Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 11:34:24 -0700 (MST)
From: snail@aztec.asu.edu (MIKE ROSS)
Subject: Re: freedom summit - 20/20 hind sight
To: ernesthancock@home.com, snail, WEAVERMT@YAHOO.COM, RDESTEP136@EARTHLINK.NET
Reply-To: snail@aztec.asu.edu

1) The biggest problem I had was when I filmed
Hornberger. The lighting was too low. I had a
number of ideas on how to fix that. But it wasn't
until Monday I came up with the perfect solution:
Ask the hotel staff to make the lights brighter.  DUH!

I shot some low light stuff in Tucson with 
Access Tucson cameras and they captured everything 
perfect.  I hope the Access Phoenix camera did the 
same thing.

2) The camera supplyed by Access Phoenix was
   a piece of krap.

   a) It didn't have a VU meter to verify that
      the sound was being recorded OK.

   b) It was hard to focus thru the view finder.
      And it didn't have thru the lenses focusing.

   c) It didn't have a aux video monitor that
      i could use to verify the quality o
      focus and picture.

   d) Real crummy zoom lenses. In Tucson I could
      zoom in on your nose hairs if I wanted to.
      The camera I used couldn't even zoom in 
      on a face.

   If we are going to suck the public tit and
   use stolen tax money to shoot these things
   next time get the equipment from Access Tucson
   which provides much better equipment, and
   doesn't charge you money to use it. But you
   can blame this on me because I didn't think
   of filming using public access early enough
   to get the equipment from Access Tucson.

   They also have radio mic's or cables that
   could have been used to supply the audio for
   my camera. And I suspect they also have
   mixers like Ernie renter. Again free of charge.

3) Panel Speakers. When you shoot two or more people
   sitting together if they sit apart at the normal
   distance people feel comfortable sitting next to
   each other on TV they look like they are sitting 
   a mile from each other.

   The fix is to force them to sit right next to
   each other. Makes people feel very uncomfortable
   but looks much better on TV. Maybe putting a few
   babes on the panel will fix this problem.

4) I had to guess when to change my tapes. This was
   usually when I had a half hour of tape left and
   knew the next speaker would take up an hour.
   So I would change while the speakers were changing.

   I don't think I missed any important announcements
   by Ernie, Jim Sharpe or Marc. But in the future it 
   would prevent screw ups by planning when I am going 
   to change tapes. Or have a plan so I can tell the
   Ernie, Jim, or Marc that I am running out of tape
   and need to change it soon before or after the
   next announcement.

5) When you shoot in a studio everybody has headsets
   that allow the director, audio person, 
   and cameramen to talk.  If we could get radio 
   headsets for free that would have been nice here.

Useless information.

   Vin moved around a lot. No problem I just used 
   a wider shot so I didn't have to jerk the camera 
   around to follow his every move

   Hornberger moved around a lot too but not as 
   much as Vin. I got a much tighter shot of him.

   None of the other people moved around much and
   I was able to get pretty tight shots of all of
   them.

   Easiest person to focus onr: Jim Sharpe. His 
   goatee made focusing easy.

--
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; 
when the government fears the people, there is liberty "
                             Thomas Jefferson