Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Chris Daughtry
Premature Examination

When I arrived at work this morning I was ready to pick up Melissa Painter and head out on a trio of consumer stories scheduled across our day but when I saw our operations manager scurrying around the parking lot rumaging through newscars looking for spare equipment I knew something was up.


He asked me if I could get my gear together because Chris Daughtry was on his way and I was the first shooter to hit the parking lot. And honestly, I was one of only a handful of shooters even at work today.


Chris Daughtry 040

I was already scheduled to help Stewart "Lenslinger" Pittman with this very shoot...on Wednesday...but for whatever reason...Chris Daughtry thought the interview was Tuesday...and you just don't tell a rock star to go away and come back tommorrow.

As I rushed to the Production studio and the production and creative services crews had lights up and chairs out. Melissa pushed our first shoot back an hour or so and I grabbed the three cameras and locked their timecodes.

Chris Daughtry 003

Chris Daughtry was right on time...just 24 hours pre-mature. That's OK. We had our best guys on it...except for Lenslinger. He was one of those guys enjoying an extra day of a holiday weekend.


But never fear....Weaver's here. (oooh. that's way to cheesy and maybe a bit narcisistic.)


Chris Daughtry 008

We had it covered though. I had primary camera and Carter took the reverse angle. Our Operation's Manager Timmy Hawks even grabbed a camera and was our roaming handheld. We even had a web guy taking stills, a creatives services dude shooting for an instant promo, and Chris Morton from production taking the photos you see here with my little Canon.

Chris Daughtry 007

As always when the fodder is American Idol, Shannon Smith was the glue in this operation. She held it all together with her extensive knowledge of all things idol and the close relationship she's maintained with Chris since interviewing him when he was in line for the auditions almost 4 years ago.

Chris Daughtry 005

The topics of the hour long interview covered areas like the new album coming out in July, his adament declaration that he'll always live in North Carolina, how he keeps his private life private and his new found love of Twitter. (He declares MySpace and Facebook too time consuming.)

Chris Daughtry 035


After the interview was complete Chris didn't rush off, he stuck around for a bit, shooting the breeze with his Fox 8 fans from around the building.

Even Stewart "Lenslinger" Pittman made an appearance at El Ocho on his day off.

Chris Daughtry 038

We couldn't keep him away but we didn't let him work...but he wouldn't miss a chance to stop by to say hey....Hell Stewart was right there with Shannon when Chris was just a guy in line to try out.


And this time Stewart even brought his wife for the perfect photo op.

Chris Daughtry 037

The interview will air Thursday on the morning show. It'll be on the web. And it'll probably be in some of our other newscasts too.

Now that we've shot it...Lenslinger needs to get to work...editing.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Travel Channel Academy
Segment from WUSA

Here's a short web-segment from WUSA-9 and USA today about the Travel Channel Academy in DC. Interesting the numbers that are thrown out...that only a small percentage of graduates produce video that the Travel Channel deem air worthy.

They also talk about using your furlough time to go take the Academy. lol.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Live at 39,000 feet

Internet on an airplane at 39,000 is cool enough but The Today Show did a live shot through the internet connection...and it looks good. I've gotta figure out what equipment get's the camera's video/audio so cleanly into the laptop to send out over the net.