There's No Place Like Home

A old friend from college posted an amazing video on Facebook the other day. Garrett is an audio, video, lighting professional from Nashville, TN. He has had some great opportunities over the years to work with very creative teams over the years. Well... a couple of weeks ago, he was invited to travel to one of my old "stomping grounds", the great state of Kansas... to help out with a LIVE concert recording (soon to be released on DVD) of one of my favorite "old school" bands, KANSAS. He had posted some photos that were pretty amazing... but then he posted a video that just blew my mind. It was a sneak peak at what goes "behind the scenes" in the production truck (called The Journey HD). The company that is producing the video is Camp Digital and they have a pretty amazing process for these "on location" LIVE recordings. As you are watching the video, (after you get over the fact that it is actually KANSAS performing LIVE on all of those monitors) keep your eyes on the Video Director, Steve Angus as he calls the camera shots and Audio Director, Curt Casassa as he calls the music cues. These guys are absolutely amazing! Both Steve and Curt just HAD to be music directors, conductors, musicians... before they got this gig. It seems like total chaos in the truck... but these guys are real pros. They know exactly what they are doing. Amazing Stuf! Check it out:




Before the Steve Angus gives that "finger snap" signal to go to a specific camera... there is another guy in the truck that is "painting" that camera (adjusting the iris and getting the color just right) BEFORE they can go to that shot. Timing is everything. Talk about intense?? WOW! Now you can see a little of the hard work and preparation goes into the making of one of these LIVE Concert DVDs.

Here are a few photos from the concert:

Phil Ehart with the Symphony behind him. WOW!


















Dave Ragsdale & Steve Morse (one of my all-time favorite lead guitarists - obviously playing violin here.) on "Dust In The Wind"


















Garrett hanging out with Kerry Livgren backstage. Are you kidding me???


















Thanks, Garrett, for giving us this very cool "behind the scenes" look at LIVE video production.