shot{b}log

the project that ate my brain ...

Look! Zombies!

So Capital High School won its third straight state championship, and since we produced a commemorative DVD documenting the 2007 season we had to follow suit with a 2008 doc as well.
We filmed three of Capital's games this season: their crosstown match against Helena High, their semifinal game against Great Falls (two cameras), and the state game against Billings West (three cameras). That made for 6 sets of game film to shotlog, which took me about a week to do. Then we storyboarded, shot an afternoon's worth of interviews with nine different players and coaches, and I transcribed all that interview footage.
The audio track took me about two days to lay out, then two more days to lay in still photos and game footage over the interviews. One more day was spent finetuning with my editor, and then packaging in two video ad spots and a minute long introduction put together by our graphic artist and it was done.
And a good thing, too, cuz I got on a plane for Georgia with the Carroll football team the next day!
The newsroom has been kind of skeleton crewed as a result of the holiday, so I have no idea how many copies of the DVD have sold, but I hope it's a bunch. It turned out waaaay better than last year's CHS DVD, and better too than the commemorative Carroll DVD ... which I think I better get cooking on the second edition of, since before we left for the championships, my editor said we'd produce one regardless of the outcome of the game.
Below is the highlight video I put together the night after the CHS championship game:

Carroll falls to USF 23-7

the feeling in the stands as thousands of montana grizzlies fans watched their beloved team lose to a virutal unknown upstart team (named the "spiders" of all stupid sports monikers) was an eerie, oppressive feeling that i never wanted to experience again. 
in the car on the ride from chattanooga back to our hotel in rome, jeff (sports editor), lisa (sports photog) and i all agreed that it was definitely NOT a feeling we wanted to experience on the field at the end of the next day's carroll vs. sioux falls championship matchup.
it's a strange thing, covering a sports team as intensively as we cover carroll football, and trying to go about it with the same objective detachment we use to separate ourselves and our own personal biases from the rest of our reportage.
the fact that i had to bite back tears as i watched the carroll boys, who played as well against sioux falls as i've ever seen them play, reacting to sioux falls' championship win means i pretty much failed in the objectivity department.
there's a bit of me that's not proud of that reaction - but not for the reasons a journalist ought to have, although i do know that such a reaction is unprofessional.  however, i was more worried that the players might see my reaction as selfish - that i was disappointed in their loss because of what it would mean for my coverage, rather than because of the impact it had on the players themselves.
but then once everybody had cleared the field, and all our gear was packed up in the rental car and the players were aboard their buses and we were all headed back to chattanooga to catch our charter back to helena, i think everybody was able to sort of put things in perspective.
carroll lost nearly a dozen players throughout the season to injury - some made it back in later games, some were in street clothes and braces/crutches cheering their teammates on from the sidelines for the rest of the season - i don't think anybody expected them to get as far as they did.  the fact that they played for the national title is a strong testament to their character.
that same character wouldn't let them sit in saddened silence in the airport terminal as we were told again and again that the flight was delayed - instead, a handful of them commandeered a microphone and used it to sing karaoke.  a few more played catch with the younger kids who were flying back with us.
all in all, one of the coolest displays of good sportsmanship of ever.
and i don't think my reaction at the end of the game is one to be ashamed of - objective, no, but a result of the relationship and trust we've built with these guys as we've told the story of their truly remarkable season.
if that makes me a bad journalist, whatever.  but i think the guys appreciated us being there.

GRIZ NATION!

the tickets came! the tickets came! the tickets came!
it probably wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that over a third of our newsroom graduated from the university of montana, and pretty much all of us were watching that spectacular semifinal game between the griz and james madison with baited breath.
and when the game was over, there were three spastically excited alums from 04, 05 and 07 who were online ready to punch the "checkout" button for three tickets to the game in chattanooga :)
tickets came today, plane leaves tomorrow -- go griz, go carroll!

Championship bound

We had crazy week over Thanksgiving -- on Sunday it was announced that Carroll would play Northwestern Oklahoma in the quarterfinal round (after their first round win over Dickinson State) ... then on Tuesday, there was this strange flurry of rumors and tension in the newsroom.
For some reason nobody thought it was appropriate to let the online producer in on the news, so I went digging myself and found the press release about Oklahoma's forfeit.
Abracadabra, Carroll's headed to the semifinals.
And let me just say for the record, I hate close games. I thought I was gonna puke by the time this one was over.

Helena goes all winter wonderland ...

the rocket had to sit all by herself out in the ir parking lot while i spent an afternoon in the cozy newsroom ... guess it's that time of year again.  i hate winter.