Behind the Scenes - The Choice Wine

In honor of the official launch of the Choice Wine at the World Meeting of Families, here is a bit of a Behind the scenes look how we filmed this groundbreaking series!

Just for your reading pleasure, also enjoy a little insight into my thoughts as I prepared for directing filming for the second day of our live audience shoot, in Omaha NE at beautiful Creighton University!

4:30AM
My phone is ringing out in alarm, and the first thing I remember thinking - "Whyyyyyyy?!?"

"Why!!!!?"

Why did I choose to be a filmmaker?

Who could have been that stupid? I must be a glutton for punishment. Someday I'll examine my self destructive tendencies under the supervision of professional help.

That is what I was thinking, but I wasn't thinking quietly. I awoke my roommate to shouts of "Why!!!!!" Ricardo Palomares, my Director of Photography, was understanding. He knew how little sleep I'd had for the past few weeks, due to prepping and filming the Choice Wine.

He knew that the CAD files the university had given us had been off and our Technical Director, Matt Ramsey, and I had kept working with our stage crew almost around the clock to refabricate our 100ft long stage to fit the dimensions of Hixon-Lied Auditorium.

We built this in a Houston warehouse, then we packed it up and took it to Omaha... Then it didn't fit.

Our crew did an amazing job. Our stage was erected in the knick of time. Then the Film Crew and I went to work.

Left to Right, Director of Photography - Ricardo Palomares, and I.

The first day of filming was in the can. But we shot only two hours worth of footage. Today we were tasked with capturing nine hours of footage. Normally when directors have that much to capture in a day, they play it safe. They keep the cameras on tripods so as to save the crew and make sure that everything is captured.

But remember those self destructive tendencies? I've never really played it safe. Four of our five cameras would be mobile. Our crew was going to have to moving 30lb cameras constantly for at least 16 hours today in order capture the footage that we need. I was most worried about Leland Ohlinger, Camera Operator who was going to be running the MoVi. No one had ever tried to run a MoVi for that many consecutive hours in a day...

Crazy. Crazy. Crazy. 

I looked at Ricardo. He was stretching out on the length the floor, getting ready for the physical toll we were about to undergo. I sighed.  We'd traveled all over the world to get ready to film this portion of our program. 

My view out from my Jerusalem hotel. It was in the Arabian Quarter of the old city. I stood out in the crowd.

Now it was time. It was time to make the Choice Wine...

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