on the conclusion, in the meantime follow this link for more on what happened that day with Paul.

Paul Boyd in Navy Seal Training

Soccer Artist

Its been awhile since I’ve posted anything in this blog, lately I have had the chance to do some other shoots during the week in between NASCAR races. One was a little story for ESPN about an awesome 16year old soccer player that is well, awesome.

E:60 Indi Cowie from Brian Liburd on Vimeo.

16 year old Soccer Artist

Martinsville, VA

Martinsville reminded me of Bristol. Both are located in about the same region and both tracks a pretty small, but the Martinsville track doesn’t have the high banking turns.

We definitely had a busy schedule. The main feature for this race was an interview with Kevin Harvick. This was a 3 camera set up with lights and all the fixings. We used the same insulation sheets for the background as we did in Daytona. I mean the same exact sheets, I have no idea how they lasted until now, but they work surprisingly well. I have become much more comfortable with audio. This weekend there were a lot of things we did with audio, and I've been happy with the results so far. I thing my Boom skills need just a tad more practice, Skip gave me a few more tips, but for one or two person interviews and sound bytes, I think I'm doing pretty well.

<a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/video?vid=ab0309c6-0d82-4948-bbee-3316f73bafd0" target="_new" title="">NASCAR on FOX: The Closer</a>

Kevin Harvick Interview in Martinsville, VA

 

We had to set up very quickly for some driver soundbytes in almost the tiniest space imaginable. I walked in and stopped, this space was like 4X10 and it was basically a breezway.

 

It was amazing how Skip was able to quickly and efficiently light this tiny space and make it look as good as it did. Using the F3 with a 85mm prime lens had a lot to do with it as it helped soften the background to help provide some depth. It was only a bust shot, so we could get away with the small space.  

I also tasted the Martinsville Hot dog. Its not bad, a little different than what I’m used too, the dog has more pink in it, topped with mustard and coleslaw.

Shooting scenics in Martinsville was pretty fun, we saw a lot of interesting things that made us laugh.

This one’s for you Paul!

Fontana, CA

First time in California and when I showed up, it seemed cold! Fontana is located way east of Los Angeles in a more industrial area near the airport.

First day of work was shooting practice and qualifying. Usually Skip shoots this on the new Sony F3 camera with the prime lenses. One feature of Prime lenses is that they are at a fixed focal length, meaning you cannot zoom with a prime lens. If you want to go from a wide angle to a telephoto angle, you have to physically take the wide lens off and put on the telephoto lens. My job during that time is to carry a small variety of these prime lenses with me in a backpack while following Skip. Depending on the subject matter we encounter, he may want to change lenses a couple times to get different perspectives.

So during NASCAR practice we usually get shots of the cars in the garage, lining up especially the drivers coming out and getting in the cars. Skip tries to find the most creative angles and shots of the drivers. Many times he’ll use slow motion or time lapse of signs and crowds. A few times in Fontana he would set up a shot and then leave, and I would have to stand by the camera until he would come back or the time lapse reached a certain time, usually 15 minutes of so. This was my chance to peer into the viewfinder and study the shot a bit.

  

Its hard to tell in this picture but it was amazing to me how much detail there was in the shadows with the sun directly behind. This camera really has some great latitude.

During the actual race we would drive around the infield of the track and find shots of spectators. Here we climbed up on top of someone's RV and it revealed a whole other world on this level.

 

I really neat moment was when a friend of Skip’s who usually shoots on the RED camera brought along a RED EPIC

http://www.red.com/products/epic.

The RED EPIC is not for sale yet but The guys were pretty excited about it.