AMA Motocross, Washougal, WA

The AMA tour stop at Washougal, WA did not disappoint this year. Chet Burks Productions covered the event for the Speed Channel. We had a total of 15 camera positions covering the race.

Camera position #6 on the track

Bubba Stewart dominates the whoop section…

Bubba out in front of the pack

The rest of the horde..

Insight Communications – Louisville, KY

This was our fourth shoot with Greg Wilson at Ryannacy Films. The goal was to produce a series of long format vignettes for Insight Communications.

1st A.C., J.R. Kraus secures a Sony F900 for a car mount shot

1st A.D. Kevin Hinds checks the shot in our Insight hero van

Sound mixer Bill “Shack” Shackleton and J.R. prep the package the first shot of the day

D.P., Denver Miller and Director Greg Wilson in the interview studio

Shooting in the Kentucky countryside

We had an opportunity to spend the day shooting at Buffalo Trace Bourbon Distillery

Denver and Shack with one of the large grain tumblers used in the distilling process

Each rotating tumbler is superheated to process the grain

Ghosts of times gone by are said to roam these storage warehouses built in the late 1800’s

Bourbon is aged for years in these charred barrels until its ready to be sold

History Channel – “The Axemen”, Vernonia, OR

Original Productions, (the production company that produces “Deadliest Catch”), is shooting a new show based on a similar format. This time they are covering the lives of career loggers in the Pacific Northwest. “The Axemen” will be a 13 part series airing this spring on The History Channel. Four camera teams are covering four different companies. I’m covering Stump Branch Logging, based out of Vernonia, OR. This site is a salvage logging job that Stump Branch is doing for the State of Oregon cleaning up a huge blow down area from our severe windstorm of 2006.Due to mountainside scrambling that each camera crew has to do, as well as danger to equipment, the show is shot in HDV with Sony Z1-U and V1-U cameras in 30p format. Six wireless channels of audio are being run to my camera via the units in my waist packThe “Yoader” is a combination yarder and loader that hauls logs up the hillside once the choke setter wraps the choker cable around each log. Once they are hauled up to the landing, a shovel loader uses huge clamping teeth to pick up the logs and place them in the staging area where they will be bucked, (de-branched) and cut into 40 foot lengthsLoggers start before sunrise every dayMorning mist from Roundtop Mountain<imgEJ and Ross capture a moment with Melvin and Michael of Stumpbranch Logging
Loggers affectionately call their work trucks “Crummies” as they are usually older 4 wheel drive pick ups they buy used for cheap. They get absolutely thrashed every day. Our crummy was a bit nicer, a new Ford F-150 on loan from Astoria