Chickens and Champions

This is my favorite video that my coworker AAron and I made at the National Western Stock Show this year. I think it works so well because we actually accomplished a lot of the basics of multimedia storytelling while having fun with the video.

We kept it short. We started strong. The audio drives the piece. We cut the interviews down to the basics, we didn't try to tell the entire story through the words (interview) instead we let the words give a flavor of the place and people. Cuts between video and photos are fairly seamless. And our main interview, the kid named Wyatt, was perfect. He was funny and witty and fun to watch.

Snowboarding downtown Denver at Big Air

I've finally figured out how to make my videos look ok on this blog. Woohoo. Now I believe i'll actually start posting more often.

coffee, a sore throat and an imagined confrontation

Compelling videos have to start strong in one way or another. I imagine compelling blog posts are the same. This is not one of those.

I'm too tired to write coherently, or to have a purpose to my writing. It's 3:30am and I'm still awake. I covered Denver Big Air this evening  and I've been sick for a week or two--on and off.

After finishing, I walked over to a McDonald's to get a coffee to make the editing go faster and to sooth my throat. I try to pee before ordering only to be headed off at the door by a fat supervisor who was very much in charge of the situation. "You can't pee unless you buy food first," he practically yells at me. I'm pissed. I'm tired. I'm full of urine. All I wanted was a bathroom and a coffee in that order, not the other way around. "I have a job," I say. "I work across the street, let me pee." All I get is the same response from the supervisor and a fat body between me and the bathroom door. He's really having none of it.

In my head I run past the supervisor and offhandedly mutter, "you can suck my fat cock," I go pee, and THEN buy a coffee. But, in reality I just say, "I heard you the first time," in a louder voice than the situation warranted and wait dejectedly in line for my coffee.

What a let down.

On an unrelated note, check out my Big Air Video.  Also, here are the Rockies as seen from above (obviously).

Exhaustion-induced hallucinations and video export nightmares

I was going to post some of the recent videos I've produced for the Denver Post but I've been flummoxed by Blogger's inability to let me resize my videos. Idiot technology.

My boss Tim put me and my co-worker AAron (I swear, it's really spelled with two capitol A's) on stock show duty for the entirety of the National Western Stock Show. Being from the East, I've been harangued by everybody from the lady at the info booth to the guy who steams cowboy hats. I don't have the right jeans (wranglers) I don't have the right shoes (cowboy boots) I don't have the right flannel shirt and schmancy belt buckle, and I tend to ask questions that three-year-olds know the answer to (what's the difference between a bull and a bronco). Meanwhile, AAron, who's from Wyoming, is fitting right in. I think they can smell the West on him. Little do they know, he's never actually ridden a horse, Jeeze.

We've been tasked with producing a story a day from the show. This is a cool assignment because we get to find interesting people and create our own schedules for two weeks, but it also means that we have to be at the Stock Show when the stories are happening. Getting done at 5 or 6 pm is a sweet dream far off on the horizon. And when I say horizon I mean, as I watch the sunrise while I fall asleep for the night after producing a video at the 24-hour Starbucks, jacked on coffee, kind of horizon.

Despite my chagrin at not fitting in and and an onslaught of exhaustion-induced hallucinations of my bed sprouting wings and flying across Denver to the Stock Show to save me from myself and my weird need to stay till the end, it's great. I've been hanging out with rodeo clowns, tall cowboys sporting pants that I believe are referred to as 'nuthuggers' (Tim swears that cowboys wear pantyhose and it's acceptable, I'm skeptical) an eight-year-old fiddle-playin' wizard, split-lipped alpacas and a whole bunch of happy people eating turkey legs. I'm enamored, and I may be sporting some cowboy boots by the end of the show because seriously, these sneaks are not cutting it.

      (photos by AAron Ontiveroz)

Check out AAron's and my multimedia presentation for the Denver Post here: NWSS 2011

Stock Show day 3: trying my best to look Mexican at the Mexican rodeo. Note the vest and Raiders cap.