Want To Fly In First Class On Your Next Gig?  Here’s How!

I just got back from a whirlwind cross-country trip for a freelance gig I’m working on.  Between me, my field producer and my audio operator, we managed to boil down our equipment complement to six checked bags and three carry-ons. Now prices vary on different airlines, but the way it worked for me was this:

We flew USAirways from Cleveland to Phoenix, changing planes in Charlotte.  When I got online to check us in the night before, I was resigned to paying $60 in checked bag fees for each of us ($25 for the first bag and $35 for the second, all meticulously packed and weighed to be less than 50 pounds.)  However, in the middle of the check-in procedure, a pop-up box asked me if I would like to upgrade my entire party to first class - for $50 each.  On USAirways, this upgrade includes TWO FREE CHECKED BAGS.  (Bonus:  They can then weigh up to 70 pounds.)  In the time it took me to click the “yes” box, I had saved $30 overall and managed to get prime seating for the crew, and moved to the head of the boarding queue to guarantee overhead-compartment space for the two cameras and backpack-full-of-computers-and-iPad we were carrying onboard.  I call that a bargain at twice the price!

Coming home at the end of the shoot from Tucson to Madison, I played the same game on United.  Since both of those flights were on regional jets, first class was not offered, but once again the cost of checking two bags and first-call boarding was less than the cost of checking the bags alone.  While it is easy to imagine scenarios where this technique may not work (e.g., first class is booked full) it is a trick that I will be trying every time I need to check bags from this day forward.

Got any travel tricks of your own you’d like to share?  Let’s hear them!

PVC NAB 2011:  Petrol Cambio Suitcase

We all drag out rollaboards with us on airplanes…why didn’t we think of building a tripod into one?

REVIEW:  ProDAD Mercalli

If you have been paying attention to PVC lately, you may have read my recent article “An Aerial Adventure.”  If you haven’t, go ahead and have a look.  I’ll wait.

There, now wasn’t that fun?  You may remember that my experience with Loran Nordgren and his AirCam aircraft wasn’t entirely successful.  While the pictures were certainly usable, even the combination of the Canon XL-H1’s optical lens stabilizer and the Kenyon Labs KS-8 gyro wasn’t enough to smooth out all the buffeting caused by being out in the wind at 70 MPH.

Software to the rescue!

How To Pick The Perfect Font

My buddy Mark Suszko sent along this link to a great flowchart which takes the mystery out of choosing the right typeface for you project.  Me, I want a copy in poster-size!  Thanks to Gizmodo, too.

An Aerial Adventure

The phone rings,about a month ago.  It’s Paul, the scheduler at Wisconsin Public TV (my “day job.”)

“Hey Bruce, whatcha doing on Friday October 8?”

“Looks like I’m available.  What’s up?”

“These folks doing a documentary on Aldo Leopold need some aerials out near LaCrosse.  You want to do it?”

AdobeCS5 and nVidia:  First Impressions Part 2.1

If you have been following my ongoing Adobe CS5/nVidia shakedown cruise (here’s Part 1, and here’s Part 2) you might have read my whiny cry:

Breaking The First Rule Of Non-Linear Editing, Part Two

Our story so far:  Our intrepid editor and geek just spent about $7000 on a new editing computer.  To try and save money, he bought the HP Z800 without a DVD drive or video card.  When he finally tries to install the BluRay burner…)

“bump.”

Whaaaat?

Breaking The First Rule Of Non-Linear Editing, Part One

When last we spoke, I had announced my intention to break The First Rule Of Editing - to actually upgrade my editor in the middle of several ongoing productions.  My reasons were threefold:

* Against all odds, I had the money;

* My 4-year-old dual-Pentium Dell XPS600, which had been rock-steady, had suddenly become pretty flaky, with USB ports disappearing and reappearing at unpredictable times - and when your keyboard, mouse and ShuttlePro are all USB devices, that can be a bad thing;

* And as a Adobe Creative Suite CS4 user, the demo of the upcoming Abobe Mercury engine in combination with new-technology CUDA video cards and a hot Windows machine is quite impressive.  Check it out.

For the last ten years, I have made something of a specialty out of taking inexpensive, low-to-midrange computers and making DV editors out of them. Back in the days of the Canopus DVRaptor, I could take the puniest machine, add RAM and a hard drive for media, and build a pretty functional editor (by the standards of the early 2000’s) for less than $700.  I built more than 50 editors like this over several years, but times have changed.  The budget this time was going to be a whole different beast.

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