Tabletop shooting, the Star, and the Final Stretch

So here's what's gone down in the past week or so.

On the 26th of March, we were supposed to have a "special guest" come speak to us, but that ended up falling through, so we ended up doing some tabletop shooting.  We took some of the trinkets we got from Dee Street's place and placed them on a lazy Susan, then twirled them slowly and got some footage of it.  Luke Jensen is a pro at it, so he set up some lights, busted out a dolly track and the Sony F55 and got some footage that we can use in the documentary.  I learned that with tabletop shooting, you want a little bit of shadow that can fall on and off the object as it rotates, so you adjust lighting as such.  Kind of interesting.

On Tuesday, Picabo came to visit!!  The one and only!  She spent about fifteen or twenty minutes telling us stories from her career, funny things that happened on the slopes, and then we spent the rest of the class filming her, mostly.  Ben, Luke, Dave and Judea had set up an interview setup in Studio C with the right lighting and an A cam and B cam.  Picabo sat down in a chair and she talked about riding down Pofrey Peak as a child with her friends.  It was a pretty cool story to listen to.  After that, she took the time to get pictures with the class and sign autographs and stuff.  She's a really neat lady--full of energy and really personable.  So I consider it a pleasure to have met her.

Yesterday, Phil let us know it was all go time to finalize our jobs on pre-production.  I'm on the writing team with Maddie Kelm and Keshara Bjorkman, and we apparently have more stuff we need to write for the production book than just the treatment.  We've got bios on the above-the-line crew that we need to write up, along with a disclaimer, a page outlining the benefits to investors, and a wrap-up page explaining why this is going to be the best sports documentary/feature ever.  And it's all due for us in two weeks (April 16th)!  That's for the writing team anyway.  The people working on the production book still need to compile everything together.
Here's how we've divvied up the responsibilities.  I'll write the treatment/synopsis and get bios on Marshall Moore and Phil Tuckett.  Keshara is going to get bios on the DP Ben Braten, the screenwriter Brian Strasmann, and the staff and crew, which is basically our entire class.  Maddie is going to write on the benefits to investors, the wrap-up page, and the disclaimer page.  So that'll be due in two weeks!