Thursday, 31 May 2007
11:08pm
I
  had originally started typing this entry on April 25, but I guess I never finished it so first I'll start out by posting what I started to write:

I really wanted to get an update up a lot sooner, but I've been really sick and feeling like death since I got back from Vegas. More on that later. Going to NAB this year was exciting for a lot of reasons. Of course it was great to be working in Adam's booth and meeting all those people and seeing the loads of cool stuff there was to look at in the convention center, but this time a pretty big part of the excitement was actually just going to Vegas!
People who have known me a long while might be kind of surprised or shocked to hear that it had been to vegas in over two years. Seems hard to believe since I used to go there several times a year, haha. My, how priorities can change. So anyway, two Sundays ago I drove out to Vegas. I arrived at the Las Vegas Convention Center in the late afternoon and helped put the booth up. There were some delays but we got everything up and running before it got too terribly late.

Ahh yes, NAB. NAB was fun and exciting, and we went from being complete nobodies to having some pretty important people very interested in the product! However on the trip I hardly did any "Vegas" type stuff at all! Although I stayed at the Sahara, which is on the Strip, I only ever used the Strip entrance like once, most of the time I was only using Paradise Rd. Other than my hotel the only other place I ever went on the Strip was to eat at the Mirage buffet, haha. I basically did the least drinking, least gambling, earliest waking up of any trip I ever took to Vegas, haha.
Although I wasn't there when they came by, apparently some Canon Japan execs came by the booth and liked my Canon XL-H1 ($8,000) vs. Sony F900 ($80,000) comparison footage in which when recording uncompressed 4:2:2 over HD-SDI, the much cheaper XL-H1 performs favorably against a much higher end F900.
Back in February I was working as a grip on this feature and the conditions were just awful... hours were ridiculously long, no overtime pay. After that I was burned out on gripping and started saying that I didn't want to do much gripping anymore and wanted to concentrate on looking for gigs as a cinematographer. Well, it turns out that all I needed to do was work on some fun projects for better pay to rejuvinate my spirit, haha. Although getting work as a cinematographer is definitely in my long term goals, I absolutely love working as a grip.
Anyway, the projects I've been working on since coming back from NAB (well that is after being out of commission for a week with the flu) have been a lot more fun and enjoyable with production staff that actually show some respect to the crew, haha.
On one of those projects we ended up shooting for a couple of days on location at an actual UCLA frat house. Now back when I was in college, I knew the greek system was definitely NOT for me, but at the same time, in the back of my head I always wonder if I missed out on some kind of experience... well... after spending 2 days working in that house, I am glad to say that I'm glad I missed all of that, haha. The place was absolutely disgusting... dingy... grimy... smelly... I can't believe any girls would go go for this stuff... oh right... free booze. Forgot about that. Haha.
Over Memorial Day weekend my family rented a house on Big Bear Lake. My sister brought her dog. Yes, she is one of "those" dog owners, haha. Who the heck buys a life jacket for a dog? haha. Although the carrying handle was convenient. It was a couple of days of rest and relaxation... things don't get too rowdy around my family, haha. My sister did a pretty good job of finding the house we rented though... definitely could not have been closer to the lake! And just a couple of blocks from "The Village" and all of its little shops (which actually reminded me a little bit of The Village, if you know what I mean. Anyway, you can check out some other pics at the giant repository of pics.
I'm not even sure if anyone even still reads this since I update so rarely. I guess I'm not as eager to keep as I was say, 10 years ago, I guess. Ten freakin' years, where has all that time gone? I did some pretty cool and different stuff during that time though, I think. Here's to the next 10 more, I guess? haha. And sorry I am kind of intentionally vague about my work. I'm sure I could be writing all kinds of interesting stuff but I dunno, in this business I am inclined to believe that loose lips sink ships, so to speak... so... yeah. Haha.
Things are definitely getting exciting though. So far it seems like I'm working on bigger and better projects all the time. I seem to have found a pretty good team working with these two guys Dwight and Chris. We work hard, communicate well, and stay ahead of the game as much as possible, and it's a joy working along side these guys... I get so frustrated sometimes working on shoots with guys that just wanna sit around or talk endlessly about chicks all day, haha... Anyway, if you're looking for a fast, efficient and experienced grip crew for your feature film or commercial shoot, call me, I'll do what I can to round these guys up :)