Well, here we go. I'll be in Austin from Thurs. March 12 - Mon. March 16th.
I'm here strictly for Scam School and I anticipate it'll be a wild couple of days of shooting. The day is downtime and the evenings are my shoot times.
Here's my schedule:
Fri - Attend Brian's SXSW panel 5p-6p; shoot episodes of Scam School, 7:30p-10:30p at Fadó Austin, 214 W 4th Street
Sat - Live Scam School open for Diggnation, Stubbs 6p-mid
Sun - Scam School Episodes at Nomad Bar, 6p-10p
Mon - go home!
I think it'll be really fun, but not as fun as it will be for those who are attending the conference and partying all night long! Ha.
Mauricio and I went to the MacWorld Conference and Expo and spent 2 hours on the show floor. Here's what we saw in that small amount of time.
This is also the first time I used my new HV30 (and yeah, we saw the HV40 on the show floor). I used the 24p setting, but the sped up video didn't fly as well as I wanted. On preview it was fine, but I'm guessing it was my choice of compression?
Strangely enough I rarely talk about work, but it does take up (approximately) 60 percent of my time and life, and I've had quite a year -- to say the least.
Working at a small startup company is something that I haven't done before, and I've learned A LOT so far. The ups, the downs, and the reorganization is just a part of the experience. I know I'm one of the lucky ones who continues with full-time employment in this time of recession and uncertainty.
But let me quickly change the tone of this post. The brighter lining involves one of the shows I produce and its definitely something that I am VERY proud to be a part of.
A little over a year ago, I was asked to shoot a pilot on "magic and scams" in a bar. I really had no idea what I was in for, but was intrigued after reading the show pitch and treatment. Little did I know I would start a new journey into comedy, foolery, and yes, intelligent entertainment with a guy sporting spiky hair.
I remember meeting Brian on a chilly afternoon on Market Street in San Francisco, and thinking "Ok, this will definitely be interesting". Brian, Jonathan (his right hand person at the time) and myself, grabbed some pizza and ran through shoot prep. Later that evening we shot for about 4 hours and quite honestly I wasn't sure if we accomplished what we needed.
Our very first attempt at shooting an episode was "The Short Change" (which we re-shot almost a year later). The bar yelled at us for shining a bright softbox light on the main downstairs area, thus rushing our shoot and not getting what we really needed. We were banished to the upstairs area of the bar and shot the rest of the episodes. Asking people to be on-camera was NOT easy. We also rarely use that softbox on shoots anymore.
About two months later I edited "The Human Chimney", "The Puzzle" and "Bang Your Head". I played around with the music and pacing and really had fun with the footage, with absolutely no idea if anyone would like the final product.
Then the feedback came in, and it was overwhelmingly positive! I think a few people were surprised that the pilot episodes were good (including myself). Most of all I was really happy to get the seal of approval from Brian. While I wanted the show to be entertaining, it needed to match his vision as the show is Brian's brand and content. And the rest (as they say) is history and Scam School was born.
Earlier this month we got a little surprise as iTunes announced its "Best of 2008" and we were on the list as one of the Best Video Podcasts of the year! How's that for the little show that no one knew could :)
I like our positioning next to Morningstar and The Pentagon Channel :)
It's been a great year, and look out for more hilarity and scamming in 2009!
Thursday, March 12, 2009 at 03:01PM 
