New Film--"Reflection"

Our new film--"Reflection" is up! Check out the trailer, film, and production photos in the FILMS section! This film marks a darker turn for oogaFilms, just in time for the holidays! The moral of the story: Don't buy magic pills from strange men (pictured left).

COUNTDOWN in Miami

Tomorrow, Nov. 29th, is the premiere of "Countdown" at the Tower Theater in the Miami Short Film Festival! All of us here at oogaFilms are excited that the talent of an amazing cast and crew can be put on display. Click here for more info about the festival.
Can't make it to Florida? (Neither can we) Don't worry, you can watch the film, behind-the-scenes, and bloopers in the FILMS section.

Victory at OurStage.com!

With all the hubbub that was the Apple Insomnia Film Festival, on the other side of the internet, we quietly won another contest at OurStage.com! oogaFilms' thriller short, "Countdown", won 1st place in the short films category! With that comes some prize money, exposure, and the Premiere of "Countdown" at the Miami Short Film Festival!!!!! Sweet deal? We think so . . . .
You can see "Countdown" in our FILMS section. It is also featured at OurStage.com and Crackle.com.

A Big Thank You for the Support!

Well, the Apple Insomnia Film Festival has come to an end, now our fates are in the hands of the tally machines . . . but it was a fun ride, and we couldn't ask for more devoted fans and friends! We appreciate all the support you guys gave for our little video! This was a big contest, with about 2000 entries from across the nation, so it is hard to say what the outcome would be, but the real prize in all of this was to see the overwhelming support from all y'all, something we don't deserve, but we're grateful for nonetheless, and that's something a contest can't give you . . . unless its a popularity contest.

Dan at the "Crosswalk"

Last Saturday, oogaFilms created a three minute film for the 2007 Apple Insomnia Film Contest. This is a contest wherein college and high school students create a three minute film in 24 hours. oogaFilms' entry is titled "Crosswalk," and can currently be seen on YouTube, but on the 19th October will be available for viewing and voting on Apple's website. I encourage all to go and vote this Friday.

The film centers around a young man (played by Gavin Gee), and his romantic endeavors to capture the interest of a young woman (played by Rachel Lawson), whom he met at a crosswalk. Like all of oogaFilms' romantic comedies, this one is sure to amuse and entertain. (Really, this thing is great! I promise you you'll like it.)

The film was written and directed by oogaFilms founder Geoff Yano. The music was done by Ryan Gee. Other behind-the-scenes tech stuff was done by Arthur Kendrick, Rodd Simonsen (of Ironrodd Productions), myself, and Mark Sanderson. Supporting roles were performed by myself, and Noelene Clark.

Again, come Friday, I encourage everyone to go to Apple's website and vote for "Crosswalk" by Team oogaFilms, and tell all of your friends and family to do the same.

--Dan Jones

Voting Has Started!

Voting has started for the Apple Insomnia Film Festival! Click on the link above and cast your vote for "Crosswalk"! Voting ends November 9th.

Spread the word! Embed the banner (above) on your site/blog/myspace:

<div style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://edcommunity.apple.com/insomnia_fall07/item.php?itemID=1839" title="Vote for Crosswalk"><img style="margin:0px;" src="http://www.zanecochran.com/hosted_sites/oogafilms/uploaded_images/crosswalk_banner3-753832.png"></a></div>

2007 Insomnia Film Festival

There was a challenge, and we took it. Last weekend, from 8am Saturday morning to 8am Sunday morning my iron crew and I shot, cut, and scored a 3-minute film as part of the Insomnia 24-hour Film Festival. We started out fresh and geared up, and as 7:30am rolled around Sunday morning, all five of us were strewn across my room nearly lifeless (including our composer curled up in a ball in the middle of the floor), and out of the depths arose the film "Crosswalk". Was it worth it? Of course it was! We made a movie! And that's an itch that my crew and I just can't get rid of.

Now comes your part! This contest is vote-based, and we need your votes! Starting Oct. 19th voting will be held at the Apple site, so mark your calendars, and get ready to vote for "Crosswalk"!
To get a sneak peek of the film before voting, go over to the FILMS section!

Picking Up Where We Left Off

This morning we had the great privilege of interviewing Brother and Sister Turley. We met up at Geoff's house early in the morning where Ashley fed us a tasty breakfast. Then, we packed up my car and took off to Boerne, Texas. We had a nice morning drive through the Hill Country -- the air was a little misty and the sun shone through like a golden orb hanging in the sky.

Eventually, we found our way to the Turley's house and, after setting up, enjoyed a great interview. Brother Turley moved from the Mexican Colonies to Texas as a baby in the late 1920s and has memories of meeting for church at the Bremer's house and at the Woodmen of the World Hall, before the Branch got a building of their own on Buena Vista Street. His dad, Henry Eyring Turley, served as the Branch President and District President -- among many other callings -- and later as the first Patriarch of the San Antonio Texas Stake. Brother Turley (who we interviewed) was the first Bishop of the San Antonio 2nd Ward, which was formed in 1958 at the same time the San Antonio Texas Stake was formed.

Sister Turley told us about feeding the LDS servicemen stationed in San Antonio during WWII, of marching in the Pioneer Day Parade at the Hemisfair in 1968, and of helping with relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina.

The Turley's are great examples of what it means to give your life to the Lord and we were very privileged to be in their home and spend the morning with them.

On the way home, we stopped at Cartwright's BBQ because Ashley was craving steak. It was pretty good food. Chris said he had eaten there 5 years earlier. We pulled into Austin at around 2pm.

--Mark Sanderson

Welcome to oogaFilms!

Welcome to the brand new site of oogaFilms! Make yourself at home and stay awhile, here. . . have a crumpet. We're excited to finally become part of this trendy new thing people call "internet". First and foremost, you need to check out our newest project, "A SERIES OF SONNETS", over in the FILMS section. Go, watch it, the power of Shakespeare compels you.

Don't know much about oogaFilms? Well, unfortunately, we're fresh out of tour guides, but you can go over to the ABOUT section to find out more!

Mark and Ashley--Ambassadors of the Cause

Here's a word from Mark about his visit with Stake President Hassle!

On Sunday, September 9th, Ashley and I drove down to San Antonio after
church to meet with President Hassle of the San Antonio North Stake.
He had a meeting in the East Stake so we were scheduled to meet him
there. Due to some miscommunication, we ended up missing him, but we
ended up briefly meeting President Allen of the San Antonio East Stake
and Elder Olson, our Area Authority Seventy, to whom we mentioned the
documentary. They seemed interested also so we'll see how they come
into play as our production story unfolds (yes, that's the literary
technique of foreshadowing).
After dropping a copy of our demo off at the Normans, we went to
Ashley's parents house for dinner. We then headed up to President
Hassle's house, who Ashley had talked with on the phone and
rescheduled for that evening. President Hassle was very friendly and
we ended up staying there for 3 and a half hours and learned a bunch
about the construction of the San Antonio Temple (he's the stake
president who made the San Antonio Temple happen). In the end, we
scheduled a formal interview with him, where we would come with our
equipment and capture him and his wife on camera.
Our purpose in going there to see him was to ask him for funding to
support our project. We discussed this near the end of our 3 and a
half hours and he was positive, mentioning that he knew people who
would be more than willing to help. He also recommended that we talk
with President Otte, the temple president, who is a CPA and who is
rather gifted at raising money. We also need to compile a budget plan,
showing how much we've spent thus far and how much we expect to spend
for the remainder of the project.
So, our meeting with President Hassle was productive in more ways than
we had expected. I'm really glad we had our demo (displaying clips
from our interviews up to this point) ready to show him. He was really
impressed by it, stating how the color and audio were such good
quality, and was excited to be a part of the project. The feeling is
mutual as we're excited to have him as part of the project!

--Mark Sanderson

The Sweet End to the Marathon

This morning was glorious . . . I slept in until 11:30. Since we already got temple footage Saturday morning, nothing was on the agenda this morning, so I was more than happy to turn my cell phone alarm off and drift back into sleep. We attended the Talbert’s family ward and afterward we ate lunch and rushed over to the Fykes’ household for an interview. President Fykes is part of the temple presidency for the San Antonio temple, and has a long history with San Antonio and Corpus Christi. After that we headed to Bro. Hernandez’s house for the last interview of the day. He was the first Hispanic bishop in San Antonio. That was a great interview because you could tell that he had great love for the area and the church, he shared his testimony in Spanish, and even though I couldn’t understand his words, I could understand the strong Spirit that was there. We ended the evening and weekend with a laid back late dinner of biscuits and gravy and watermelons at the Talbert’s, said our good bye’s and now we’re heading back on the road to Austin. (It’s about 10:45 right now and I’m writing this on my laptop on a word doc.) Overall, we filmed 6 interviews this weekend (which is twice the amount of interviews we had prior to this weekend). This was an incredible jump ahead in our production. Now I have the first day of school to look forward to this week . . . Ugh.

Conguering the Day of Doom

I am so tired right now, we had a full action packed day, with one thing after another, it was hugely productive, let me tell you more about it . . . This morning we had a appointment with the Boyd's ut that fell through due to schedule conflicts, so we ended up going to the temple grounds instead, and I got some beautiful shots. That place just has such a serene feeling once you enter the grounds. But it was around 10 in the morning so the sun was just high enough to hide behind the angel moroni at the perfect angle. AFter that we had our first interview of the day at 12. We were interviewing the Sternekurts. Now, keep in mind we interviewed 4 homes today, when we usually interview just one, so this was quite a feat today, and I won't go into each one in detail because I'm really tired right now and don't want to. Sorry. One thing that really helped our setup is that we had C-stands to hold the lighting instead of mic stands, if you don't know what I'm talking about, C-stands are alot better, sturdier, and efficient-er. After the Sternekurts we went to the Lomas's, then the Golightly's then the Boyd's (we resceduled them for 8pm). It was basically one interview after the other: arrive, set-up, interview, take-down, drive, and repeat. Ashley's friend from San An, Bonnie, helped us with the interviews today and it made our set-up really fast and efficient. And through it all, we had a good time to, Mark observed this evening that a group of people can have a great time doing productive things, as opposed to having a great time and doing nothing productive. Uh . . . yeah, it makes sense, just think about it a little longer. We treated ourselves at the end of the day by eating at the famed HENRY'S PUFFY TACOS!!!!!! It was awesome, I mean, the food was fine, but the actual experience of being there? Incredible. We then returned to Ashley's house after a 14 hour day of filming. Mark further treated himself to a pedicure from Kerrie and Kayla Talbert. His toe-nails are red now . . . I do not sponsor this type of behavior

The Long Weekend: Day 1

Alright, so right now its 1:00 in the morning and I am sitting in Kerri Talbert's room (Ashley's sister) in San Antonio, Ashley is asleep on the bed, and Mark and Rodd are dead on the floor . . . like they are actually dead . . . no I'm serious. Well, we drove in the depths of downtown San An at around 8, we were planning on taking some balcony shots from the high tower downtown, but that's been put on hold; we need to go through the proper channels. Things were a little frustrating at first because nothing seemed to go the way we planned (which is something you'd think we would get used to). However, we persisted and ended up getting some really cool shots of the downtown streets and along the riverwalk. The night stretched on and needless to say we were all exhausted by the time we were heading to Ashley's house. I am really tired, and we have a early morning and a full day ahead of us tomorrow. Man, tomorrow is something that we have never experienced before--4 interviews in one day! We'll see how it turns out!

Double Header of Doom

Oh wow there is so much to tell, and not enough blog to tell it . . . even though blogs can go forever . . . right? Well, yesterday I filmed the last two sonnets of my "Series of Sonnets". I was looking forward to this day because I would meet some new talent, I would have fun making a couple of movies, and I would be wrapping up this project. It has been so fun coming up with different ideas, and discovering new tricks to help illustrate Shakespeare's poetry, but it has also been stressful and sometimes frustrating. I wasn't looking forward to this day because I didn't feel as prepared as I wanted to. And when a director isn't prepared, well, chaos ensues or nothing ensues.
Let's flashback to earlier last week, I had an actress lined up for "Sonnet 116", she was excited to be in it, but it turned out that our schedules never lined up and she would be leaving Austin the day before I would be filming, so I contacted a friend who would be the replacement, but her schedule was packed full all that day and week. It was just a few days from shooting and I was without a cast, I was pretty panicky and I mentioned my dilemna over g-chat with my friend/web designer Zane. He said, well, there's an intern that works in my office that has done some acting, do you want me to contact her? YES!!! I met Lene over g-chat and she was more than willing to step in for the role. Great blessing. Well, Saturday came quickly, and that day was scheduled full of Sonnet filming euphoria. I got up at like 6:45 that morning and started getting my mind set for the day. The crew (Arthur Kendrick and Dan Jones) showed up at 9 am, and we started to set up, Mark Sanderson was playing the love interest and Lene Lay was to play Shakespeare. Lene showed up with a smile and energy that helped the shoot. As a director, one of my worries is the morale of the cast and crew, and it always helps me when they outwardly show that they are having a good time. She was fun and easy to work with and its awesome that she showed up at the last minute to save our butts. As the morning drew towards noon our last section of filming 116 took us to downtown Austin, 6th and Congress. And, I've gotta admit, I always feel cool when I'm operating expensive equipment, and people stop and look to see what you're doing. "Yeah, we're shooting a film, excuse us". There was this funny shot where Mark and Lene had to stay in an embrace on the street corner for like 2 min. straight (was Mark looking forward to it? You'll have to ask him, but yes). I was rather amused, cause people would walk by and not know what was going on. I don't know if that makes me a bad director by being amused when I put my actors in weird situations, but if that's the case, then I'm a bad director.
We finished shooting 116 by lunch, Lene left, Mark stayed on to help with crew and we grabbed some Jamba Juice and Conan's pizza to gear up for the afternoon shoot of "Sonnet 60". This was the one that I felt unprepared for. So the crew and I looked at the sonnet over lunch and discussed some ideas that we could do. One idea Mark had was to shoot on a spinning carousel at a playground. The sonnet's them is about time, and circles come to mind, so that would make sense. We picked up William Jackson, who would be playing Shakespeare, and shot at my house, on a carousel at a local playground (which turned out awesome) and then at another park where I was hoping to shoot at a brook, but when we got to it, the brook was dry! I was greatly disappointed because that really eliminated alot of shots that I had planned. The shoot ended with just William and I taking different shots of him around town, and I'll have to see if I need additional footage when I cut it together, is that okay William?
But overall, a long day yet a successful day, we got a lot done, and I see the light at the end of the tunnel, now we'll see how editing goes!

Getting back in the swing of things

It's been a couple weeks since our last interview so we were excited to get back into action with the documentary. The core group was there (Rodd, Mark, Ashley, and myself), and we had some Stauffer's lasagna at Ashley's apt. before heading out. (I love that stuff!) Instead of driving down to San An, we went local this time, and interviewed an Austin resident named Ted Limb. He was friendly, cool, and laid back as we set up lighting and sound in his front room. Good thing too, because the set up took a little longer than I wanted, I had to get back in the swing of things, it's amazing what two weeks can do to you! But the lighting looked good, and things were ready to go. Brother Limb offered an interesting perspective on Texas LDS history because instead of being a native of San Antonio, he is a native to Corpus Christi. Why interview him, you may ask? Well, Corpus was once a part of the San Antonio Stake, so we were able to get a view from one of the outskirts of the early Texas church. Corpus Christi became its own stake eventually, and Bro. Limb was the first Eagle Scout and first missionary to come from the Corpus Christi stake. Near the end of the interview I really appreciated a remark he made when he noted that the San Antonio Temple is often referred to the "SA" Temple, and instead of thinking that "SA" stands for San An, he likes to refer to it as the "South Austin" temple. He then became rather emotional as he shared his deep gratitude for the temple and it being so close to him. Overall--a good day. Now we're gearing up for the ultimate San An long weekend marathon of power coming up this Friday!

" . . . Where all the lights are bright!"

Yesterday Ashley Talbert, Chris Bucheit, and I braved the streets of San Antonio as we were shooting some B roll footage for the documentary. As we entered downtown San An, we sang "Downtown, where all the lights are bright . . ." but those were the only words we knew of the song, so needless to say the singing fizzled out quickly. We took some beautiful shots of the riverwalk, the Alamo, Hemisfair Park, and the Alamodome, each which plays a role in the story we're trying to tell. Not too much else to tell except there was alot of walking around involved and carrying around a camera and/or tripod around San An can get pretty tiring. We finished the night with a dinner with Ashley's family which consisted of some amazing brisket . . . . . . mmmmm.

. . . a summer's day?

Yesterday we filmed Sonnet #18 starring Lindsey Rendon. Lindsey starred as the dead wife in my last film "Countdown" and she was so fun to work with that I asked her to come back for a sonnet, we had discussed it briefly awhile ago and she had picked out Sonnet #18, which I later found out is one of the more famous ones . . . so no pressure on us. On Wednesday we had scouted out a really cool park right next to Lindsey's house, and it provided everything we needed for the shoot, like a tree swing, flowers, big open fields, and little coves where teenagers smoke pot . . . uhh, we didn't need that, this is a drug-free film . . . just say no and take a bite out of crime. Anyway, I was really excited to film until that morning when I was driving to work the heavens dumped all its rage onto Austin, and I was depressed because its summer and its raining and we would have to delay the filming. However, a blessing came and when it was time to shoot at 12:30, it was blue skies . . . that was mostly cloudy. I think Shakespeare probably imagined a very different day than that one when comparing his muse to "a summer's day", one that had less mosquitoes and more . . . summery. The important thing though, was that it had stopped raining. We went out on the field and I had Lindsey walk around not having the slightest clue what she was doing taking directions from me who was just pretending to know what he was doing. We also had Chris Bucheit star as the guy. He had come the day before for a photo shoot which was necessary for this film, and he was there for a short time during the filming, but when he was there I was cracking up the whole time, just cause I can't direct any kind of romantic scenes (why then am I making films of sonnets? . . . . I ask myself that a lot, and I still don't have an answer) what was supposed to be romantic first turned out to be awkward (sums up my dating life, except, its always awkward). But we eventually got it down. Kyle Dorwart, who is always and ever-ready crew member manned the boom mic and Dan Jones returned again as the behind the scenes documenter. After about an hour and a half Lindsey had to go to work so Dan and Kyle and I took some more shots and came up with a stellar idea for a pilot webisode called "Joe Striker" I can't reveal too much, but think Dan Jones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . with a mullet. Need I say more?
We continued filming later that evening when Lindsey was done with work. William Jackson (who is one of my heroes by the way) was the crew and we shot the dark room scenes and finished up with Lindsey in the field walking around for 20 minutes taking fake pictures of nothing while I filmed, but it will look cool in the end. Peace out for now

. . . Nothing like the Sun

On Thursday I started filming my "Series of Sonnets", a project that I actually came up with in high school and am just now picking up where I left off. I had talked with Jesse Ormsby about it weeks ago, and he came back to me with Sonnet #130. Jesse was the first one I thought of when starting this project, he's helped me with scripts in the past, and well, c'mon, if anyone would portray Shakespeare, it would be Jesse. I have since read #130 over and over again, and love it, I'm not Shakespeare scholar myself, but to me its a celebration of the quirks in people, its the imperfections that you love the most, its what makes you you. Now if any young lady were to celebrate my imperfections, I have plenty . . . I'll celebrate all your imperfections too . . . any takers? . . . nobody? But for the purpose of the film, I decided to change the tone to a "make-up" story--the guy and girl get in a huge fight but then make-up, what did you think I was talking about, Loreal? no I don't wear that stuff, only occasionally . . . every other weekend . . . okay every weekend--yes it does throw in more drama, and well, I'm not a fan of drama, I enjoy laughing much more . . . or explosions . . . caused by giant robot aliens . . . that disguise themselves as 18 wheelers. But I took this direction because it gave the sonnet the power of telling a story.
It was pretty cloudy through the whole day, but thankfully it never rained on us and we still got plenty of light. The "muse" or "beloved" of this sonnet turned out to be Tara Barborka, and she was awesome. I approached like 3 girls before I got to Tara, and, Tara, does that mean you're the 4th round draft pick? Absolutely not, it means that you were meant to be in it. I thought I had settled on one girl, but the day before filming she tells me that she can't make it, so I panic and scramble, and call up Tara, and she says "of course". Tara to the rescue? Absolutely. I think Tara's biggest challenge were the scenes of her fighting with Jesse, she had trouble getting mad . . . and she started to feel awkward around the improvised discussion between the two which veered toward the topic of making-out . . . I think the phrase "lightsaber in my mouth" was actually uttered . . . just don't ask. However, Tara's high-point came at a scene where she had to look like she had been sobbing in front of the bathroom mirror. We had to come up with a way to evoke that emotion, and thinking "my dog is dead" just wouldn't cut it. So super crew member Kyle Dorwart suggested to play some emo Death Cab songs (they are the best by the way), Tara said that country music makes her cry, country music makes me cry too, not cause its emotional, just cause its bad, and I was kidding about crying. Well, to pull off the look Tara stuck handsoap in her eyes to give them the swelled up, teary look, now that's what I call dedication! She looked great, well the "I look like a wreck" sort of great. A sonnet isn't that long of a poem so the shoot only lasted about 3 1/2 hours, which is nothing, and everything went pretty smoothly overall, we'll see if editing will be as agreeable. Props to Kyle Dorwart on crew and car and Dan Jones on behind-the-scenes documenter.

Trip #2 down to San An--checking out some sites

Last Sunday, July 15 was our second time down to San Antonio on the San Antonio Project, one week after our successful interview with the Norman's. We were just doing location shooting so it was just Rodd, Mark, and myself. It was a little more laid back because we weren't interviewing anyone, we didn't need to be anywhere at a certain time or look presentable in front of anybody, we just went to some buildings and checked them out. The first stop we went to was the Bailey Street chapel. I learned from Mark that Harold B. Lee dedicated it and that Sis. Norman was the first baby blessed in it. It is found in the middle of a suburb, surrounded by a chain-link fence and all boarded up. It was a very dilapidated building. There was a walkway through the fence so we were able to walk around and get a closer look, it was almost kind of sad, this building plays a prominent part of the story we are trying to tell, it was a very significant mark in the history of the church in that area, but now it just sits there lost and forgotten. As we were taking some panning exterior shots there was a neighbor who just had a look of a gangster, was he? Probably not, but we decided to humor ourselves and think it was, anyway he was lookin tough and spewed out a signal whistle to his homies letting them know that some guys with cameras were invading their turf. That's my theory anyway, to make it more exciting. Our next stop was the Thomas Jefferson High School, which the early church met for stake conference in that area. It was a really cool high school, it had a very old, archaic, almost colonial (Thomas Jefferson?) structure to it. It also had a firescape in the form of a metal slide. Awesome? Yes. Our last stop was the St. Cloud Chapel which was the first stake center built in the area and is still in use today. I got some marvelous shots with the evening sun glistening behind the trees and steeple. Anyway, the accompanying video diary to this blog is Video Diary #2, so check it out!

Car Trouble

Well, we left today at about 4 o’clock heading toward San Antonio for the Ann Roberts interview. We were pretty relaxed and just expected another day of shooting much like the Norman interview which went smoothly overall, so we were enjoying a Sunday afternoon trip in Rodd’s car. A new member of the crew today was Chris Bucheit, who has a bachelor’s from UT in film, so he was a welcome addition. Things started to get stressful when we got within the San An city limits, we were already running late and we ended up getting extremely lost. We have now determined that Mark Sanderson will not be charge of directions. We went around in circles and when we finally got our bearings straight we found out that we were only a few blocks away from the Norman’s house where we were two weeks ago! We also decided that we want Ashley to come down with us as often as she can. She didn’t come down with us today, and we ended up missing her; we get lost in so many ways without our production manager! We eventually arrived at the Roberts’ home and met Ann Roberts, who was the first person baptized in the bailey st chapel, and her son Larry Roberts, who tricked a general authority in eating a jalapeno. Bro. Roberts wasn’t feeling up to an interview, so we interviewed Ann Roberts, who is an incredibly charming woman in her 70’s with a bright personality and a good memory. It took awhile for us to get the lighting right, our original set up had to be changed several times with us moving the lights and switching the gels, and after about 45 minutes we finally settled on a good lighting set up. The interview went well, it was very informative and the spirit was there. We packed up and were heading home, and I was wrapping up on the video diary, but I ended up speaking to soon, as Rodd noticed some warning signs on his car and had to pull over. It ended up that his radiator was completely dry! We stopped at a service station and got two big bottles of fluid, but that still wasn’t enough, so we went over to HEB and got some cheap gallons of water, and finished filling it up. So, what we expected just to be another interview ended up being something very different, when life throws curve balls, you still gotta hit it.

San Antonio Project-A Look at the first day

July 8, 2007 This is the first production blog for what I call "The San Antonio Project". This project is headed by my friend Mark Sanderson, and we are making a documentary about the history of the LDS Church in the San Antonio area. So after church ended in Austin, Mark, Tony Lewis, and myself met at Rodd Simonsens house. After eating Rodd's homemade tator-tot casserole (the tots were still cold, and the hamburger wasn't cooked all the way, but we still ate it cause we were hungry). We were running a little late because Rodd had to make one last minute trip to RadioShack to pick up another lavalier mic. The ride down to San An was fairly uneventful except for the part where this guy preceded to flip us off multiple times, always driving up to the side of us, flipped the bird, fell back, speed up to the side of us, repeat . . . oh wait, again . . . I found it rather humorous, I tried to get it on my camcorder put it turned out to be in vain. We got to San An, and one restaurant that we have already made plans to eat at was "Henry's Puffy Taco" Why, you may ask, because its a restaurant called "Henry's Puffy Taco"!!!
The people we were interviewing were Sis. Norman, and her sister Sis. Thompson, who were daughters of the first stake president of San Antonio. Set up took about 45 minutes, we had worked the setup and experimented with lighting the day before, having to make trips to Wal-Mart and Home Depot. We came up with a good set up but we didn't know how it would look in the Norman's home. Lighting consisted of a few reading lamps from Wal-Mart clipped on mic stands with gels and diffusion paper taped onto them. The miracle about it was that I checked the monitor after we set it up and the lighting looked beautiful! I was pleasantly surprised . . .
The interview went really well, I manned the camera, Rodd monitored the audio, Tony took photographs when he could, Ashley supervised as production manager, and Mark interviewed. The interview went really well, and at the end the two sisters bore their testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel. The Spirit was very strong in the home, and we stayed after we took everything down and hung out with the family for a little bit. We ate sandwiches at Rodd's brother's house and then we headed back for Austin after a triumphant day of filming . . .