Ep 116 was a new experience for the VJIAM TV crew for a few reasons.

First of all, we were at a brand new location. It was a gorgeous theatre with interesting design and materials, loads of natural light, spacious, fabulous. Plus we had it all to ourselves! That is, until the adjacent high school finished the day at 3:15 pm and we have a crowd of students watching us. Now, we like people. And we don’t mind having them around while we film, just as long as they can be as still as statues from the moment they hear rolling until the moment they hear cut. These students hadn’t learned that trick, so our shoot was delayed.

Luckily, one of the other factors contributing to the newness was our AD (assistant director). She hadn’t filmed with us in a while and it was refreshing to have someone keeping track of every minute and continuously informing us they flew by. I’m joking...she wasn’t that intense. 

When we finally wrapped our last shot we had another audience, but they were a little older than students. There was a performance in the theatre that night and about 1/3 of the audience had arrived and was patiently waiting to enter the theatre. Luckily for us, they had learned the statue trick.

This week we learned a little bit about projecting delays and constraints with a new location. Just a bit.

The moment you think to yourself, “Our Crew is perfect! We have all that we need” is the moment you will meet Lola (aka the cutest animal known to mankind ).  This little puppy belongs to a photographer whose space we filmed in for this episode and she stole all of our hearts. She also stole a bit of our time being the Official Cutest Distraction World Wide. Once someone peeled her out of my arms to roll on a shot and we would all burst into laughter as the pitter patter of her little feet running around the room became louder than a vacuum. And so, it was bye bye Lola. Don’t worry… we have plenty of pictures to remember her by.

This week there was one segment that had the crew pretty stoked for a few reasons…Ski Cross!  Some shots were absolutely gorgeous, contextualizing the piece and the mountain on which the competition was held. Some shots were fast and furious (extreme skiers can seriously rip and the camera operator got great action shots, despite tough access to the course). The interviewees were fun to watch and taught us a lot about the sport. And the sport itself, being brand new, straight out of the X Games, debuting at the 2010 Olympic games.  Rad doesn’t begin to describe how we feel about ski cross. And, of course, Matt Anderson is always super fun on camera. He maintains a great combo of natural and energetic.  

Needless to say, we’re all stoked to see the pieces we get next week. Keep em coming!

We were Stoked to be back once more at The Creative Individual!! This is by far our favourite location, and we were not at all surprised to see that once again the space had changed dramatically. Where the New York cityscapes had previously hung, a cozy corner had been set up, which came in handy when filming our segment on eco friendly take out cup sleeves.

It was really helpful to film in a space that is so familiar because we had a few people in new roles. When you have a multi person shoot it is very important to clarify everyone's role to them so they can focus on their contribution. Kinda like positions on a football team.

We've always kept things pretty simple equipment-wise, so we could shoot as quickly as possible. The more pieces of equipment, the longer each set up takes. But sometimes it's worth it to get those "money shots."

For one of the money shots I was sitting on some scaffolding over the DJ booth. The set up took a while and by the time I tried to climb down my legs were half asleep due to the sharp edge of the scaffolding (not meant for chilling on). Our Director, Rob tried to help me down, but I spun around in the air almost taking out a very expensive speaker. It sort of happened in slow motion, so I didn’t have enough momentum to do any damage, but there is a moral of the story here: there is always the possibility of compromising the location, or your person. ALWAYS have someone spot you when climbing up and down ANYTHING!

Yay, back at one of our favourite locations: a photography studio with a lot of interesting things to use as props, like the globe, a stuffed chicken the director could not get enough of, and that really great Ducati motorcycle, all of which were cause for inspiration. (Sadly, the chicken only got to participate in the blooper reel. Her TV career never hatched… ba dum bum)

We were also pretty jazzed about the segments this week. Brian Vines Alvin Ailey dance segment was a great way to start the show. We’re all pretty much fans of Brian around here. We love how he gets into his segments and he always gives a great webcam interview. The big buzz was around Nikki Garcia’s Girls Helping Girls segment. Not only is the project pretty awesome, it was founded when Sejal Hathi was only 15 years old. And although her global influence made us feel like a bunch of underachievers…we still think that’s pretty cool.