Y'all step up and say Howdy

Hello from Western New York!

Documentary filmmaker and photographer with over 30 years experience with national magazines [freelance and staff] shooting for TV [PBS since 1987].
Have covered national politics in Washington, D.C. since early 70s.
Interests: social issues, politics, cultural stories and environmental issues.

Best,

Keith

[Chris Hurd]

Thanks for joining us Keith, and welcome aboard... it's great to see an aquaintance from r.v.p. on usenet. I took a long break from the newsgroups... perhaps I need to continue taking that break... but felt compelled to post there recently. Sure appreciate any input you have to offer here in our community.

[Rob Lohman]

Welcome aboard Keith! I keep repeating myself, but you are
amongst other people here with numerous years of experience!
I hope you enjoy your stay here and I'll see you around.

Sorry - jumped the gun and dived into the XL1 forums without a proper introduction (though I've received warm welcomes regardless)! I am a painter by trade; my filmmaker girlfriend is proud owner of a GL1. While my video experience pales in comparison to what I have read thus far, I am very interested in learning and this seems to be the place to do it. Pleased to be a part of this community!
I work out of Chicago - one of my jobs is with a non-profit called Connecting Classrooms to the World. CCW travels to remote regions of the world and uses information technology to hook up Chicago students with kids in Nepal, Argentina, and (in October) Chile. I'm shopping around for an XL1s to document our upcoming trip. Any tips you all might have regarding must-have accessories, sponsorships, or donations (read: shoestring budget) of video equipment for an expedition is much appreciated. Here's a link to the trip: http://www.activeendeavors.com/expeditions/
Best,
JC

[Rob Lohman]

JC,

Welcome aboard! Good to have you here. As you have already
discovered, it is a nice board to be. Regarding your question,
if you are going to travel with the camera a lot I would
recommend to invest heavily in protecting your camera. Because
you are going to haul it around airports, planes, different
countries etc. There are two types of bags available on an
airplane. One where the camera can stay with you in the
cabin (my preference) or a larger one where you do not have
to dismount the camera and it ships in the planes cargo hold
(you know baggage handles are called baggage throwers, right?).

You can also choice between hard or soft cases. One thing that
might also be interesting for you is to get a rain cover. This
protects your camera from rain (doh) but also dust and other
nasty stuff. Underwater housings are also available.

Another interesting thing might be a low weight compact
tripod (or monopod?). There are some excellent threads on
this board about this already. Try using the search feature.

Again, welcome aboard!

[Allan Sargan]

i am very new to dv. well basically, i don't know anything about it but i am very interested in learning everything. i would like to know if there are any classes/workshops available in either indianapolis or chicago.

thanks!

[Chris Hurd]

Go to http://www.dvcreators.net/ and click on "DV workshops -- schedules & maps" on the left-hand side. There's one in Chicago this weekend. These guys are friends of mine; you can't go wrong. Hope this helps,

[Allan Sargan]

thanks chris! unfortunately i will by at indy during their chicago 3day workshop. i would love to attend that dv workshop. i hope they add one at indy. i travel a lot bec. of work. i am based in chicago, but i have a stint in indy till september. i want to make better use of my time after work at indy so i wanted to take dv classes and someday make my own indie video.

[Guy Pringle]

Hi Chris,

Been out of this loop for a while. When you've recovered from NAB, drop us a line. I don't know what happened about getting "Rebel", but I read it, so if someone else is wanting to read it, please pass it on.

I finally made the plunge and after trying Promax, B&H and some companies in South Africa, I ended up buying my gear from Chris at ZGC. She was fantastic in keeping me informed about options and prices. She organized to have the PAL XL1s brought in from the UK with an International warrantee, so when I go back to South Africa, it will still be covered. I DID mention you,... thanks.

It arrives Monday 8th, April, that's tomorrow! Gonna have to decide which monitor to use, for easy viewing, but I'm really excited.

[John Locke]

I'll jump in and properly introduce myself.

I'm a Texan...which isn't that original here at DVInfo.net it seems. I live in Korea where they say "You can't throw a rock off of Nam Mountain without hitting a Park, Kim, or Lee." That seems to be the case with Texans in this community...which is good since occasionally you need to chuck a rock at a Texan or two. ;)

I started out in photography in high school way back when John Travolta was "John who?" and 8-track was gasping its last breath. I photographed school events (in a small "Last Picture Show"-type town in the Texas Panhandle) and, looking back, apparently tried to set the world record for the most photos of sunsets and silhouetted windmills ever taken.

Luckily, I grew out of the "windmill stage" and kept at photography for the next 17 years or so doing primarily outdoor portraits and modeling portfolios. Also got to do some commercial, wedding, and extreme sports photography. The extreme sports photography was by far the funnest...just setting up shots was an adventure...but paying jobs like that were few and far between. Weddings were the most plentiful source of income, but...well...they were weddings. Those of you who've done weddings know what I'm talking about.

I consider Austin my home-base now, but I've traveled a lot over the past 15 years....43 countries in all with extended stays in England, Norway, France, Spain, and seven years in Korea where I'm living now. Photography has taken a back seat to my current job which is educational web course development.

That's what got me into DV...and I'm completely hooked. Up until recently, I'd only done very short, very dry skits designed for web viewing (to go along with course materials) but I just finished last week my first short featurette filmed in the Seoul subway. What a blast! I'm now planning a series of subway stories...I'll start the next one after I move to Tokyo in May.

I'm still very green in the biz, so I tend to contribute more questions than answers here...but I'm always ready to help out as much as I can. I'm a movie fanatic...so the motivation is there to keep at this stuff. I'm hoping to hook up with some small, struggling theater troops in Tokyo to see if we can crank out some short films. I'm planning on this year as being an intensive learning experience.

I'll finish up by saying that ya got a lotta nice folks here. Nice folks who know their stuff.

See ya'll in later threads.

[Adrian Douglas]

John isn't kidding when he says he'll help out in any way he can.

I live about an hour on the train from Tokyo and was teaching English part time to pay the bills. The company sucked and when my contract finished I had no intention of renewing it. Being a foreigner in Japan is no easy thing, as some of you know, and finding a good job in the hard economic situation is just the same. I was looking at more of the same sh@$ty English conversation schools.

Enter John. He told me his company in Tokyo was hiring and gave me a number to ring. I rang up and got an interview. That alone is difficult. The interview went well but John still decided to put in a good word for me and recommend me for the job which I now have.

Now, I have never actually met John, we only know each other through these boards. He's put his credibility on the line for some guy from the internet, and I can't thank him enough.

John is typical of the calibre of the people on these boards. No crap, a spade is a spade, unless you like to call it a shovel. I\ve been here from pretty early in the piece and I'm pretty stoked to have some prety good DVvirtual friends.

Thanks all

[Rob Lohman]

If you are new to this board, let me welcome you here. This board is all about DV (Digital Video). It is a friendly meeting place for people all over the globe who share a common passion: DV! Some people also work in the business, others use it for fun or are trying to get into the business.

My name is Rob Lohman and I am the moderator (or as Chris, the owner of the site and the forum, calls it, wrangler) for this forum. The general "rules" of the forum can be found at http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/misc.php?action=faq, please take a bit of time to read these. Thanks. This forum is all about introducing and getting to know the people who frequent this great board. It will be greatly appreciated if you introduce yourself, tell us a bit about yourself and how you got tangled up with DV. Questions about cameras, NLE, techniques etc. can best be posted in their relative other forums. Thanks in advance for your posts and welcome aboard!

Lastly I will introduce myself a bit. I live in The Netherlands (Europe) and own a XL1S PAL camera. I am currently using it for fun and learning the art of movie making. I hope one day to make my own movie (only shorts thus far). I do editing on a PC system and have a day job as a computer programmer. If you want to know more you contact me through this board.

Thank you for taking the time to read this notice and I'll see you around!

For more information on who runs this board: http://www.dvinfo.net/network/wranglers.php


Kind regards,

Rob Lohman
Wrangler "These Are the People in Your Neighborhood"

[Adrian Douglas]

I'm going to follow Rob's lead and do the same.

My name is Adrian Douglas and my 15 minutes is co-wrangling the General DV Discussion forum with John Locke. It's a pretty big forum covering so many different things which is why there are two of us. Both of us came to video through photography, work in multimedia design and production and have experience with a wide range of software/hardware. Any questions you have we will do our best to answer them, or if we can't we will point you in the right direction.

I've been involved with DV since 1999 when I bought my XL1. I shot mainly snowboarding and surfing for other people and now I'm having a go at doing it for myself. At the moment I edit on a PC system using a Pinnacle DV500 and Adobe Premiere. I'm moving to a Mac and Final Cut Pro soon as well as adding an XM1(PAL version or GL1) to my backpack.

I'm Australian, from Queensland's Gold Coast, but am currently living in Japan. I'm slowly putting togeather an action sports video featuring Japanese surfers and skateboarders and snowboarders as well as writing a script for a feature length snowboard movie. I look forward to meeting you on the boards and hopefully being able to help in some way.

[Chris Hurd]

Gee whiz... that's just golden. Behold the power of message boards! I'll have to print this out and frame it.

If you boys ever find yourselves in Texas (for John, that would be "again" of course), then I'll buy ya both a round of Shiner Bock.

[Aaron Koolen]

Hi all. I'm new to the world of anything film related. Done a small course in 16mm film making last year and am now looking to get into DV a bit more seriously when I decide if I'm getting a PD150 or XL1s ;)

I have an idea for a fun movie project I want to do in order to learn how to shoot and all that guff. I also have a couple of ideas for short films, as well as a currently brewing idea for an "intro to animal rights" in New Zealand video.

Maybe once I get some experience I might look into actually making some money by doing functions and things like skate videos.

I'm keen to learn so if anyone is shooting any films and needs a hand with anything I'd be keen on helping out.

Cheers