I’ve been back from Vegas for a week and a half now. The excitement of the trip is starting to wear off and now the next year lies before me. New prospects for work, videos/movies, experiences and travels. My imagination is running wild with ideas, but unfortunately few of them are within budgetary means or my technical skill level.

My first step is to make a short film. In my opinion the short may be the single greatest demonstration of story telling and movie making capabilities known to mankind. If a director can’t get a point across in 20 minutes or less (less is preferable) they won’t be able to sufficiently get a point across in a clean manner in 2 hours. That’s why so many of Hollywood’s output requires special effects, “wow” factor and overpaid incapable actors to sell tickets. Truth be told…there is a lot to be said for acting talent, but I feel the actor’s abilities to emote on camera are directly related to a director’s ability to direct.

As ideas abound and come into a more refined focus I hope to be able to see the characters of my story come out of hiding from within the people in my life. I can’t imagine who better to work with than those I’ve known the longest. Some would say don’t mix friends/family and work… I completely agree with that assessment. If you enjoy your job you don’t have to work though. I know who these people are, what they capable of doing, or who they can be… I see more within them than they can see of themselves quite often.

Stick around for updates as I start to layout the movie plans. I won’t get too specific with the details during the development but I’ll be sure to let you see the finished product.

Stay tuned.

Well folks this is the last NAB 2007 update. We went, we conquered, we’re exhausted.

We hit the show first thing yesterday morning and had to wait in line for all of 30 seconds because the doors didn’t open up until 9 AM local and we arrived at 8:59:37 AM. Bogus. Anyway, I hit Panasonic first and talked to them about their AJ-HPX2000, AG-HPX500 and AG-HVX200 I covered the entirety of the lower south hall (Post Production and Display Systems) and some of the uppler South hall (Management & Systems and Acquisition & Production). Ended up with, and this is a rough estimate, between 20 and 1000 pounds of schwag and manufacturer propaganda. My shoulders and arms are tired from carrying that around all day yesterday. I met Stu Maschwitz from The Orphanage, who just happened to write the book I am currently reading: “The DV Rebel’s Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap“. He presented some of the finer points of Adobe After effects and demoed how it was used to make the bank robbery and falling scene from “Superman Returns“.

By the end of the day I had visited Ross, Grass Valley, Analog Way, Adobe, Autodesk, AJA, Boris FX, Element Labs, Sony, Canon, Manfrotto, Porta Brace, Kino Lighting and so many more.

Scott was being a fellow information kleptomaniac by camping out in the Apple booth for all of their Final Cut 2 demos.

We ate lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and dinner at dinner at Bahama Breeze. Souvenir shopping followed and then a run and gun illegal parking jaunt to watch the fountain show at the Bellagio.

Day 4 included a fast dash to the Apple booth for me to run through the whole set of FC Suite demo, lunch at Cozymel’s and surprisingly short wait in line to get our board pass at McCarran International Airport. Now here I sit, waiting on a flight, talking to a couple of guys I met that work at OETA who were out here for NAB as well. I’m ready to go home. Who knows if I’ll go to the office tomorrow. May work from home.

Until next time.

Well, we shifted our plans today. We didn’t make it to the convention until a 6 PM Apple Enterprise Clients networking shindig. Spent all day shooting video for tomorrow night’s Revolution service. Got some decent shots but as always not enough b-roll. Still trying to burn that into my head. It’s one of my single greatest downfalls as a director/producer/editor. Lessons learned.

Saw the Oakely corporate jet, the famous Las Vegas sign, a guitar that Jimi Hendrix burned on stage, gondolas on the second floor of the Venetian, and what I will assume is America’s closest attempt to paint a Sistine Chapel inspire ceiling. Hitting the show all day tomorrow, and hitting it hard.