The first big shoot of 2025 kicked off with a trip to Lousiana working with Ambassador Supply to create videos for one of their newer acquisitions - Ideal Steel. This shoot was very lean with the sole purpose of capturing the culture of Ideal and what it is that sets them apart in the industry. I flew out of Fort Wayne on Monday with the Ambassador creative crew for a full day of production on Tuesday and an early flight back home the following morning. It felt great to be back in Louisiana for the first time in over a decade after spending two years filming my feature documentary debut - When The Bell Rings in New Orleans. Although Lafayette is no "Big Easy" by any means the Mardi Gras vibes and southern charm could still be felt in this quaint little city.
The key to travelling to a rural location and pulling off a top notch production is packing the maximum amount of compact gear in cases that you are able to move solo through airports, hotels, ubers, rental cars, etc. I had two checked bag/full size pelicans and a carry on camera pelican case along with a back pack. We were able to pull off full lighting, two camera interviews, B roll with gimbal and multiple cinema lens, and aerial drone interiors and exteriors without any rental gear or on-site gear added to this travel kit. There is an art to packing this much punch in a solo travel kit and I could spend an entire post just breaking down how I pull this off ;-)
Collaborating with the Ambassador team was smooth as silk as Nik Prodonovich held down the Interviewing duties while Joel Ulsina coordinated with the Ideal Steel personnel to connect the dots on the messaging we were going for. Ambassador has their creative messaging and identity down to a tee so I knew going into the shoot the focus and aim would not be something we would struggle with. In the end we filmed three long form interviews and collected an ample supply of powerful b-roll as the Ideal production team welded, grinded, cut and loaded custom steel components in the manufactring area. The day was finished with interior drone shots on the manufacturing floor before capturing some golden hour exteriors of the facility. I knew it was a solid day when my last drone shot had a fork lift with a load of steel come out of nowhere (well actually out of the dark facility) and drive perfectly through my shot as I did a radius pan of the rear of the facility as the sun glared to the West. Its surprises like that to end the day that really drive it all home as a success. The only potential blunder was an "almost" fire ant attack on my feet as I was so locked in on the drone monitor I didn't realize I was standing on an ant hill. Luckily Joel spotted this and I was able to quickly shake 100's of ants off my shoes and ankles and somehow avoided a single bite. It did provide some nice comic relief and a big sigh of relief from me to end the day.
I boarded a flight back to Fort Wayne at 6 am sharp the next morning with around 220 GBs of Ideal Steel goodness on my harddrives and a feeling that the first shoot of 2025 kicked off pretty darn well :-)
