Video: Learning to run a broadcast in one hour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZinM9XFoIg

A couple months ago someone I know on twitter told me that they had a bunch of video gear I might be interested in buying, and I was, so they made plans to come by while they were driving through the state for a gig. They also said they had a Newtek Tricaster, and would I like to borrow it for a video?

Of course I said yes, because the Tricaster is extremely cool and has an interesting background both culturally and for me personally, having been involved in a number of projects I liked. I figured I would have them leave it here, do a video when I was ready (months from now), and ship it back.

They show up - it's a 60 pound 4U chassis with a bunch of extremely delicate parts inside. I immediately know I can't keep this thing, it'll be pulverized in shipping, so I tell them they have to take it back if they want it in one piece. But they're in town for a week, so they offer to leave it here for a couple days.

I can't research, script, rehearse and shoot a video in two days to save my life. But I do know how to run a vision mixer, so, with my girlfriend's help on the main camera, I shot this video as fast as I possibly could.

Was it technically shot in "an hour"? Hahaha, no, closer to five - but I had other stuff going on that kept pulling me away, so as far as the *actual time spent touching the device*, an hour is still about right. The video is half that long because I cut out my incorrect explanations and flubbed lines - arguably, I learned to run this (at least for the features I picked up) in 15 or 20 minutes.

It was an absolute blast to make this and if it gets a good response maybe I'll do more stuff like it. I had it edited by that evening, and it sure was nice getting a video made in like 8 hours.