My Colorado Adventure

A film student friend of mine asked me to shoot some video for a documentary film based on a small town in Colorado   I haven't really shot anything for a long time and was anxious to use my Canon DSLR camera which was mostly stuck in my closet since I bought it last September.

Since the audio on DSLR cameras is not great, I got a shotgun mic and a "sungun", basically a square light you mount on the camera to give some light when doing interviews in dark conditions. I also bought a camera handle, a nifty job that lets me mount the camera and both the light and the shotgun mic.

 
While I've been in Colorado years ago, I haven't been there for at least 10 years and was happy to see the Colorado Rockies again, being the southern chain of the massive Rocky Mountains.

Once we hit the ground, we began shooting video on the subject, mainly being a small town called Lyons, which had a disaster last year when a river flooded causing massive destruction and a death. 

 We began shooting the 21st of July and covered much of the remaining homes and wrecked homes. This all went well and we then moved to another part of the doc which consisted of a 42-year old blue-grass festival which would be the last half of the shoot.

For those who follow me from several other countries, I might need to explain bluegrass. First of all it's not really about grass, but rather a music festival of American country music sort of in the line of Johnny Cash but with a difference.

Bluegrass music originally came from Irish settlers in America back in the 1800's, who brought a style of very basic music, using gospel as well as old Irish songs that are probably forgotten now. The performers use traditional guitars, banjo's, mandolins, fiddles and big stand-up basses. 

 We had passes to film much of the festivals and I really got a workout on several very hot days as well as one with rain. The crowd totaled around 3000 people or at least close to that and has been going strong until last year's flood. Most of the park was underwater and it took a long time to fix and open.

I shot a lot of different crowd shots, kids, girls, couples, dancers and we did some interviews with locals and also had chances to talk to some of the performers. One of them, an all-girl group called Della Mae were amazing, having had received a Grammy, the music equivilent of an Oscar.

The festival went 3 days and included with a band called the Steep Canyon Rangers, which comedian/actor Steve Martin plays with now and then.

All in all a great trip where I met a lot of people and after the Ghostkeeper application went down in flames, I needed some fun and sure got it.

Now onwards to another project.