My job in the past year has changed pretty radically with the invention of P2 media. We rarely shoot anything to tape, and instead we shoot HD video files to a P2 card…basically a hard drive inserted into the camera. This allows a fully tapeless workflow.

Downloading these raw HD video files is a critical process and it must be done with extreme care to insure that no media is lost. But I must download footage wherever the shoot takes me, and that can pose some awkward moments to be on a laptop.

Below are my top 3 most complicated places I have downloaded footage in the last year:

#3: In the sleeper cab of a semi truck.

I was recently filming a driver training video for Navistar in the desert outside of LA. We were shooting so much footage that day and I was constantly downloading to keep up with the fast and furious pace of the production. I was miles away from water, electricity, or even cell phone access. My only option was to download while riding in the sleeper cab of the truck as we made our way through the California desert.

#2: At a West Point, United States Military Academy football game.

The assignment was to create an advertisement for use during the USMA football game. I was there on the night of the first home game of the season. It was one of those crisp fall days perfect for a game. The stands were packed and the fans were showing full support. Me…I was on the front row on my laptop. To the untrained eye it looked like I was squeezing in some extra office work. But I was really hard a work downloading our raw HD footage.

#1: On a golf cart in the middle of a school bus factory, in Tulsa, OK.

I was recently filming a video for IC Buses in their mile-long factory in Tulsa. Here the busses are built entirely from scratch and the production line wraps a total of 3 miles around the facility. Our schedule was packed with no time to loose, so we didn’t have the luxury of returning to an office to download footage. Therefore, I made use of an available golf cart to download in the midst of all the welding, painting, and construction of these lovely yellow school buses.

The Holiday Card

Now that ‘Holiday Season ‘08’ is in the bag, it’s probably as good a time as any to wax philosophical about our holiday E-card. This year’s concept stemmed from a colorful conversation that included a retelling of some of the more infamous moments from Manning parties past, as well as a discussion about office party clichés. With a little Photoshop magic and a few hundred hours of work, what emerged was a bizarre virtual party that combined celebrities, pop-culture references, employee debauchery, and more than a little alcohol. But we got there aided by using content that was ‘borrowed’.

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