News, At Will Productions

Big And Rich Perform On ESPN Click here to watch a clip.

Talk about a fun gig to work! Double M Productions
crewed me, Joe Schmitt, owner of At Will Productions,
to work an ESPN show in Columbia, SC. I love working
for ESPN, even when it was explained that a camera-
op was not needed for the game, but for the "College
Game Day" and concert stage. Did you say concert?
Nice! Although, I didn't know of Big and Rich, I was
very excited to work a music event.

When I showed up, I thought I was at a family reunion.
It was a perfect crew of so many friends of mine. We
wondered who was working the game. I was blown
away by the coverage. With a crew of one hundred, we
used four hard cameras, two jibs, a steadicam, and two
hand-helds to cover both stages. We had feeds from
the front-of-house audio techs, and a jumbo-tron for the
crowd to watch. We even had what seemed to be an end-
less supply of yellow jackets (cable troughs). I really
enjoy working ESPN events, because they always have
top notch productions.

I was hoping to operate the hand-held camera on the
stage. Our director, Jay, asked me to be "in the pit." I
had forgotton that this is one of the best camera angles
to operate. So I went back and forth between the news set
(I was getting crowd shots) and the concert stage during
breaks.

Big, Rich, and Cowboy Troy were excellent show-
men, who imediately figured out how to play to the cam-
eras and follow the tally lights. Since they performed
the customized version of "Coming To Your City" for
ESPN's "Gameday," I'm sure you'll be seeing this footage
a lot. Although I didn't get to meet Cowboy Troy, Big
and Rich were really nice guys. Big even corrected me
politely when I called him Rich. Yeah, I felt like a real
moron. Later, I caught him as he left our truck compound,
to apologize again, but he said there were no hard feelings,
and he "Liked my energy with the camera."

All in all, it was really hot, and the post-game teardown
lasted until 2:30 am. Who cares... My camera work was
all over "Sports Center," and I had a blast working the
concert. By far, one of the best gigs I've ever had the
priviledge to be a part of. Big thanks to Melinda, Jack,
and Jay.

Since I really like working with ESPN, and hope to con-
tinue doing so, At Will Productions is NOT taking re-
quests to purchase this video. I recorded it off-air, just
like anyone else with a VCR could've.