Saturday, November 12, 2005 | by nathan

Boom

So the episode of The HistoryCENTER is in the can. For the past two days I have been up at ridiculously early times and to bed ridiculously late, and while I am exhausted, I am also more invigorated than I can describe. I think the word is stoked.

Friday we showed up early to set up the museum shoot. Problem was, we didn’t have anyone to show Steve Gillon, the host, around the museum. So the lovely PR woman, Linda, put in a call to the Oklahoma State Archaeologist (who knew we had one of those?), Bob Brooks, who came down to talk with us. We scored a makeup girl, Alison, and after we walked through the museum with Anthony and John, the producers, we started getting started.

As the audio guy, I was recruited to run the boom, which was great fun, if not a little taxing on my skinny little arms. I was really uncomfortable running the boom and all the audio without a board or even a set of earphones, but that was fine, as the cameramen are both experienced broadcast students and were mixing everything in their camera channels.

Yesterday morning I woke up at 4:15, ran out the door, parked my car in faculty parking, and met everyone at Gaylord by 5:20. We loaded all the stuff and picked up Anthony and John at the Sooner Hotel. We had a four-car caravan, as the producers added a car at the last minute, so my carefully constructed plan to have three Pike Passes for us was all shot to hell, and Keaton got pulled over on the way down there. But we got to Fort Sill a full half-hour early and met our interviewee, Towana Spivey, who is the director of the museum and collections down there. He was flipping amazing - just wait till this thing goes to air.

At first someone decided not to run a boom, which annoyed me, as we had no redundancy if the wireless mics went out, so I was left to run the jib for all our sweeping opening and closing shots. We got the intro at the flagpole, then the office, which had a desk that had been used by Custer, and the saddle room, the war suits and helmets - visually all very, very cool. (Pictures are forthcoming, but my camera is dead and I am about to have to wind this up).

The rest of the crew set up to get the barracks and Keaton, Lindsey and I set up the jib in the cemetery, where Geromino’s gravesite is. We spent an hour and a half getting shots there. We finished up and got loaded at around sunset. John was hard-core about going to Meers for a burger, and he said he would treat anyone who wanted to join him, so almost everyone went over there. Meers burgers are at least as large as your head (remember, Dyl?). Anthony had never had fried okra or chicken fried steak, so he had that. We got to talk about our favorite moments throughout the production, and the things we were happy about. Everyone was feeling so optimistic; it makes me feel really great about the chances that this episode will see airtime. Steve Gillon said he couldn’t tell a difference between us and a professional production team. I rode back with Carter.

When I got back to Norman I still had a radio story to do for KGOU, so I ran to the car - no ticket, despite 15 hours of being parked in faculty space - grabbed the sound kit, and ran down to the corner by the stadium. I got quick interviews with the managers of Subway and the hookah bar, with Todd Emerson over at O’Connell’s, and with some students in the bar there. Brooke, my producer, met me outside O’Connell’s to get the sound kit. All the rest of the team has sideline passes for the game today; I gave my tickets to Anthony and John so they could see a Sooners football game. They were so excited; you’d think that I’d just taught them how to fly.

Today is Monica’s wedding; I have to go pick up my tux like RIGHT NOW. So I’m outta here. Pictures of everything will come tomorrow, probably, while I am at work.