This past weekend was the weekend of the annual 4500 Digital Video Competition. Last years competition was a mad house with all of the drama that was caused between the two BCTC teams. This year though, was the complete opposite. The team consisted of just two people, Jackson Kitchell and I. We decided to have Aaron Meehan included on the group as well, so just a total of three guys with a complete stress-free weekend. No drama or arguments of any kind were created amongst the members of the group, which was amazing and I was surprised that it actually went that way.
This experience, whether it will give us The Best Picture title or not, really allowed Jackson and I to get to know each other personally and be able to become close friends. This will benefit us in the long run because we will be able to work together more efficiently when we go to states this week as well as any future assignments that we decide to tackle together as a team. I am glad of the outcome of the competition this year and I hope that next year will be another year of relaxation without stress.
Today, I had shot all of the studio footage for the very first episode of Backlot. Originally, the shoot was supposed to be all done live in the studio, but with all of the other things falling behind and getting in the way, we decided to edit it in post rather than switching it live. Overall the shoot went really well. Zach Gaus, the host of Backlot, did an excellent job for his first time, especially when not given the script ahead of time to look over.
There are some technical difficulties while trying to shoot the footage today. The first was the the teleprompter was faulty and would constantly shut off and not work properly, causing the shoot to last longer than expected. The other main situation was audio. No matter how hard I tried, Zach's levels in the audio meter seemed to be distorted. The reasoning was because of a frequency issue with the wireless lav, so we decided to use the other microphone that was wired rather than wireless. This gave us absolutely the best audio that we could get. I really enjoyed the shoot today. It wasn't too stressful and at the same time, was really easy to fix the minor mistakes. Tune in next week for the release of the first episode.