Dave Morris » travel

Escaping from mercenaries: Or how to make 80 minutes of footage into a story

davemorris — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 18:00:53 +0000

I ask reporters at The Oklahoman to bring back footage from their interviews. Most of the time a simple 30-60 second sound bite will add decent context to the text version on NewsOK.com. Shooting b-roll or asking their subjects for any additional footage is icing on the cake.

And Fridays are typically busy here at OPUBCO. We wrap up the week’s work and prepare other videos to run over the weekend.

Steve Lackmeyer uploaded his video interview overnight Thursday for us to edit Friday for a Sunday publication. I think all Oklahomans expected bad weather, so that meant getting other work done and out of the way. Priorities, people. Usually that would mean picking out a few bites and calling it good enough due to time constraints.

But I had an idea for this video – to make it more documentary than a simple standup followed by soundbite video. I encoded Lackmeyer’s interview into DVC Pro-720p60 (rendering while editing takes too much time) and watched the 18 minute conversation. Then I learned he had an additional 60 minutes of provided clips from Michael Dillard’s journey in Indonesia.

Yikes.

I laid down the video Friday afternoon, picked out some music and had a decent idea of how the video should go. Then storms rolled into town and it was time to shelve the video.

Saturday morning, and along with three Nespressos (which are outstanding and totally addictive), I carved the video into 18 minutes of somewhat watchable storytelling. With a little more time and polish it could have been better, but we had some Saturday storms to deal with too.

Travel video done right

davemorris — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:33:50 +0000

This is outstanding. And inspiring. Not just an average “hey guys, look at my travel video.” This took actual planning, thought and pretty cool execution.

Saw this video on F-Stoppers.com. Click to read more from them.

a story for tomorrow. from gnarly bay productions, Inc. on Vimeo.

Casey Cornett heads to Oz

davemorris — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:59:09 +0000

We gave Casey Cornett a Flip Mino HD last summer to capture couchsurfing across Europe.

Now he’s headed to one of my favorite places on the planet: Australia. Casey left this afternoon for a week’s travel beginning in Melbourne. I caught up with him in his office at Jones PR this morning for a quick debrief, watch above. And to deliver another Flip cam for him to record his adventures.

So, over the next week you can follow his travels on Twitter (@caseycornett), on his personal blog and on his NewsOK blog. You can also read and watch the Europe couchsurfing series on the same blogs.

I’ll be jealous in the meantime. I’ve been to Sydney twice and it’s amazing – great Harbor, great food, mountains, beaches, rail system, accents, friendly people… and Vegemite. Anyone else tried Vegemite?

Christmas Eve roads in NW OKC

davemorris — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 05:07:36 +0000

David Jones offered me a ride home yesterday and I gladly accepted. My car is worthless to begin with on the snow and ice, so my wife had dropped me off earlier in the day. Jones’ ride meant she didn’t need to get back out into the snow and cold and risk getting stuck somewhere.

As you can see in the above video, there were abandoned cars and some not-abandoned cars everywhere along the streets and highways.

Broadway Extension was the worst stretch of roads. Tons of snow and cars everywhere. Britton, for a snow route, was deep in snow. So was Kelley between Britton and NW 63.

Mandarin Oriental in Miami

davemorris — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:13:36 +0000

Melinda and I spent last weekend in Miami for our one year anniversary. Stayed at the Mandarin Oriental, on Briskell Key near downtown. In retrospect, definitely should have stayed on South Beach. The MO was an awesome place just not close enough to the beach or shopping or restaurants, etc.

The hotel did have this video playing on its internal channel. On the first night upon arriving back to the room, the housekeeping staff had this playing on the flat screen and over the Bose stereo. It not only sounded terrific but it looks amazing. I guess it’s supposed to be some kind of dream sequence.

Whatever, they did a fabulous job of shooting and editing this.

Taking away people’s smiles

davemorris — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 09:17:21 +0000

The Oklahoman’s Aaron Crespo, who does an outstanding job covering the cop beat and other assignments within the newsroom, recently spent a week with medical missionaries – and his dad – in Guatemala.

Crespo posted daily updates to his blog. He included great quotes, from working with a dentist who would remove kids’ front teeth, to uploading photos of the locals and scenery. Crespo also shot video.

We included that video with my interview with Crespo.

Is it me or does Crespo also look a bit like Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock?

Anyway, read Crespo’s blog. It’s a completely different perspective on life and how rough some people have it. And watch the video as Crespo describes what he remembers from his summer journey.

Casey Cornett blog

davemorris — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 05:15:08 +0000

Couchsurfing blog by Casey Cornett

Son of OKC Mayor Mick Cornett, Casey Cornett is 12 days into a monthlong travel through Europe. And he’s doing it couch by couch as often as he can. Couchsurfing through Europe. And he’s taking video.

We equipped Casey with a Flip Mino HD and access to a NewsOK blog. From Internet cafe’s and his hosts’ Internet connections, Casey has updated his blog and uploaded video clips to the NewsOK servers. I’ve been editing his video clips and updating his NewsOK blog with his text and photos from his Flickr account.

It’s added up to a very interesting narrative of a journey I’m not sure I’d be brave enough to undertake. I mean, would you really look up strangers on couchsurfing.org and stay the night in their house? In a foreign country? But read the blog. It’s a fascinating look at living an adventure. And the places he’s stayed have looked great. The friends he’s made are probably too numerous to count. And of course he gets to travel around to all the famous places most of us only read about. All without spending hundreds or thousands on hotels or hostels.

Skype from Madrid

Casey has uploaded about 20 clips so far. The Flip Mino HD shoots great video for a $200 hand held cam. It is what it is. But upload speeds are slooooooow. So mostly he has been uploading clips overnight or while he’s out having dinner. Most of the clips are pretty short because of this. His commentaries provide a quick education about each stop. Make sure you watch the Eiffel Tower clip. Casey plays fetch with a woman’s dog. Only the woman’s dog doesn’t return after he throws the ball.

We hope to do some Skype talkbacks as the trip continues. I spoke with Casey via Skype upon his arrival in Spain on his first day. And before he left, we taped this interview: