Weekend Wrap-Up

Saturday I had to complete shooting on a story for WEDU (backstory here). We had done the principal interviews earlier and shot nearly three hours of video of guys working on and racing their radio controlled cars. This shoot wouldn't take all day.

Despite the large amount of video we shot and the interviewees all having good things to say, the story was still missing something. The problem is that I had three different voices articulating basically same view. They were all middle-aged guys who had a passion for racing these cars. That's fine for a 90 second typical TV news story. But the story would exhaust itself long before the allotted running time for a five minute feature.

We went back looking for at least one more perspective. We found one in a hobby shop about a half mile from the track. Its owner opened the store at that location primarily because of its proximity to the track. This was important because the racers I had interviewed talked about how the county's support for the track came in part because it would draw people to downtown Englewood. A business that sells supplies for racing at the track opening there would be evidence of that.

We also interviewed a fan. Attendance still didn't meet the expectations we had been led to have but there were enough people to show that there was at least a crowd of some sort. The fan we talked to verified that more people do watch the races when it's cooler out. She was also a woman, which gives us some variety of voices in the story.

I haven't seen the tapes of Saturday's shoot yet but I feel much better about the story now.

Sunday, with a mountain of laundry to tackle, I spent most of the day playing guitar.

Big Room Boom

The tune above is a work in progress. I got the drums from the Sony Acid Music site. The free Acid project includes sound loops. Drums is where many of my recent tunes have started. I get the drums going, start playing along, keep going until a stumble across something I like than try to record it.

Pulse

Pulse is a simple tune (not like any of mine are terribly intricate) that provides a bed for me to play lead guitar over. I have another version that is much slower and I kept the same smooth lead guitar sound. The faster version might work better with a more distorted lead guitar.

Funky Mood Five

Funky Mood Five is the latest attempt to play the lead guitar part more precisely. This version also has a slightly different mix, with the synthesizer a little louder and the guitar toned down some.

Good Times With Nuge (V.4)

This one is also an attempt to tighten up a song I have posted here before. The differences are subtle but when you play something over and over again, you make little tweaks in how it goes and, I hope, play it a little better.