A BLOG BY TODD

ROGUE'S BAJA 1000 PROJECT IS WRAPPED

2013-03-25T09:24:00.001-06:00

Back in October and November we were working on a hush-hush project for Rogue Fitness. It started when Steve Sanders, a SEAL in the US Navy, wanted to go back to his childhood roots of riding dirt bikes. But it wasn't a short cruise through the desert or hills in California, it was the legendary Baja 1000 he had his sights set on. Rogue commissioned the documentary and off we went.

There were three main locations for this shoot; California, Nevada and of course Baja, Mexico. We kept the film crew lean at the beginning as as the story begun to unfold, we increased the crew. Initially, on the first location, it was just Steve and I in California. We then brought on James Masters as a producer. James had spent nearly a decade filming and following the Baja 1000. While James and a few production assistants were doing preproduction work during the race week, Tim, Nate and myself were in a helicopter in Nevada filming final bike prep and testing with Steve, Bill Witt, Ryan Sanders and crew.

Most of this film was shot on the Panasonic AF100 with GoPro footage for POV (point of view) and other pepper footage. Once the race week arrived we beefed up our camera options with a wide variety of cameras. The diversity of tech is almost comical. We had 1 RED EPIC, 2 AF100s, 1 Panasonic GH2, 1 Canon 7D, 1 Canon 5DmkIII, 7 GoPro Hero2s and 2 iPhone 5s.

Here's the breakdown of race week. Bret was stationed at Ensenada, Mexico--the starting line--with a 5DmkIII. Down south we had three chase teams with a driver and a shooter. And those teams played leapfrog down the peninsula. We embedded Tim with Steve's chase crew and James and I shadowed them to sixty miles outside of La Paz. Brandt, Lynden, Jon and Nate were our other two units.

After a twenty plus minute delay at the pit, Steve got on the bike at 20:00 and started his first leg of two hundred and thirty miles in the dead of night. Steve and Bill traded the bike three times and Bill rode it to the finish. Twenty-eight hours after the race started, and one thousand, one hundred and fifty miles later, Steve and the team finished the Baja 1000 fourth in their class. And as Steve put it, "Not bad for the first time."

If you haven't watched the series I strongly recommend it and not just because we made it. It is really fascinating how much work goes into this race and how fast it is over. For Steve, the question of what lights to use was a big deal since he would be spending most of his bike time in the dark. A dark so dark people say it eats light. They went with Rigid Industries LED lights and half way through the race Steve was completely stoked on how great they worked.

GoPro just released a new video that was shot entirely on the Hero3. Their film complimented ours well because it focused on trophy truck driver Bryce Menzies ride during his first six hundred miles of the race and then flashes forward to the finish line. Ours focused on Steve in San Ignacio, which picked at mile six hundred and fifty.

If you watch in Steve vs Baja 1000 Episode 4 you'll see their truck narrowly miss Steve from non other than a GoPro we had mounted on Steve's helmet. Watch for it at 7:29. You can hear their siren screaming as they go tearing by.

We want to thank everyone who worked on this project. A huge thanks to Rogue Fitness and their passion to not only building the best, American Made fitness equipment, but to documenting the lifestyles of the athletes they support. A big thanks to Ryan Arciero and Larry Roeseler from Team Herbst, the film units comprised of Todd, Nate, Lynden, Tim, James, Bret, Joh, Brandt, Chris and the two random guys that rode along. And thanks to Score International for putting on such a grueling race.

We've embedded the four Steve vs Baja 1000 episodes here and included GoPro's video that shows the first half of the race. Let me just say we love how they just let the video live and breath during the race without any music over it.

Free WiFi - Free Ride - Free Advice - Free Beer - Freedom

2012-11-21T16:36:00.000-07:00

I'm trying something new in this post, everything is color coded so if you're only interested in tech just look for the green text, general business - red, personal life - blue, unnecessary and scattered thoughts - black, fortuitous thoughts - yellow.

A few major things:

We had a sensationally successful ESPN Campaign for Rogue Fitness during the 2012 CrossFit Games
We worked with some great people at Oakley during the 2012 London Olympics to produce content
We moved Sansom Media Headquarters to the now SM Studios in downtown Salt Lake
I proposed to a little lady, married her and now we're wrapping our honeymoon.
We just returned from Mexico filming the Baja 1000 (more about that in the next post)

I already talked about the ESPN Campaign for Rogue HERE so lets move on to the Oakley shoot in London.

Tim Irwin has been working with Oakley for quite a while and this past Olympics they needed some extra hands and Tim was kind enough to suggest they call us. Well we spent three lovely weeks with Oakley in the grand UK and produced some really fun content. (pictures above, videos below.)

Oakley brought three of their RED EPIC cinema cameras which we filmed everything with, in 5K. Why? Why not I suppose. The EPIC is a sensational camera, it produces an image that is unlike any other. The data is massive and hard to work with, but the RAW ability is beyond reason, meaning its awesome.

To speed up the workflow we used some nanoflash modules. They simultaneously record the RED footage to compact flash cards at a designated codec. I think we used Apple ProRes 422 HQ. This means no transcoding footage from the RED on edit bays. Sure you end up with a pre-compressed file but when you're turning two pieces over in a day from EPICs, you do what you need to. We did have a card, but again, that would tie up on of them edit bays.

The shoot was a blast. Most of my time was split between my uncomfortable bed, the Oakley Safehouse and the edit bays in a hotel room with a few excursions out in the field. One such occasion was filming some skating with Shawn White and Sam Becket. Shawn, myself and four others cruising around London and eating a pizza lunch in a street cafe. It was a bit surreal and heaps of fun. Shawn is a rad dude as is Sam. Thanks to both of them for a great day.

BRAZIL IS ON FIRE

2012-10-25T15:04:00.000-06:00

It should be noted, this post was written months ago and just never got published so enjoy a little read on recent history.

As in, this place is pretty cool. I was in Sao Paulo, Brazil directing the next round of portraits for the I'm A Mormon campaign. The people here are super cool and the people we're filming are fantastic to work with. It's very gorilla style down here. We kept our gear thin so we didn't have to pay heaps of taxes to bring it into the country to film. But the light gear selection has made it fun and forced us to be creative in how we get certain shots.

I took Cameron Trejo with me as a second camera. And both Eric and Kenneth from BonCom, which is the creative agency that contracts us to produce these, are here too. Kenneth speaks perfect Portuguese so that's helpful. Though it is pretty interesting how similar Portuguese and Spanish are. I'd say I get 50%-70% of what's being said, depending on the accent and how fast they speak.

While I'm down here Nate and Lynden are at base camp, Sansom Studios, finishing off the last two commercials for Rogue Fiteness' 2012 ESPN Campaign during the 2012 CrossFit Games. We have worked really hard with Rogue and have some really awesome commercials. We've got 8, or is it 9, well, we have a bunch of great spots with a wide range of styles and ideas. I'm really excited! But it doesn't stop there, there will be exclusive, extended cut, content on roguefitenss.com the day the commercials air on ESPN. So you'll have to go and see the extended cuts. There's a 130 second cut that I am so stoked about. I can't wait for everyone to see it. I brought Sam Cardon on to score music and he did a fantastic job scoring music for that and many other spots.

C-130, Navy SEALs, BMX Champ, CrossFit Winner, MMA Fighter... Oh MY.

2012-07-18T11:20:00.000-06:00

With yet another successful ESPN commercial campaign for Rogue Fitness in the bag its nice to sit back for a second and look at the work we've done and the successes we've had. I can't say enough at how much we love and appreciate working with this amazing company and everyone in it. Bill, Caity, Kris, Alana, Matt... Everyone! Even Bella the dog!

We started writing the spots in November of 2011 and filmed them between March and April, finishing all the post production work in April to June.

Locations were wide and far, California, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Ohio, Arizona...and I feel like I'm forgetting one or two. The spots ranged from the R You Rogue campaign to a Snatch inspired intro. Different styles for different tastes.

Talent ranged from Rich Froning, a two time CrossFit Games champion, Rob Darden, an X Games medal winner, Andy Stumpf, a US Navy SEAL and more. One thing I loved about this project is the talent weren't a bunch of actors, rather, real, ordinary people that have done extraordinary things. I should also mention and thank Steve, another SEAL, who jumped with cameras for in-air footage.

Equipment included Panasonic AF100, RED EPIC and RED ONE, all with a wide assortment of glass. A Canon 7D, up to 9 GoPro units and lots of computers and hard drives. We were able to work with the master himself, Emmy Award winning Sam Cardon, and have him score some really wonderful pieces for the commercials. We temped a score right in his office then he wrangled up a few other amazing musicians and he made magic. One of my favorite scores is on the 130 second Andy Stumpf - R You Rogue

The C-130 was fun to shoot in. We faced some challenges like rotar vibrations, DC power loss and a little turbulence but we were able to push through all of them and get a really solid shoot.

A big thanks to all who worked on this campaign with us. It has been a complete success. Thanks to Nate Gunn and Lynden Williams, the best employees Sansom Media has to offer.

Below are two playlists to the newest commercials, portraits and product sizzles from the 2012 CrossFit Games Campaign. And there's also a few behind the scenes pics from the shoots.

2012 COMMERCIALS
R You Rogue - Andy Stumpf // 30 second
R You Rouge - Andy Stumpf Extended Cut // 130 second
R You Rogue - Rich Froning // 30 second
R You Rogue - Rob Darden // 30 second
R You Rogue - Chris Farrington // 30 second
From The Beginning // 60 second
We R Rogue // 30 second
The Rogue Way // 30 second
The Rogue Way Extended Cut // 90 second
Rogue vs The Others // 30 second

R YOU ROGUE ATHLETE PORTRAITS
Rich Froning
Rob Darden

NEW EQUIPMENT DEBUED AT 2012 CROSSFIT GAMES
Big Bob
Double Banger
Med Ball Chute
228' Pull Up Infinity Rig

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT BUTTER... OR MARCH ANYMORE

2012-05-25T18:31:00.000-06:00

The past 7 weeks have gone by SO fast its actually quite scary. There's a very good chance I was caught in a time warp or my brain surgery from 1992 has finally showed some side effects. Either way, its almost June!!

We've been super busy producing more portraits for the I'm A Mormon campaign, a Capital Campaign for SVU and the 2012 ESPN campaign for Rogue Fitness. The most recent portrait I directed was released. His name is Adonal and he is one awesome dude.

Behind it all has been our AF100, one of our trusty MacBook Pro, which has quite possibly encoded every piece of footage we've shot in the past year while in the field, and heaps of other quickly outdating computer hardware and equipment.

Let's retrace some steps, starting in Mexico. It was a dry, cool morning in late march when... no, wrong story intro.

Baring some days in Salt Lake, between shoots, we've mostly been gone... Ohio-Salt Lake. Virginia-Salt Lake, Mexico-Salt Lake, Tennessee-Salt Lake, California-North Carolina-Virginia-Salt Lake, Arizona-Salt Lake and finally, Ohio-Salt Lake. Not to mention San Diego-Catalina for a buffalo burger while in California.

Loads of traveling but the great news is we have had some absolutely wonderful shoots. Mexico was a great success, filming with two portraits. Virginia has always managed to be raining and overcast the past two trips but the content is solid and the story compelling. The shoots for the Rogue Fitness 2012 ESPN campaign have just been astounding. I really want to go into details on the Rogue spots but we've got them in lock-down until they air on ESPN in July at the 2012 CrossFit Games. I will say this though, R You Rogue. It will make complete sense when you see them.

The one above just aired last week. Several, several more to come and they'll keep getting cooler.

VIRGINIA, PURPLE MOUNTAIN MAJESTIES, GINGER BEER & TICKS

2012-03-16T00:16:00.000-06:00

I'm in Virginia right now filming with Tim and Burke at Southern Virginia University. It's been a great shoot thus far. Tim and I ended up on the top of some hills and with a few ticks crawling around on our clothes. This prompted a quick and very public strip on the side of the highway as Tim filled our minds with horror stories of ticks and lyme disease. Had we not been in such a hurry to save ourselves I would have taken a picture or two of our stowaways.

Our deadline on this project is this wednesday so we are in quite a scramble mode. We'll have three days to put final touches on it in the studio next week and then its out the door.

Last week we released the first of many in a new campaign with Rogue Fitness called R You Rogue. Matt and Cherie Chan, a couple -- quite literally -- of elite CrossFit athletes were the first. They are some rad people and there are more to come. Check out the final R You Rogue portrait above.

We're still shooting with the AF100's and we absolutely love them. Panasonic, if your listening, we have great ideas that would excite us more that anything. It may raise the price point a bit but they would be well worth the money for us. Some of them are listed below -- with help from Tim.

blowing out white needs help. either more user control on how its handled or fix it in general
bring the scene dial back
iso on a scroll wheel and not just a three stage button
422 color spacing
beefier codec and use the P2 media
VR on the sensor -- like Pentax -- and don't rely on the lenses
there are more, just ask...

If your're not a techie camera person and made it through that, pat yourself on the back and go buy a pint of your favorite ice cream.

Advertising: Same Product, Different Approach

2012-02-28T09:50:00.001-07:00

We just sent off another I'm A Mormon spot this morning and I'm supposed to be on a plane in a few hours to film with Rogue Fitness, and I have yet to pack. But seeing as how it has been weeks since my last transmission I figure I should write something.

I've been writing commercials for Rogue's 2012 CrossFit Games Campaign on ESPN (thanks for the help Tim). And let me just say there are a lot of way to advertise the same product. And my perfect example of that are the stark differences in some Subaru campaigns. Enjoy the videos. And I think Canada wins. Cast your vote in the comments

SUBARU OF AMERICA

CANADA SUBARU

NO SLEEP FOR THE BUSY & I JUST GOT BACK FROM VENUS

2012-01-19T23:20:00.000-07:00

So here's a short photo story of what I've been up to the past month and a half... in no particular order.

Filming with Dick Marriott (an avid skier)

Drove a really fast 2012 Subaru STI & this picture is all I have to remember it by.

Filming with Orson Scott Card. Crazy love for this super down-to-earth, intelligent guy.

Filming and meetings at Ft. Carson (great book by Les Grau, a great guy)

Skiing in Jackson Hole

Late Night Alumni and Kaskade (amazing DJ, smart businessman, great guy) BUY ALL THEIR MUSIC!

Filming with Burke and Southern Virginia University (end of shoot, pulled extra wide on right camera)

Took a picture of Tayler's eyeball (Nate and Tay, thanks for the rad iPhone 4S camera attachment)

Got a girlfriend (I'm sure we're not the only ones surprised)

Breakfast at Grand America

Christmas with the family

Other things that didn't make it in the photo story; returned from Puerto Rico and Uruguay shoot. Finished two Toronto mormon.org portraits, submitted the first spanish one, getting really close to moving Sansom Media into a larger office (fingers crossed)... This list is too long.

The year has started really good, we are super blessed and we're excited for what's to come. We're in Virginia right now shooting on the AF100 kits (Nikon and Pentax glass) with the SmallHD DP6 monitors. Love them both! I've brought Tim with me for this shoot and we're finish filming with Burke and SVU early next week and then it's back to editing and storyboarding for a new commercial campaign for another client.

As Tim says, "Be good."

Salt Lake City - Puerto Rico - Uruguay - Salt Lake City

2011-12-03T19:44:00.001-07:00

Things have been extremely busy at Sansom Media as this year comes to an end. Nate is keeping the editing going, with sidekicks Lynden and Mike (our newest emoyees...welcome!). We've finished up some Rogue Fitness pieces (demos, sizzles and more), prepping a few other projects. I sent off the second cut of the Canadian mormon.org.

Right now I'm in Puerto Rico filming a few more portraits and then to Uruguay to pick up some broll for one of the Canadian portraits.

I've brought Tim with me with on a second AF100 kit. He's one of my favorite shooters of all time. The guy nails it every time. One of the few people I can feel comfortable bring with me or sending anywhere alone to film when I can't get there. Super stoked to have him along on this trip. Eric Morgan, the creative director, has been great to have along. He's helped a lot with the scheduling and his Spanish skills fill the large void mine leave behind, aside from doing a smashing job ensuring the proper direction and feel for the piece. A stellar team all around.

One great thing about this Mormon.org campaign that I absolutely love is how many amazing, talented people I've been able to work with. It's been rad 'cause of all the rad people. I look forward to more with them all.

In the meantime, we're writing new commercials with Rogue Fitness and I think it's safe to say viewers will be in for a treat. Not to mention the project we're just starting with Southern Virginia University. We just love, love, love working with them.

My good friends Dodge Billingsley and Scott Thornton with Combat Films and Research just went to Iraq for the rest of the year to film the withdraw of US troops. Should be a great film. We wish then the best with luck and safety. I wish I were with 'em.

And, thanks to all you kooks that actually read this blog. It's fun to write and rewarding to know it might help or entertain someone.

I'm going to get back to my dinner so until next time...

Hasta.

Back From Ohio But Not To Reality

2011-11-14T17:59:00.001-07:00

We were in Ohio last week filming with Rogue Fitness (subscribe to their YouTube) and it was a great shoot. Among things we shot were a how-to of sort on building a garage gym, some demos of new equipment and some random, goofy things with Mikko. Mikko is funny and just a great guy. Everyone else is terrific too. Rogue had Tony Blauer come in and give his seminar on how to Be Your Own Bodyguard. Some great stuff and helpful for real world applications. He teaches you how to harness your natural tendency to flinch as a fast and powerful defense tool. Cool stuff. Nice work Tony.

The footage is back in the office and we're processing it now and as we transcode it we're putting it on a new Promise Technology 12TB Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID. We picked it up to test out a basic network sharing solution. Several of our clients have several TBs (terabytes) of footage that we are always accessing from several drives. The RAID solution is a way to have all the footage online, with enterprise speeds and data protection. If this works well, we'll probably move to a larger 32TB RAID, depending on a few things, one being future Sonnet Thunderbolt peripherals, among other brands.

With a gigabit switch, we can hardwire each editing bay to each other and we can pull one or two streams of footage to each. This is perfect for assistant editors to pull clips, prep sequences, and process footy while the editor works on that, or a different project off of the same RAID. Not as robust as a Fiber or 10Gigabit Ethernet solution but certainly a stepping stone and great for trials. Once we move on from this to a larger, more robust system we can repurpose the Pegasus as a back up for RAW footage with its lightning fast (sorry for the lame pun) transfer speeds and larger capacity.

We're shooting with Southern Virginia University this week while we work through some edits for a few other clients. I'm bring Tim along to film with me while Nate manages the editors here at base camp.

As we part I wanted to leave you with something to make your day a little brighter, a remixed song from Coldplay's new album, Mylo Xyloto -- UFO.

Senators & Scholars

2011-11-08T11:53:00.000-07:00

We've been doing some stuff for the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah and they're all super cool. It just so happens I graduated from the U of U in Mass Communications & Public Relations. We've shot Senator Joe Lieberman, Former Senator Bob Bennett, and Martin Tolchin

We've been doing mostly still work for them, photojournalistic style, and it's been a lot of fun. We also just finish number two of three Canada "I'm A Mormon" portriats. Well, first cut that is.

I'm leaving right now to jump on a plane bound for Ohio to film with Rogue Fitness for the week so I'll leave it at that for now. A side note... I'm noticing a trend with these photos I've thrown up here. Anyone else notice.

The Hustle & Bustle At Sansom Media

2011-10-21T18:50:00.001-06:00

Where has the time gone?!! (two exclamation points still doesn't suffice). Two weeks ago I was leaving Toronto, Canada heading back to Salt Lake City and my internal clock is so out of whack right now I can't tell if it feels like a day ago or 3 months ago.

The shoot in Toronto went really well. I was directing three portraits for Bonneville Communication on the I'm A Mormon campaign. I've just about got a good first cut done of one. It's turning out really nice. The other two will be great too.

All the while, Sansom Media has begun to grow quickly. It's fun, but a little scary too. My biggest focus on the growth is making sure that we grow responsibly. This means that we don't take on more work than we can handle (which feels like it's getting close), we spend time working on current projects and preparing for those upcoming. Using free-lancers when needed and growing into more employees. Upgrading equipment and office space appropriately (both of which are happening right now).

Nate is editing close to full-time as he finishes up his last semester. He's really killing it and keeps getting better and better. We recently brought on an intern, of sorts (not to be derogatory Lynden). He's be great. He has a lot of passion, creativity and talent. He's also a pretty good DJ. (And thanks to his mom for reading the blog regularly).

We still need one more solid editor. Easier said than done. It's really difficult to find someone that blends with the company's style. That has the same vision for work and is, as I have dubbed, sleuthy: a creative problem solver. Encounters unknowns and develops solutions. Overcomes obstacles. This is a really lame example but it works... I want to hire people that, when pressing the gas pedal and nothing happens, discover the car isn't running and take the necessary steps rather than coming to ask for help because the car won't go.

This week has been full bore. We're cutting a 25 minute show for Barrick with the media from our shoot last month, delivering tomorrow. We're also editing Day 2 and Day 3 of the Rogue Fitness at the 2011 Reebok CrossFit Games (here's Day 1), some Dew Tour footage, an I'm A Mormon ad and equipment sizzles for Rogue Fitness. Coming up in the ensuing weeks we have two more I'm A Mormon ads, a heaps of sizzles, demos, series episodes to edit. A few shoots in Denver, Ohio, Luisiana. Some super top secret stuff with Rogue. All while moving our offices, upgrading server equipment, editing bays and finding some time to sleep. All good problems to have. We're blessed and grateful.

PS. While in Toronto I got to grab some lunch with my pal Marty Cej from BNN. He took Tim and I to a great hole-in-the-wall Indian place. Tasty! Thanks Marty.

Apple Founder, Chairman and Former CEO Dies at 56

2011-10-05T19:28:00.000-06:00

A shadow has been cast on Apple today as its beloved genius and co-founder, Steve Jobs, has passed away today in Palo Alto, CA. In 10 years Steve took an ailing tech company to one of the most valuable companies in the world.

I have loved the tech and dream that Steve and Apple had created over the years. My first computer was a PowerBook G4 Aluminum in 2002 and have since found uses for so many of the technologies created. I am pretty bummed to hear and wish peace and blessings on he and his family.

I'm in Toronto, Canada filming all week and received the news as I was walking back to the hotel from dinner. It's sad it happened so quick. He was a unique individual and an inspiring visionary. A film worth watching and that really gives an insight into the history of a company that has matured faster than a teenage kid is Welcome To Macintosh - The Documentary Film For The Rest Of Us. Go buy it here. Watch it and you'll have a whole new appreciation for what Steve and his people have done. He really has, "Left a dent in the world" -- Chase Jarvis | Photographer, Creative Director

Thanks for the amazing ride, Steve. See you on The Other Side.

Thoughts While Filming/Producing Barrick's 2011 Global Mine Rescue Summit

2011-09-27T15:39:00.000-06:00

Two weeks ago, we started filming with Barrick Gold for their 2011 Global Mine Rescue Summit. We had myself, Nate and Tim on the filming crew and Alisia running photography. Everything went very smoothly, except for when Alisia missed the bus back to Salt Lake City and we had to buy her a flight last minute. We still love her. ;-) We shot with two Panasonic AG-AF100's (Tim and I) and Nate ran three GoPro's along with all media management.

The mining industry gets a lot of grief and a bad name from accidents that occur and I've gotta take the mining industry's side on this. I don't know of an industry that takes safety more seriously. Barrick Gold is, in my mind, the poster child for safety first. I don't know how many zeros come after the number they spend on safety but I'll bet they spend more and care more than a lot of other industries.

For example, Barrick invited 60 of its volunteer first responders from their mines throughout the world to the United States for a week of training and instruction. Two days were spent at the University of Nevada, Reno's Fire Science Academy where they attend an extensive aircraft rescue course and the rest of the time on burn props to help simulate situations and let them hone their skills. Barrick also split up the group into three for three community service projects in Elko, Nevada.

Another day was spent at the University of Utah's Medical Center getting hands on training and lectures from some of the best doctors, nurses and medical experts in the world. At one point, they interacted with 3G dummies that talk and give feedback. I got to be the speaker for a few of the Spanish crews that practiced. That was pretty fun, but I think I should stick to filmmaking.

My point here is that these are great people that make up great companies and they care a lot about their safety and the safety of others. They won't put the car in gear before you have your seatbelt on. They are serious about safety.

My great, great grandfather, James Gatherum, and two of his brothers Thomas, and William Gatherum died in the Scofield Mine, so mining accidents impacted my family a century ago. It's nice to know there are companies like Barrick that put safety at the front of the to do list. And they DO a very good job at it.

Stay tuned for a short sizzle of the Summit.

Casket of James Gatherum being loaded onto the Rio Grande Western Baggage car.

James Gatherum with family on a picnic

Scofield Mine Disaster Links
The George Edward Anderson Collection
James Gatherum Casket Image
James Gatherum baby portrait
History of the Scofield Mine Disaster
Names of Miners
Utah History To Go
University of Utah

Filming Some Dew Tour Wizardry With Sansom Media

2011-09-10T13:07:00.000-06:00

The ever amazing Dew Tour is in Salt Lake City this week and it has offered up some mega amazing stuff. Yesterday Sansom Media (Nate Gunn and I) was there filming semi-finals of street skate and Hart and Huntington Speed Style. There were some great moments and stellar tricks. We're heading back today for the finals, sadly we won't be able to film much because NBC owns rights to all finals events. So go watch it on LIVE on NBC. Here's a few freeze frames from some of the footage. Look for an edit soon. Big thanks to Alli Sports for great events like this!

Business Expansion and Server Solution // Dilemmas & Suggestions

2011-08-25T15:26:00.000-06:00

If you're not a business don't tune out just yet. There will be some valuable info for you too. Whether you're a blogging mom, music/movie junky, a small retail business or a larger production studio you've all probably felt the growing pains of digital storage. You're left with a few option, buy another external drive, try yourself or pay someone to install a larger internal drive, buy a new computer or maybe abandon technology and go back to sticks and stones.

Let's lay out a few numbers. Some basic math (if you can call it that) 1024 MB = 1 GB. And in kind, 1024 GB = 1 TB. A typical HD movie from iTunes will set you back 2-4 GB each. A song from iTunes about 9 MB. If you have a 250 GB hard drive once you subtract room taken up by your OS, applications and such, you'll probably have 180-200 GB. SO, you could put 67 HD movies, 22,200 songs or 9,090 RAW photos. Sounds like a lot, until you run out of space. You're not just going to have all of one and none of the others.

So at Sansom Media Inc. our dilemma is having footage spread over too many hard drives. Here's our workflow. Every project gets four hard drives, yup 4. Two Lacie Rugged (500 GB or 1 TB each, depending on the project), and two 3.5 inch bare drives, usually 1 TB each. I'll use our last commercial shoot for Rogue Fitness as an example. While in the field, we use the two Lacie Rugged drives along with ShotPut Pro. We'll either offload cards throughout the day or do them all at once, again depending on the project. ShotPut Pro transfers the data to each Rugged and verifies everything. This is a lot better than just copying them using Finder and dragging and dropping. Mac's will write invisible files when you do this and you don't want extra stuff like that with your footage.

Once we finish the shoot we put them in our Pelican 1050 case (it fits two perfectly) and we carry them with us in a silver briefcase handcuffed to our wrist (slight exaggeration). When we arrive to the studio we use Final Cut 7's Log and Transfer tool to transcode the footage to Apple ProRes 422. These are now the files we'll work with. And make sure you separate your raw footage drives to two different locations. The two bare drives are now clones of each other, one being a back up while editing.

We have so many drives now and we're constantly pulling clips from each to create content for clients. We need a solution that will store and distribute all the transcoded footage to multiple edit bays, be RAID 6 and not cost heaps of cash. Here are the options we've found:

DROBO S/FS/Pro/800i/1200i $400 for 4 TB or $4,000 for 16 TB (drives not included)

from USB 2.0 to iSCSI gigabit ethernet protocol but has a max of 125 Mb/s throughput, you can only 3-5 HD streams while editing.
so easy a caveman's dog can use it.
dual disk, RAID 6 style, back up
great for business that have a lot going on but files are not HD video. (ie. documents, point of sale, brochures, images, small videos for social media. general data storage and retrieval.
range of costs to buy and lower cost to expand

Promise Technology - Pegasus - $2,000 for 12 TB

uses Thunderbolt and has a max of 10 Gb/s throughput or 1,125Mb/s That's 1.25 GB/second. FAST!
Drives aren't able to provide this speed yet (still trying to figure this one out).
brand new and not industry tested
no network RAID capabilities
superb for high end editing and animation.
average cost to buy and expand

G|SPEED FC XL - $11,000 for 16 TB

4Gb/s fiber channel
all sorts of RAID configurations
network friendly editing
fast performance
high cost to buy and expand

It's important to remember that RAID 5 or 6 save the space of two drives for back up so 16 TB is more like 11 TB in a RAID 6.

Our final opinion at this point. If you're a music junkie or just have large amounts of file storage needs look at a Drobo or Drobo S. You can have all your music, videos, family photos, Office files and more and not worry about storage again for a long while. You can also use file sharing on the computers at home to access files on that drive. Wifi works, hard wired Gigabit ethernet is much better.

If you're a small retail business give the Drobo FS or 800i a try. For small production companies, do individual workstations dedicated to specific clients and maybe one bay for the smaller, less frequent group and when you need to access media from the other dives use file sharing on the computers. You can even write a simple apple script that will tell the computers to automatically connect to each other when turned on.

For the larger production studios that want to have multiple bays edit off of one server the G|SPEED FC XL (fiber channel, extra large) will probably be your best bet.

Hopefully this has been helpful and not confusing. If anything it's a good place to start as you search for increased storage solutions that suit your needs. We'd love to hear what you've found. Comment and share it with everyone.

Also, check out the workflow video Chase Jarvis Inc. did. It's another great resource.

Climbing the Grand Teton For My Birthday

2011-08-18T00:29:00.000-06:00

Photo: Ron Niebrugge / WildNatureImages.com

This one really isn't going to have anything to do with filming other than I'm glad the only camera I took was a GoPro. So I recently had a birthday, the number isn't as important as what I tried to do. My old friend, Taylor Morgan, challenged me to something rad for my birthday. I was thinking, go to Costa Rica and chilling he suggested to climb the Grand Teton. 13,770 feet of sheer rock faces, snow fields, large animal life and thin air.

We drove through the night from Salt Lake to get to Grand Teton Nation Park by 1am. Our goal was to get there by 9pm on Thursday but work keep us both later than expected. We arrived, started packing our gear and by 1:30am we were on our way with a 22 lb. pack on each of us.

The climb started nice. The gradual grade of the first four miles was pretty manageable, especially for a dude climbing a 13,770ft mountain cold turkey. Every mile I found my body complaining about something. It started with my calves and then my hamstrings, after that my gluteus awesomeness... You get the idea.

The higher we got the slower I went. As the sun rose and kissed the peaks of the Tetons at 6:40am we were reaching 10,500 ft. This was where slow became really slow. We were heading up a snow face, probably 500-600ft of vertical with crampons and an ice ax. After that, we stowed them and made our way up to the lower saddle, which sits at 11,200 ft.

This is where really slow ends up getting ridiculously slow. My heart began beating ridiculously fast with every 30 yards and by the time we were at 13,000 ft every vertical foot caused my heart to go into overdrive, taking minutes to calm before the next foot.

At 13,200 feet, just 570 feet from the peak I had to conceded to the mountain. The last 500 feet required technical climbing with ropes and all over 1,500 cliffs. I was in no capacity to even attempt such with any tide of safety. It was a very hard decision but one that had to be made nonetheless. I was actually very worried that I'd even be able to make it safely back the the lower saddle, let alone the 10 miles down the mountain and back to the car.

At 7:30pm and with a very sore knee and weary legs, we arrived back to the car, 18 hours after we set out. In all, we ascended 7,200ft, 20 miles round trip and a max altitude of 13,200ft. So aside from the surrendering short of the goal I did break any other record I had previously had, climbing more altitude, traveling more distance and maxing higher than I ever had, and I did it all in one day, with no prep.

I should give most of the credit to Taylor. He is a fantastic climber and he is what kept me on the path every mile that I wanted to turn around. He had a fantastic knowledge of things to eat, ways to handle situation and in the end he took me farther than I ever could have on my own. And all along the way was my Heavenly Father watching over me. He's the reason I got as far as I did and made it back safely too.

If you stuck with this and read the whole thing I'd like to offer you a reward so how about a pat on the back. I'll be returning to the Grand Teton to finish what I started and I hope you're with me Taylor.

Rogue Fitness Commercials Have Debuted...On ESPN3

2011-08-02T20:46:00.003-06:00

The 2011 Reebok CrossFit Games have come and gone and so has the debut of our 7 commercials we created for Rogue Fitness. They've been a great client and we absolutely love working with them. Above is a playlist for the 7 spots. I was surprised to hear they ended up airing on ESPN3 during the live broadcast of the games. There are a lot of different flavors so I'm curious which one you like best and why? They were a blast to do, from writing, filming/directing and editing.

For the techy people reading, we shot it with two Panasonic AG AF100 cameras. If you want to know more than that just ask. Tim was great to work with and I'm glad he wanted to be a part. I'm looking forward to some more.

It's been a few busy weeks and they've been a lot of fun. It started with Seattle, then Oregon, California and now in North Carolina.

Seattle - Just Serve - Episode 1
Oregon - NASCAR Doc - Chasing Spencer
California - 2011 Reebok CrossFit Games
North Carolina - Just Serve - Episode 2

The crew has changed on this second episode. Tim and Ethan are both doing other work. Rhett and Burke Lewis are on the crew in their stead. Early mornings, long days and short nights need to be offset by a long night. That's my cue to head to bed.

Wrapped Filming FIrst Episode Of A New TV Series: Just Serve

2011-07-22T23:53:00.000-06:00

FACT: Seattle, Washington Is One Of My New Favorite Places.

I've been in Seattle, Washington for the past week filming the first episode of a new tv show called Just Serve. The premiss is three strangers come together and provide random acts of service for more strangers. I'm not sure how much I can disclose of the episode at this point so I'll leave you wondering and wanting more. Stay tuned, expected air date is October.

I've been working with Tim Irwin, Ethan Vincent, Adam Able of GoFilms, Nathan Lee, Erich Cannon and Kristi Schimek. A super stellar crew and I love each of their faces with all my heart. Ethan, sadly, is moving his family to Vienna, Austria in August so this will be the last project with him for the next few months until he gets them all settled. I will most definitely be going to visit. That city enchants me.

We've been shooting on three AF100s with a mix of Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Lumix and ... what other lens do you have Tim? Ethan has been shooting on Extreme II (or something like that) SD cards with a bit rate of 48/sec - ish. Tim and I have Panasonic Gold at 22/sec. We've found out that the faster bit rate increases card format time by A LOT. We're talking 5 seconds vs. 50+ seconds. Even though the AF100 doesn't need that kind of speed when shooting, it sure pays off on the post side. I'll need to run tests and see if they faster bit rate cards actually offload footy faster too.

I'm now at the Sea Tac Airport waiting to fly to Portland, Oregon for some NASCAR filming with Patrick Wier until monday afternoon. Then fly home, wash clothes and fly to California wednesday for the 2011 Reebok CrossFit Games. I leave straight from there to North Carolina on a redeye to film the second episode of Just Serve. ...a little busy, but it's great.

Thanks for the awesome week everyone. See you all in NC.

Drop The Gun! Or I Shoot The Car.

2011-07-05T13:09:00.001-06:00

Didn't have anything to do with this one but a great commercial. Really funny. I was waiting for the thief to ditch his loot and pick up car and take the car but I was wrong.

Had I directed this one it would have been more...epic (for lack of a better word). Police cars of all makes, Dodge, Chrysler, Acura, BMW. arriving to a high value robbery, bank, fine art and when the cars arrive the drives all pull weapons as a girl rolls up, parks and gets out in the middle of the looming firefight. Then the phrase, "drop the guns! or i shoot the car." and give more emphasis on the respect for the superior car.

...but that's just me. Its still a fun little spot with a nice kicker at the end.

Panasonic AG-AF100 with Power Box and AJA Mini Ki Pro

2011-06-30T10:49:00.001-06:00

Beam Products posted this video on their YouTube page a few weeks back and it shows a Panasonic AG-AF100 with a Power Box, designed by BEAM teamed up with a full cine kit including a Mini Ki Pro.

What does this mean? This setup gives you the ability to bypass the AVCHD codec of the AF100 at 22Mb/s and capture direct to ProRes 422

There's a great discussion on it in the DVXUSER.com forum here.

Producut of THAILAND(Design by BEAM) Power box all in one and rig mini kipro

Europe Is Always So Cool

2011-06-29T11:22:00.004-06:00

I had a great time watching this piece. Very well done and a fantastic story. Wether you're in Utah, Ohio, New York or California we can all relate, "I have to pay you how much and I only get 7mbps speeds?"

Sansom Media pays $52/month for 20mbps down and 3mbps(ish) up, that's just for internet. With all the work we're doing sending and receiving rough cuts, footage and other large files, 1gbps would be smashing.

In the US you have to play the "we're breaking up" game. I told Comcast Sansom Media was leaving them since we was paying too much, service was spotty and we were generally disenchanted with them. On our last bill there are a total of $67 in service discounts. We're still paying double what UK-ers are paying but its a start.

The funny part of that story, the agent working with me said, "be sure to call back in one year when your discounts expire and threaten to leave us again." I thought only venture capitol groups and the mob used threaten in their business models.

The Peanut Gallery
7:30, check out the piece of art on the wall.
10;12, €17,000 for 3 houses to get fiber. that's roughly $24,533.54... wow, they really wanted that fiber.
12:40, microchip, amps techy, blah blah blah. I like this Tim guy. He's a jolly fellow.

You ask them how much they pay for broadband.

"Oh, forty Euros." That's about $56.

"A week?" you ask.

"No," they might say. "Per month. And that includes phone and TV."

It's really that bad. The nation that invented the internet ranks 16th in the world when it comes to the speed and cost of our broadband connections. That's according to a study released last year by Harvard'sBerkman Center for Internet & Society on behalf of the Federal Communications Commission.

Where's Al Gore now? The full Engadget article is here.

Apple's Final Cut Pro X - RELEASED TODAY

2011-06-21T08:56:00.006-06:00

Final Cut Pro X images courtesy Apple Inc.

Final Cut Pro X released this morning and it's so exciting and yet so never racking. I want to jump up and down for joy and stand on guard, nervous to let it into my life. So many confused feelings. Not everyone gets to be Larry Jordan and use if for two months before the rest of us coach class-less professionals. He says he loves it, wishes it had some features that are forthcoming, but loves it nonetheless.

"Finally! Apple released Final Cut Pro X (and new versions of Motion and Compressor) this morning at 5:30 AM. I've been working with the program for the last two months, and talking extensively with Apple about this new version since February.

Final Cut Pro X represents a complete rewrite of the entire application.

* Background processing of just about everything.

* 64-bit memory support so project size no longer crashes into RAM memory

*Multi-processor support so everything is a LOT!! faster

* A totally new interface

* Amazing new features like the magnetic timeline, connected clips, and built-in color correction."

You can buy Final Cut Pro X on Apple's App Store for $300. Motion 5 and Compressor are both available for $50 each. You're $400 all in.

So a few things to look for when moving over to the new Final Cut Pro X; given that this is a total rewrite of the software there is always the chance that something could go terribly wrong. I'd run a few test with the program and some FCP project files. Make back up copies of your projects in the FCP 7 friendly format because most likely once you convert them to FCPX you won't be able to revert back.

More useful links:

Final Cut Pro X, Motion 5, Compressor 4: Graphics card compatibility - LINK

Final Cut Pro X Supported Cameras - LINK

ProApps QuickTime Codecs - LINK

Gary's Review

Compressor and Motion 5 freeze frames below.

Compressor images courtesy Apple Inc.

Motion 5 images courtesy Apple Inc.

Final Day of 2011 Reebok CrossFit Games - South Central

2011-06-20T11:17:00.001-06:00

So it's just another day here in paradise, only I didn't know paradise got to 101 degrees with 40% humidity. It is quite unbearable. The venue is is on a ranch in Texas. There's a large concrete pad where the competition is set up and the athletes are sizzling. I think one or two turned to scrambled eggs during their event.

But all my griping aside this really is a rad venue. It has a old western film feel to it. There were a lot of good athletes here and a lot of emotion as the wide field competitors was slice from over 100 to just the top three teams, women and men. Those that won will be heading to the Home Depot Center in July to compete in the finals. Should be pretty cool.

As for the filming and editing, I'm surprised I didn't have any cameramen pass out from heat exhaustion and Marty was stellar. He has really started refining the style and we very receptive to my direction and vision.

The editors did a great job and I really like the multiple computer workflow with the Mirrored RAID. That sped up the process so much and made our life's so much easier. Awesomeness is what it was.

That said, we've packed everything up and are making our way to the airport and head to SLC. There for a fe days and then to California on Thursday to shoot some more for the NASCAR doc.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Chemawa TR,Tomball,United States

2011 Reebok CrossFit Games - SouthWest Regionals // Day 2

2011-06-11T21:28:00.001-06:00

The sun has set here in Aurora, a suburb of Denver, Colorado. It is the end of day two and we are cranking away at wrapping the highlight reel. It's been a really good region to produce. I added Tyson Maughan to my unit and it has been extremely helpful. He's a DP but has taken the reigns of processing all the footage from my cameramen, logging it and pulling selects to give to Kyle Kebert. They're really cranking through stuff and I couldn't be happier. Kyle is a great editor. He edits for ESPN and he's just a stallion. I'd take him on my unit any day of the week.

Yesterday's video was, I think, one of our best pieces so far. Check it out HERE. Today's will be even better. Great footage, lots of drama, rain and tears. I'll get you a link when they post it.

For the geeks reading, we've managed to land a fiber/Gigabit/blow your socks off Ethernet connection. We effectively download 70MB and upload at 30MB. It took us 8 minutes to upload a 2.5GB video file to the FTP site. Not bad and certainly much better than the .5MB speeds we had at the Maple Leafs Hockey rink last week in Toronto. Here's DAY 3 wrap up video. I may have been editing the last two (men's 5 and 6) at 6am after my editor fell asleep and I felt a little kooky at the end.

I should probably get back to producing or something more helpful to my editors, whom I love.