Traveling with your studio... It's all in the bag.

One of the most common questions I receive is how I manage to schlep an entire studio-worth of production gear around the country and stay sane... My answer: It's all in the bag. The right kind of baggage can really help make traveling with production equipment manageable. Here's what I bring:

This is my only check-in bag. It's an Eddie Bauer rolling duffle -- the largest they make. It's so large, in fact, that I almost never fill up the top section, which is where my clothes go. You'll notice there is a separate bottom compartment, though, which is where the utility lies. Inside, wrapped in a thick production blanket are my two tripods.. One is for my video camera, and one for stills (I've yet to find a tripod that is light enough for my dSLR, but rock solid enough for my video camera, and could do double duty). The two tripods make up most of the weight of this bag, which, when added to my clothes and toiletries and such, comes to around 45lb, just under the 50lb check-in limit on most airlines.

This is the jewel of my luggage system... The Think Tank Airline Roller, which I carry on with me whenever possible (I have to gate-check it on small aircraft). Let's take a look inside...

Here we have everything a portable studio kit could need. From top-left, there's an on-camera LED light (made by Zylight), my dSLR lens, Sony EX-1 XDCAM camera, rain cover, charger, Sennheiser Evolution wireless microphones, cleaning supplies and batteries, and finally my Nikon D300 SLR camera. The lid flap has room for cards, flyers, etc...

Finally, there's my backpack of choice, which is currently the Skooba Designs Check-Through bag. This bag is cool in that it's TSA approved so you don't have to take your laptop out at the airport. Saves a few precious moments...

Inside is my MacBook Editing studio, a portable HD, Sprint AirCard, iPhone, and a few other essentials. This is the bag that stays with me under the seat so I can edit on my flight home...

This combination has served me well for a couple of years now, but I'm always looking to find news ways to pack light and still carry everything I need. If you have any suggestions, drop me a line at ben@PrimeImageMedia.com

Innovating on the road... The story of the Amazon Kindle DX

One of the things we pride ourselves on at PrimeImage Media, is thinking outside the box. So often, videographers are taught that there's one way to do something, and that becomes a dogmatic stance that prevents them from seeing other solutions that might otherwise present themselves.

Case in point, our recent trip to Asheville, North Carolina to shoot a 315 acre estate. I took along professional presenter Andi Barness (www.andibarness.com) as the host. Normally when I work with Andi, we have a teleprompter for her, but working in a vast, outdoor windy location made setting up a teleprompter impractical. In other, similar situations, we've just taped paper to the bottom of the camera's lens, but this has its own problems, as the paper gets blown around in even the slightest breeze, and it requires printing before hand (not good for on-the-spot changes).

As it happens, I have an Amazon Kindle DX e-book reader which we recently reviewed on our tech-podcast, Neo-Fight.tv (www.neo-fight.tv). It struck me that it might make a good in-the-field teleprompter... so why not 'think outside the box' and give it a try!

So here's where our scripting process starts... on the plane with my laptop, where Andi and I review the details from our client, and proceed to craft the script. Not all of it will be on-camera (which would require a full-blown teleprompter). Rather, the snippets of on-camera that Andi does will be teleprompted, and the rest will be read as voice-over, and then we'll shoot "B-Roll" to cover her dialog.

This is usually our next stop... :-)

Here we are on-site. You can see the Amazon Kindle mounted on top of the XDCAM camera we're using. I used an old iPod windshield-suction mount screwed to a cannibalized flash shoe to attach the kindle to the camera. Let's take a closer look...

Here you can see the Kindle hanging above the lens. While most teleprompters use a mirror to sit right in front of the camera lens, we didn't have that option, so we mounted it directly above. As long as the talent is more than 10 or so feet from the camera, it's hard to tell they're looking slightly up from the lens.

Here's Andi reading from the Kindle. The great thing was that we could easily make changes to the script right on site on our laptop, and upload them wirelessly to the Kindle. That sure sped things up. No printer required.

Finally, here's Andi reading her voice-over from the Kindle back at the hotel. Once again, nothing to print, and easy to make changes. Of course, she could just as easily have read from the laptop, but really, how cool would that have been?

Got an innovative video product that comes from out-of-the-box thinking? Drop me a line at ben@PrimeImageMedia.com