SOMERSET, Pa. — Eleven years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a local filmmaker has joined the production team of a documentary that uncovers a story from that day that most people don't know.
Ryan Balton, who grew up in Dingman Township and graduated from Delaware Valley in 2007, is supervising the post-production of “We Were Quiet Once,” a feature-length documentary film that tells the story of people on the ground in Somerset County, Pa. who witnessed the tragic crash of United Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001.
“There are many people in our area who work or have lived in New York City, so the tragedy there affected many of our lives," said Balton, whose father was working several blocks north of the World Trade Center the morning of the attacks. "The terrible things that happened in the city are what first come to mind when thinking of Sept. 11."
“Yet we also can also relate to the people who live in Somerset County – a rural Pennsylvania area just like our Pike County," he said. "Their story, from the perspective of witnessing the crash of Flight 93 from the ground, has been left untold.”
"We Were Quiet Once" is currently featured on Kickstarter, an online funding platform for creative projects. The production team is hoping to raise $6,000 by the end of September to cover the costs of editing, finishing and distributing the film. If you are interested in contributing to the fundraising campaign and securing a copy, you can visit www.wewerequietonce.com for more information.
Balton has teamed up with executive producer and director Laura Beachy, who grew up in Somerset and was one of Balton's classmates at Syracuse University. The last project they worked on together, a documentary short called "The Path Ahead," played at the Black Bear Film Festival in 2010. Balton and Beachy hope to screen "We Were Quiet Once" at a future Black Bear Film Festival and other events in the tri-state area.
The film follows the need of three people in particular to memorialize the tragedy: "Father Al," a former Catholic priest who found purpose by immediately opening a non-denominational, memorial chapel; "Terry," who was working in a junkyard next to the crash site that morning and saw the plane go down; and "Rick," a volunteer firefighter who responded to the call and now organizes an annual motorcycle ride among the three crash sites. The expected release is January 2013.
Here is a short reel I made with clips from my new Nikon D5100 flying on the original Steadicam Merlin with a Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4 lens.
Full wide and full auto, except for focus. The camera is about a week old, so this is literally the first couple times I've played with it. The rig still isn't perfectly balanced, as you can tell from the slight side-to-side sway, but I still was happy with the results for the first time.
Anyway, my D5100 and Merlin are available to rent – with or without the operator! I hear it also takes nice photographs.
Sony R&D engineers tested out some brand new, prototype camera stitching and 3D technology at today's Syracuse Universitywomen's basketball game in the Carrier Dome. About a dozen students who are taking a 3D Production elective at the Newhouse School were among the first people in the world to see this technology.
The technology stitches multiple HD cameras together to create one large image. Within that large, panoramic image, the engineers can operate what they called a "virtual camera" using a joystick that provides pan/tilt/zoom control. In the photo below, you can see the full, stitched panoramic image at the top. The white rectangle represents what part of the image the virtual camera sees, and is displayed in full beneath the panoramic image.
By stitching together multiple stationary cameras, action on the entire court can be captured at every moment. By feeding those cameras say, back to ESPN's headquarters in Bristol, a "virtual camera" operator could control the game cam. Instant replays would be possible of any part of the court at any time. Additional "virtual cameras" could be added so, for instance, additional operators could get tight ISOs using the same feed.
Because the cameras are stationary, the Sony engineers said it would be possible to create a depth map by measuring the distance from the camera to the various reference points around the court. Using this depth map – a 3D wireframe of the court – it would be possible to achieve a potentially lower cost but still effective 3D image. They didn't have this set up at the demo but said it would be possible.
The system consisted of three cameras placed side by side on the main TV camera platform overlooking the court. The three cameras were precisely positioned and leveled so that among the three of them the entire court could be seen at all times. These little guys go for $50-60,000 each with a lens. Notice that the left and right cameras are getting cross shots instead of being positioned straight ahead. This made it easier for the geometry to match up.
The cameras sat on a rudimentary plywood rig on a tripod: a true prototype. Sony and SU Athletics chose the women's basketball game as opposed to a men's game because there is much less commotion and more room on the camera platform.
The signal from the cameras ran underneath the bleachers to a table with CCUs and their remote controllers, a couple flatscreen displays driven by a Leitch multiviewer, a high-end $35,000 broadcast reference monitor, a Vaio laptop with a USB joystick, and three HDCAM tape decks to record the three cameras. The engineers spent a day and a half setting up the equipment.
The business appeal for this type of research is cutting costs. ESPNU, for instance, plans on adding hundreds of more events in the coming years. By installing a few of these rigs in an arena, all of the camera control, switching and replays could happen in Charlotte (home of ESPN Regional TV) or Bristol and save having a full crew at an arena all day.
In theory, this technology could also allow the viewer back home to have complete control of their game watching experience.
Looking forward, the use of 4K cameras could provide more flexibility with zooming in and not losing pixels in a HD frame. Sony will use the footage they recorded today at NAB and for other demonstrations.
The Sony guys also had a 3D TV and a box of those goofy glasses to show off their 3D reel. Aside from sports, it included a music video, animated movies, and video games. The seemingly unanimous best-looking 3D programming is golf. They covered a few holes at the Masters tournament last year with 3D cameras, and this coming year the plan is to cover every hole with a 2D and 3D camera crew – in other words, around 200 cameras in all.
Neal Coffey, who will teach the 3D Production elective this semester and is head of the university's Video Production Unit, arranged the visit with Roger Springfield, who oversees the athletics department's media.
10: the number of NCAA championships that the Syracuse men's lacrosse team has – and the number of years that CitrusTV has produced its Lacrosse Preview Show.
Just like everything at CitrusTV, students are in charge of all aspects of the production of the annual half-hour show that takes an in-depth look at the upcoming season. Almost all of the show is shot at the athletic department's lacrosse media day, which happens the week before classes start each spring.
CitrusTV members cut their winter breaks short and trek back to Syracuse to shoot a press conference, interviews and players practicing. While traditionally lacrosse media day has been held in the Carrier Dome – where the team plays – this year it was held in Manley Field House, which was renovated over the summer from a basketball court surrounded by bleachers into a football/lacrosse field. Guess they wanted to show off the new digs.
The production consisted of two sets. The primary set, pictured above, was in a balcony that overlooks the field. This is where we shot all of the on-camera elements with the hosts, Scott Grodsky (former CitrusTV sports director) and Dan Moscaritolo. We shot all of the teases, tosses, readers and the show's open and close at this location. This was where I spent almost all of my time, taking care of the lighting and camera setup and operation.
We used a pair of Sony Z7U's on sticks – still in standard def as all of the archived footage we have is in SD and Time Warner Cable Sports isn't HD yet. You can also see a few Arri's and the portable prompter we used in the photo below.
This location gained a third chair in the afternoon for an on-set interview with John Galloway - one of the players - and John Desko, the head coach. Coach Desko is in the picture below.
The secondary set consisted of one camera to capture featurey shots of the players. The shots will be used in the show's open and various elements throughout the show. The players were miked up at this location so they could say their name and year, and repeat some lines that we fed them.
A couple ENG teams consisting of reporters and videographers also were walking around on the field to interview players and tape them practicing. A podium and backdrop were set up on the sidelines where Coach Desko spoke in a press conference.
The show, produced by CitrusTV's new sports director Ryan Koletty, will air on Time Warner Cable Sports, channel 13 for TWC customers in upstate New York, and on the Orange Television Network, channel 2 on campus. It will also appear on CitrusTV.net.
(Still photos all shot on a Canon 40D, and the 360 panoramas shot on my iPhone 3GS using the world's most amazing 99 cent app – 360 Panorama)
Maybe that's a biased title for this post... but CitrusTV was the only media organization that had video online from Yankee Stadium before the inaugural New Era Pinstripe Bowl kicked off between Syracuse and Kansas State on Dec. 30.
This playlist has all the clips posted before the game. After arriving at Yankee Stadium around 11 a.m. and picking up credentials and media goodies (can you say Pinstripe Bowl teddy bears?), I did all of the camerawork and editing you see here. All of the clips went online before the start of the game at 3:30.
At halftime, I ran off the field before the 20 minute clock started, and walked back out with 8 seconds to the top of the second half, leaving behind this video featuring some of the scenes around Yankee Stadium during the first half. No highlights of the game because ESPN owns the exclusive online rights to the actual game.
I also was able to post some photos on Twitter and Facebook. My most favorite views were generated by this awesome iPhone app I read about on Gizmodo called "360 Panorama" a few days ago and purchased for just a buck. It uses the sensors in the iPhone to paint a panoramic view and then allows for instant tweeting. I'm not big into Twitter, as you may know, but since the functionality was built into the app, it provided a quick and easy way to get the stunning views (for a cell phone and a 99 cent app, anyway) online.
And finally came the post-game analysis, which I shot, edited and posted before leaving the stadium.. or rather, running to the garage that was about to close with my car still in it. The analysis was shot by me, and the celebration clips were shot by Eric Forman, also shooting the game for Citrus. (My tape from the game and celebration was being used to shoot some additional standups.) Over 800 views on this video in about two days.
Oh, and, by the way... remember that little "excessive celebration" penalty that Kansas State got? Take a look at the poor cameraman who almost got plowed over. Oh wait, that's me. Oops.
Here's the breathtaking look from my angle:
And here are some photos I took with my D40. Enjoy...
The time spent shooting high school sports and now the Syracuse Orange (see my reel above) has landed me some exciting opportunities with ESPN.
It all started with an email to the CitrusTV sports director from a crewing company called Kwokman Productions. Kwokman was looking for utilities on the ESPN2 broadcast of the Syracuse/Minnesota football game in the fall (yes, apparently we still have a football team...), and I was quick to jump on the crew.
Several CitrusTV members and I helped the cart-cam unit, which could drive along the sidelines with a raised platform that had a camera on it. A few of my other friends from CitrusTV held parab mics (the big plastic semi-spheres you see around the field for any football broadcast). Here's a goofy picture of me on the sidelines. It was fun, and just the start for a good relationship with Kwokman and various ESPN operations producers throughout what's been one of the best basketball seasons for the Orange. I've had the good fortune of working on every single ESPN or ESPN2 broadcast out of the Carrier Dome this season.
Generally speaking, a utility helps the camera operators with whatever they need with setup, strike (breaking stuff down and putting it away), and during the broadcast. During setup and strike, I've worked a lot with the operators of the Fletcher robotic camera operators - the cool remote controlled cameras above the hoops. One of the operators who comes to 'cuse a lot and is an alum from the '70s has even worked with my dad, aunt and uncle - it's a small world.
During the broadcast, I've mainly tended to the cable for handheld operators. Usually this entails sitting baseline, under one of the baskets in a coveted blue ESPN vest and whenever the camera operator moves making sure he has enough slack to get to where he needs to be and making sure no one trips over the cable. It can get pretty tricky during warmups when there are a lot of people on the court and during the game when we head into the crowd to get bump shots - those short little shots you see before the broadcast goes to a commercial break.
Of course - life is made much easier knowing the secrets of over-undering cable, thanks to years of practice with my dad who was a grip, gaffer and jib operator for years. Not to mention the handy instructional video by CitrusTV/Orange Television Network's own Wes Purvis...
Here's a quick video clip from my phone before the Syracuse/Louisville game on Valentine's Day:
Probably the most exciting broadcast to work on was the Syracuse/Villanova game on Feb. 27. The game broke Syracuse's on-campus attendance record as 34,616 fans filled the Carrier Dome.
Fans had camped out on the concourse of the Dome starting on the Wednesday before the Saturday game. CitrusTV News provided live coverage from the Dome on Friday. With a simple iChat connection back to our studio across campus, an A-block story, teases throughout the broadcast, the weather forecast (they even let me in front of the camera), and half of sports block were all live from the Dome. We had two cameras streaming back: one from the concourse where the campers were lined up and one of the court where the team had been practicing.
Check out this video of the team hanging out with fans on that Friday afternoon:
And here's the newscast featuring live hits throughout...
Finally, Saturday was game day... and not just any game day, it was College GameDay on ESPN. The pre-game broadcast brought several cameras, a news desk, interview sets and ESPN's top talent onto Jim Boeheim Court.
Everything led up to an exciting game - not to mention a pretty enjoyable assignment for me. During the broadcast, my job was to follow sidelines reporter Erin Andrews around with a battery-powered 1x1 foot LED LitePanel to hold up whenever she was on air. Not a bad job.
The Orange's journey in the NCAA tournament was cut short with the loss to Butler in the Sweet Sixteen, but my experience in sports TV production carries on. As Syracuse lacrosse season is in full swing, I'm still on the producing team for CitrusTV's Orange Press Pass, the only live post-game TV show for the nation's best lacrosse team.
This month we'll also be producing a play-by-play broadcast for a women's lacrosse game for SUper Sports, a joint production of the Orange Television Network and CitrusTV. For OTN I work as the Engineer in Charge (EIC) for SUper Sports, overseeing the four-camera shoot and fly-pack control room.
Last week director for NBC Sports Drew Esocoff was in Syracuse to teach a one-credit elective course on sports directing. Esocoff has directed Sunday Night Football for years. For the Olympics, he did swimming in Beijing and snowboarding and the closing ceremonies in Vancouver. He also directed the Super Bowl in 2009. Check out the photo below to see what the typical class was like... watching his monitor wall, hearing his commands and talent, and using a laser pointer to pick what shots we liked best. What a cool teaching tool.
What's next? This summer I'll be in Bristol, CT at ESPN's headquarters completing a studio operations internship.
Disclaimer: Any information and opinions in this blog post and throughout my Web site are my own and do not necessarily represent ESPN, Inc. or the Walt Disney Company.
The No. 1 ranked Syracuse University basketball team is featuring a documentary I co-produced on their Web site.
Uncover the universal human experience of being on a path to dreams, through the story of Marty Headd, a three-year starter on the Syracuse University Orangemen’s basketball team. He dropped out of college in the ’70s, played ball in Europe, and returned home to realize his path and dreams were behind him.
Originally a class project co-produced by Laura Beachy, Taylor Chestnut and Alexandra Kaplan, peers of mine in the Newhouse School, "The Path Ahead" is being distributed to a national audience on SUAthletics.com.
All four of us worked together on nearly every aspect of the video. Beachy, Taylor and Alex specialized in the creation, coordinating and development of the production, while I specialized in the camera work and final editing.
Update: "The Path Ahead" is now airing on the Orange Television Network. You can catch it on Channel 2 in any Syracuse University on-campus housing or academic building, or watch OTN's live stream online. It's also being used as a motivational tool for inner-city high school students in Syracuse.
Watch the first full HD show in the history of CitrusTV... The last 2009 taping of "Juice & Java," Syracuse University's morning talk show, was shot in 1080 HD before the semester ended.
The episode features interviews with the editor of campus magazine 20 Watts, president of the SU Anime Club, and two members of Orange Appeal - the male campus a cappella group that performs "In the Still of the Night" in the last block.
The show was produced by Hannah Kollock and Chris Shepherd, and directed by me.
It's been an incredibly busy semester for me so far. With a really compact class schedule, I've had a lot of time to do a bunch of cool stuff for CitrusTV and the Orange Television Network. I covered an event on the Syracuse University campus featuring Vice President and Syracuse Law alum Joe Biden a few weeks ago.
Just this past week, I directed a shoot of a student dance showcase, coordinated the semester's first "SUper Sports" play-by-play broadcast of a women's volleyball game and shot today's homecoming football game against USF. And there was one other highlight this week, check out the video below in all its HD glory to see it for yourself.
It was a busy and productive summer for me. Here are a few of the projects I've worked on this summer.
NYC - MTV Networks internship
In May, I was living in Brooklyn Heights. Through a special program at Syracuse University, I had spent my spring semester teaching at the High School for Leadership and Public Service - a public high school in Manhattan's Financial District that was established by SU's Maxwell public affairs school.
During my last few weeks in Brooklyn, I started a 10-week internship at MTV Networks with Spike TV's digital team in New York City. The internship gave me a look at a side of the TV business I previously didn't have any professional experience with: distribution.
My time at Spike helped expand my Photoshop skills, as I was responsible for preparing photos and screen grabs for the designer on our team. I learned how to use Spike's custom content management system, and had an opportunity to fine-tune my Microsoft Excel skills, developing and maintaining a spreadsheet of legal details for posting Spike's many shows on the Internet.
Aside from the work itself, I was fortunate to be with a team full of cool, friendly and interesting people. Outside of cutting out severalhundreds(I lost count) of photos of Jesse James for his new series on Spike, some of my tasks included:
Watching episodes of "Deadliest Warrior" and writing down timecodes of good clips
An unsuccessful pizza pillage from a screening of TV Land's "Cougar"
Meeting MTVN digital executives who are some of the most powerful frontiers in the marriage of TV and Web
A top secret mission one day to pick up cupcakes at Magnolia Cupcakes
Extra, extra, read all about it
Back home in Milford, PA I continued my third year as a regular correspondent for The Gazette, a weekly Dow Jones community newspaper distributed by the Times Herald-Record.
Among the events I reported on and photographed, I met Grammy-nominated singer and pianist Vanessa Carlton, a native of my hometown who played at the Milford Music Festival. I also had the privilege of shooting photos on the field at the graduation of my brother and several good friends from Delaware Valley High School.
In mid-June, a new weekly newspaper launched in the tri-state NJ/NY/PA area called the Pike County Press. After hearing about the newspaper from my high school journalism teacher, I contacted the manager who took me on as a freelance photographer, reporter and videographer. As a result, the Press became the first news site in Pike County to have video content. Since June, I've taken thousands of photos, written several pieces and produced a handful of videos for the Pike County Press.
I began work on a Web site for the new Brooklyn Heights Wine Bar, co-owned by my best friend's dad. The site launched in July. Designed in Dreamweaver, the site has a Wordpress back-end for the owners of the wine bar to easily update content themselves.
Myer and Myer, CPA in Milford contacted me to do two Web sites, one for their CPA office and one for Myer Property Management. The property manager recalled my name from back when I used to maintain the school Web site DV World when I was in high school. Their sites are still under construction.
And Myer's the lucky name for me. I've been working with Myer the Florist (no connection to the CPA...) on a Web site for the past year and a half. This summer we got the e-commerce portion of the site up and running, and the first online order came in just this last week.
In the community
Once the local schools went out for summer, I volunteered at the Pike County Public Library's summer reading kickoff, which included a concert with world-renowned children's singer/songwriter Steven Courtney and his Band of Friends. The concert and a few others I volunteered at this summer were sponsored by the Friends of the Children's Room, a teen-led group I presided over in high school that raises money and awareness for children's programs and resources at the library.
I was the M.C. and auctioneer for a fundraising children's art auction held by the Friends of the Children's Room, and helped the library with its PR efforts for a proposed dedicated library tax to ensure adequate library funding.
Two PBS affiliates contacted me this summer looking to obtain copies of Controversy on the Delaware, a short documentary I directed and co-produced in high school. Ken Burns has a documentary on national parks premiering on PBS in the next month, and my documentary uncovered the shocking and widely unknown history of the Delaware Water Gap, a national recreation area at the northern part of the border between Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
WVIA in Scranton, PA has added a copy of Controversy on the Delaware to its library, and Thirteen in New York City is currently reviewing the film.
I also attended a handful of school board meetings this summer. I still publish a blog about the school district, and though I've slacked off a bit on keeping it as updated as I used to, it still serves the community as an outlet for exclusive information and multimedia about school board affairs.
Back in 'cuse
This week I moved back to Syracuse for my junior year. As a peer adviser at the Newhouse School, I've been helping out with the freshmen class that's coming in. And there are a bunch of exciting things around the corner with CitrusTV, most notably our foray into HD with the capability to broadcast 720p on the campus' Orange Television Network cable channel. At some point in the next week I'll post an update about what's going on this semester.
