The Process, the Pain (A Baptism by Fire segment)

[Baptism by Fire] The scars from the War: Through Their Eyes project have yet to fade when I decided to drag Shawn McAfee into another Super-Secret, all-consuming multimedia faculty-student collaboration.  (In this photo, she's showing me the mock-ups to the Super-Secret project.)

Shawn's usual reaction to my sudden and often incredulous proclamations? "Here we go again..."

What's in Grace's Bag? (A Baptism by Fire segment)

Going Mobile

Pedco UltraPod II Lightweight Camera Tripod

While Trent and Mark got the cool MUST-PROTECT-THE-EQUIPMENT gear from the University's radio-TV-film department, I'm pretty happy with my ridiculously low-end kit. (Well, my digital audio recorder - the Zoom H4n $299 recorder is actually pretty spiffy. Don't really know how to use it yet because it has more than two buttons, and the manual is more than two pages. I'm waiting for someone to come up with 7-minute how-to. I realize I may be waiting a long time.)

The photos from Where in the World is Mark? and An Icy Reception was taken with my $88 discontinued Kodak M420. The weird looking contraption with the big black thing sticking out is my camcorder rig. I love my Kodak Zi8 ($179), which shoots HD on a SD card. Can't zoom much, but it does a good job. The What in the World is Trent Doing? is shot with this tiny camcorder. Also check out this piece What's in a Name?  on Dr. Thomas Lammers, a cool botanist at the University. Shot his video using the Kodak Zi8.

The Rode VideoMic Directional Video Condenser Microphone ($149) is almost as expensive as the camcorder, but it's worth it. People who know video preach that you can get away with substandard video, but you can't with substandard sound.

The Adorama Heavy Duty L-bracket with 2 Standard Flash Shoe Mounts ($10.95) holds my camcorder and mic together.

And the Pedco UltraPod II Lightweight Camera Tripod ($14.95) is great for strapping the camera or camcorder to a tree or pole. I'll leave the why-would-Grace-need-to-do-such-a-thing question to your twisted imagination.

There you go. For under $800, you too can be a mobile journalist. Actually, if you take the Zoom audio recorder out of the equation, you can do it for for about  $500.
 
Disclaimer: This kit is really only good for on-the-spot type of video and audio for the Web. It doesn't not compete with the magic that Trent and Mark will produce with their fancy-schmancy, high-end equipment in the post-production studio. What they can produce is good enough for the big screen.