Spontaneous Journeys and Geeks and Killer Kites! Oh My!

Killer Kites
3min 66sec
Original Format: HDV (shot on a Sony Z1-U)
Creator: Geek Entertainment Television

Yup. I'm back. You wondered where I'd gotten off to didn't you? Oh you wouldn't believe me if I told you... Or maybe you would. I left Seattle on the 24th of August expecting to be in LaLaland for a short 5-day jaunt to shoot the Sri Lanka Day Festival on the Santa Monica Promenade. Two days into my journey I got a text message from Jeronimo, a documentary filmmaker I had recently connected with . It said only this:

I think I have an extra ticket if you want to burn.
You can introduce me to some people and help me
shoot some interviews...

It may sound cryptic to you but to me it somehow made perfect sense. It meant things were about to get way more interesting; schedules were going out the window and life was about to do some loop-di-loops through burning, playa-covered hula-hoops. It had been three years since I had attended the Burning Man Festival in Northern Nevada and someone upstairs was insistent that it was time for me to go back-back to the playa-playa. So I bit. I talked my friend Violet into driving down from Seattle (and bringing my playa-worthy gear with her, bless her heart). I shot some interviews and some workshops and some cool nightime art/creation and I came out of it with a whole playa-frosted cupcake full of new inspiration. And on my last day, in Center Camp, with a soy chai labeled 'gallixsee' in one hand and Jeronimo's Sony PD-170 in the other I met the fabuloso Eddie:

"Whaddya know? I'm a video geek too!"

Are you wondering yet what the hell-o kitty this has to do with ravenous kites?

Eddie graciously invited us back to his place in SF, promising us plenty of hot water and a comfy guest bed. As it turns out, Eddie was more of a geek than he let on. He, along with his on-camera accomplice in all things techie/nonsequiter/web2.0-ey, Irina Slutsky, are the cunning minds behind one of the web's most preeminent gems: Geek Entertainment TV.

I had the great privilege of accompanying them on a couple of their on-location assignments. GETV is truly dedicated to getting the geek news out to the people, as it happens. I think they may even be so on the pulse of the scene that they occasionally cover stories before they've even happened. But I digress.

Eddie, getting a bit tired of wiping my drool off of his spankin' new Z1-U everytime I took it out of the bag for him, actually let me shoot and edit a bit of an episode. It was a dangerous assignment. Evil kites were flying everywhere. The tension was high. We had to position ourselves in the middle of the battleground to get the shots, but such is the job of any devoted camera dork.




Stay tuned to GETV for more of their endlessly entertaining antics and eclectic crew of characters. And keep your eavesdropping ear to the ground for whispers about the upcoming Video Blogging Awards, the Vloggies...