Update

Ron, Jag, Eric and myself met with Dana and Russ at Irvine studios this past Friday for a production meeting. This meeting was specific to the infomercial only. Russ is an editor who will be directing and editing the informercial. His ability to provide us finish cuts just minutes after filming is extremely benficial. The ideas that ran through the board room were excellent and we are looking forward to beginning that segment of the project.

First Part Over!

We are done with the first part of filming. We continue in studio next week to film the remaining parts. It was fun and very exhausting. The weather was irratic at times but overall we were blessed with having good elements. I will be posting up a slideshow of some of the pictures that were taken on the trip so stay tuned. We are looking to get all this wrapped up by March. We got some spectacular footage and now it's just about piecing them all in.

The crew was extremely fun to work with. Luann, Corinne, Matthias, Kate, Tonje, and Sam (not me)....thanks for your professionalism and we look forward to seeing you all in studio. Enjoy the rest of your time off.

Absolutely Stunning!

We filmed at Monument Valley today and I must say this place is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. We were shown areas that film crews of the past have gone to as well as seen sites that film crews have not seen before. Our guide, Fred, certainly has the eye for stunning places to see. His clients include: Steven Spielberg (Back To the Future 3), Robert Zemeckis (Forest Gump), Oliver Stone (?) and more. Now we can add ourselves to his list! Ya ok! This morning was extremely cold and it was considered a much warmer morning than usual. Tomorrow we look to film more scenics and start the photo journalistic element to the educational videos.

The above picture was taken this morning as we risked losing our fingers and toes due to the elements! Click here to see more pictures from today!

19 Shoots!!!

We shot 19 segments today that we all felt very good about. 7 beginner, 6 intermdeiate, and 6 advanced pieces. Kaimu Black Sand Beach was lit perfectly and we took advantage of the site (above picture) by setting up various scenes that many photographers find challenging. From there we went to Akaka Falls and found more excellently lit conditions. Akaka Falls happens to be a highly visited attraction here in Hilo and as a result we had some tough times holding people from stepping into a scene while filming. Lastly, we went to a Japanese Garden located right next to the the hotel. It was extremely windy and it did give our sound guy, Sam (another Sam) a fit. We closed up by taking portraits of Luann and Corinne to add to our "how to take pictures of people segment".

Click here to see more pictures from today!

Corinne taken with the Canon 5D and 50 1.4 at f1.4. Here again I fooled around with Picasa. Just a tiny bit of post processing was done.

Busy Days

We started filming yesterday and things turned out ok. Just ok? Well the sun didn't cooperate with us and part of a drive from one location shoot to another was a bit on the long side which we didn't experience the last time we drove it. The crew had a lot of energy and we did very well contentwise, however, we are looking to do much better today.

Above we have Luann posing for us. Fill flash was used to illuminate her and hold the bakground at the same time.

Shooting Locations and The Find of Our Lives

After 2 days of excruciating travel around Hawaii (black sand beaches, orchids, volcanoes,and extraordinary sunsets) we have decided to film at these locations (from left to right morning, midday, afternoon):

February 7 Puna Beach, Thurston's Lava Tube, Pu'Uhonua O Honaunau Natl. Park
February 8 Puna Beach, Rainbow Falls, Hapuna Bay
February 9 Puna Beach, Akaka Falls, Kiholo Bay
February 10 Kaimu Beach Go Home

It will be grueling as Ron has indicated. As a matter of fact Ron has also said that he will divulge information during these next 2 weeks that his students (beginner, interediate, or advanced) have never heard before. If anyone knows Ron, that is likely to be 100% true. The man that made us drink from a firehose is about to open Niagara Falls for us to drink from now.

Now for The Find of Our Lives!!! We had a late dinner at the restaraunt in the hotel to find that, get this, ALL YOU CAN DRINK BEER!!! MGD. I have never encountered an all you can drink beer scenario before, it was insane! Oh and the food was very good as well with crab legs, prime rib, poke, sashimi, sushi, and more.

Hilo

We scouted out Hilo all day today and visited at least 12 sites. It rained the majority of the day but we were able to finally complete what we set out to do. Our job now is to figure out which of the 20 sites we visited in 2 days to film at. One difficult task is to ensure efficiency between sites which can be rather difficult. Now that our roles as "Art Directors" is done it's time we put on our "Executive Producers" hat and make this project a success.

Interesting things did happen to us today. For starters we got lost. While scouting a "black sanded beach" we lost sense of where we parked our rental car. As a result we spent the better part of an hour trying to find it in a tropical downpour, not good. We played "sun chasers" and never found the sun. Well, we did, but it just never came out from behind the clouds. And then we found out that someone has been drinking our beer that we stored away in our hotel room, that was really bad.

Here are some scout pictures that I took when the weather permited me to. The above shot was taken while walking back to our car (before we lost it). Luck had it that a rainbow ended at the car. The bottom picture was taken at Umamau Falls 20 minutes north of Downtown Hilo. Click here to see more pictures from today!

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Kona

The Kona coast is spectacular if you are looking for luscious beaches and lava rock forms. Jag and I started off the day by driving and forgetting a few things which required us to return to our hotel room. Once we got it right we were on our way to our first stop, Waipiho lookout. It wasn't overly impressive (I ended up liking it more and more when I looked at it through camera review). Afterwards we went to meet up with Nancy and after getting lost we finally found her waiting patiently at Starbucks. She showed us quite a few locations that were very interesting. Six sites and 2 "yes we are here" and 1 "maybe". Very interesting island the Big Island is. Lots of natural beauty but I still believe the better beauty of this island is accessable via air. We are very interested in a cove that contains a bunch of sea turtles and is quite pretty to film at. We found out that Tim Burton had asked Nancy (when he hired her) to get him a permit to shoot here when he filmed "Planet of the Apes". Kinda nice to know that we liked what he likes. We were also amongst a bunch of Fountain Grass which stuck out of the floor lava like weeds. We thought it would make a very interesting aspect while filming. We weren't the only ones. Apparently Bloomingdales and Tommy Bahama felt that as well. Hmm...new career? Nah, too much here. We are driving around the Hilo side this morning focusing on another Black Sand beach as well as the falls and Volcanoes. Should be another interesting day. Click here for pictures from today!

The top picture was taken at Kua Beach. I noticed the Fountain Grass on our way out and thought that if they were backlit they could make for a nice picture. The bottom is a B&W with sme color. Picasa software is pretty cool.

Hilo Hawaiian

We arrived on the Big Island of Hawaii around 4pm Hawaii time. The flight was much quicker than we anticipated and wasn't as difficult as my trip to Oahu back in December. We meet with Nancy tomorrow morning at 10:00 am to begin scouting places. The weather is nice but rain is expected tomorrow evening. Hopefully, we wont run into bad weather next week although bad weather makes for dramatic scenery. I was playing around with the Canon 5D to get better acquainted with it. The top picture is a shot from the back of the Hilo Hawaiian hotel (13 second exposure...it was very dark.) and the bottom is a black and white of the lobby (1/8th of a second). I was testing the white balance of the camera as well as seeing how well it handles noise at long exposure (the noise in the bottom picture was artificially added. Just me messing around with Picasa camera software). So far I am very impressed with Canon's full frame digital monster.

So far so good. Just a couple of minor hickups along the way. Some expected and some not. Nothing that can't be handled. Jag and I have been and continue to be excited about the prospects for Big Picture. The magnitude of the news continues to be mind boggling. For all of you on board...thanks again for your vote of confidence. It will be a very exciting time!