The Frozen Lense - Tips for Surviving Shooting Outdoors

At 3PennyFilms we strive to capture what we call 'moments' - moments unique to people,

moments unique to places, moments that will ultimately resonate in the stories that we tell. I am Madison Murr, a filmmaker in my fifth year with 3 Penny Films, and the photo of me shooting in Fenway Park captured a unique moment in my own life.  It was my second day of shooting inside the historic stadium, the ground crews were feverishly shoveling to clear the latest snowfall, and I was pushing through drifts, navigating ice patches and battling wind to get the last scenics needed before the Frozen Fenway event. I am smiling in the photo, joyous that I had finally gathered shots of which I was proud, because initially the cold of that outdoor hockey shoot had presented some serious setbacks. I most often shoot in Miami, FL, overseeing our content for The U, and the chill of South Bend & Boston that week bluntly emphasized the challenges of filmmaking in the cold.

These are the 5 Cold Weather Shooting Facts now 'frozen' in my mind:

1. Clothing gear - not camera gear - comes first. - If you're shivering - your camera is shivering - and that will detract from your shot. I've taken a couple of trips where I was so cold I eventually put on everything I packed in my suitcase all at once, and I'm over that approach! Search what boots the mail delivery workers wear in the snow, ask the outerwear store cashier which hats block out the wind, and when in doubt - add more layers!

2. Shot clarity is challenged. - My viewfinder would fog with the warmth from my face, then that condensation would freeze, inhibiting my vision through the camera… this happened multiple times a minute so I spent a lot of time wiping my viewfinder clear. Also, lenses fog extensively when entering & exiting buildings, then snow harasses your lens which is of course crucial to keep clean… all of this combines to extend the time needed to execute each shot well.

3. Batteries die absurdly fast. - I calculated some of mine at 1/12th of the usual performance. I use camera batteries for my Canon & GoPro, plus 9 Volts & AAs for audio, so my outside pockets were stocked with extras! I also had a stash nearby in a warmer place to preserve their power from draining in the harsh temperatures.

2. Focusing your lens & especially rack focusing is hard.  -  Despite my research I still haven't been able to fully keep my hands heated, sacrificing some glove warmth for dexterity. Navigating the lens with layered, numb fingers isn't as fluid and automatic as in warmer temperatures. I was often over or under-compensating when rotating the lens and so I had to often try multiple takes to get the shot right.

5. Suck it up. - Realize everyone else is cold too, whether you're from Boston or Miami you still feel that chill! It's best to embrace the challenge as an opportunity to prove your shots can stand out regardless, you can execute in diverse environments, and then happily realize you'll never again take for granted how effortlessly you can work your camera in South Florida!

- Madison

Revisiting History: The Story Behind 88 and 1

Revisiting History - by Joe Schreiber

The older I get, the more I want to tell stories about the past.  At 53, I’m old enough to remember watching Notre Dame end UCLA’s 88 game winning streak on January 19, 1974.  Back then I never imagined I’d have the privilege of meeting some of the participants of the event to tell their story.

I'm thrilled to share that through our partnership with Fighting Irish Digital Media, we produced a one-hour special presenation titled 88 and 1 that gives an inside look at the University of Notre Dame's stunning victory over UCLA's national powerhouse men's basketball team. And in celebration of the 40-year anniversary of the game, 88 and 1, presented by Coca Cola will premier this Sunday, January 19 on ESPN2 at 8 p.m. EST.

At 3Penny Films, we focus on documenting events in real time, then revisiting those moments through reflective interviews. When we decided to collaborate with Notre Dame Fighting Irish Digital Media on 88 and 1, the story of the day the Fighting Irish ended UCLA’s dynasty, we embarked on a whole new challenge of telling an historical story. That’s something I had done during my 23 year run with NBC’s George Michael Sports Machine, but different from our recent 3 Penny Films productions.  It’s an entirely different challenge since we’re limited to existing historical resources of pictures and sound. By contrast, nowadays we have access to rapidly improving technology that allows us to document a cornucopia of images and sound during current events, which foster a different, kind of pacing and feel of a story.

Our film represents the vision of directors Jess Atkinson (3 Penny Films) and Ted Mandel (University of Notre Dame.) Ted had discovered the original scoreboard from the event sitting in a warehouse and a wealth of photos in the archives. The challenge for us was getting cooperation from those participants from the event. One of the main figures, and one of my heroes, UCLA coach John Wooden passed away in 2010.  Although 40 years have passed, UCLA’s Bill Walton still finds it painful to talk about the event. It wasn’t until the 11th hour that Walton finally agreed to sit down with us at his home. He was as candid and dramatic as ever, and we’re so appreciative for his hospitality.

The broadcaster of that game was Dick Enberg, a dignified man and decorated broadcaster who’s called the play by play of just about every major sporting event. Enberg isn’t slowing down much at the age of 75 and has a vivid recollection of the events of that game and the UCLA era. Enberg spoke to us for over an hour, recalling moments with a touch of humor and perspective. He was also quite poignant in talking about John Wooden, a man whom he adored.

While Bill Walton’s UCLA teams won two national championships, his Notre Dame contemporaries never won a championship.  But ending UCLA’s dynasty became their national championship. After 40 years, John Shumate, Gary Brokaw and Dwight Clay were more than willing to share some untold stories about what really happened on the day that Coach Digger Phelps got his team to believe they could make history. As for Digger, he never gets tired of talking about that day. One of my favorite parts of the film is a sequence of reflections of Digger and Walton, as if they are giving each other some good-natured ribbing.

Be sure to tune in on January 19 at 8 pm and join the conversation using the hashtag #88and1. I do hope you enjoy the film as much as we did making it! Here is a sneak peak at the film: http://bit.ly/1d6ADzd

Leading into the premier, Notre Dame will recognize Phelps on Jan. 19, 2014, at halftime of the Notre Dame men’s basketball game versus Virginia Tech by inducting him into the Notre Dame Ring of Honor. Members of the 1974 team that knocked off UCLA will join Phelps on the Purcell Pavilion court for the ceremony. ESPNU will televise the game at 6 p.m. EST. and will re-air 88 and 1 at the following times:

•  Jan 19 – 10pm ET
• Jan 21 – 4pm ET
• Jan 24 – 6pm ET
• Jan 30 – 1am ET

Full film description:

88 AND 1, presented by Coca-Cola tells the story of that fateful day, Jan. 19,1974, when UCLA's unfathomable three-year winning streak came to a shocking end at the hands of the Notre Dame basketball squad.  It was the greatest dynasty the college basketball world has ever known, but in three minutes and twenty-two seconds, it all came crumbling down.  Dick Enberg, Bill Walton, John Shumate and others re-live that pre-ESPN era when TVS Sports owned the airwaves, John Wooden owned the hardwood, and Irish coach Digger Phelps engineered the greatest upset in college basketball history.

The Thrill of Returning to Notre Dame

I'll always remember my first trip to Notre Dame. It was the fall of 1993, and I was producing a feature on basketball star Monty Williams (now the coach of the NBA New Orleans Pelicans) for The George Michael Sports Machine. I was looking forward to reuniting with Monty, who briefly interned for me at NBC in Washington, DC. What I remember most about the trip was the first time I looked up and saw the golden dome. You could almost hear the echoes of Knute Rockne. Fast-forward 20 years later, and I have the privilege of returning to South Bend with 3 Penny Films. I'm a Boston College grad, a rival of the Fighting Irish, and Dan Skendzel, the Director of Fighting Irish Digital Media jokingly said he'd welcome me back anyway. I did remind Dan that Notre Dame could thank Boston College for Frank Leahy. It's an honor to announce this partnership:


***PRESS RELEASE***

For Immediate Release October 24, 2013

3 PENNY FILMS ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP WITH
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME FIGHTING IRISH DIGITAL MEDIA

Production company to provide in-depth television and web programming
for Notre Dame Athletics

SOUTH BEND, IN – 3 Penny Films, a collegiate sports television and web programming production company, announced today its partnership with University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish Digital Media (FIDM). 3 Penny Films and FIDM have engaged in multiple projects since spring 2012 and are currently partnering on a four-month project to chronicle the 2013 Notre Dame football season as well as select stories related to Notre Dame’s inaugural seasons in other sports in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).

3 Penny Films produces both television and web programming for FIDM. To date, 3 Penny Films has produced three behind-the-scenes shows chronicling the Irish football program that have aired on NBC Sports Network, with the next network program scheduled to air November 25 at 6:30 p.m. Additionally, 3 Penny Films has produced five shows that premiered on NBC Sports Network featuring Notre Dame men’s and women’s basketball, hockey, women’s soccer and men’s lacrosse.

“3 Penny Films has brought a cinematic level of production to our programming,” said Dan Skendzel, senior associate athletics director for Fighting Irish Digital Media. “What makes them so valuable to us, in addition to their outstanding storytelling ability, is that they understand and respect our culture and see themselves as educators at heart.”

“We are excited and honored for the opportunity to partner with FIDM and look forward to sharing the incredible story of Notre Dame through athletics,” said Jess Atkinson, co-founder of 3 Penny Films. “Our goal is to assist Notre Dame in telling authentic stories aligned with the university’s core values of excellence, education, faith, tradition and community through the video and web content we produce.”

3 Penny Films’ roster of clients includes the University of Maryland, University of Miami, Marquette University and the Wounded Warrior Project. Previous 3 Penny Films projects include “Auburn Football Every Day” produced for Auburn University Athletics, "Raising Canes" online series for University of Miami Athletics, and the Arkansas State documentary on the coaching era of Gus Malzahn.

ABOUT 3 PENNY FILMS
3 Penny Films was founded by Jess Atkinson, Bill Kraus and Joe Schreiber. The genre of reality/documentary style programming for collegiate sports was originally pioneered by former NFL kicker and television broadcaster Jess Atkinson in 2003 at the University of Maryland. The unique partnership of 3 Penny Films was formed in 2009. Kraus had previously formed the marketing machine behind the explosive growth of Under Armour. Emmy Award winning producer Joe Schreiber helped launch and produce NBC’s The George Michael Sports Machine, a show that ran for 23 years, one of the longest running national sports shows in television history. For sample of 3 Penny Films productions, please visit www.3pennyfilms.com.



CONTACT:
Kristen Seabolt Dan Skendzel
Maroon PR Fighting Irish Digital Media
443-864-4246 574-631-2454
Kristen@maroonpr.com skendzel.1@nd.edu

All-Access Video is a Commodity, Storytelling is Treasure

When you surf the web and click on a collegiate sports website “All-Access” page, what do you get? Sometimes it is exclusive content behind a pay wall. Most of the time, it is some kind of “behind the scenes” video shot at closed practices, in the lockeroom, where perhaps you can watch a coach addressing his team. In the days before the Internet, this kind of video was considered gold. During my tenure as the Senior Producer for NBC’s syndicated George Michael Sports Machine, we’d give anything for it. But today, it has become a commodity. It begs the question, how can “all-access” content become more valuable and give a university a chance to have its story resonate with recruits and a passionate fan base. Providing “all-access” video to engage an audience is not enough to satisfy an audience on the web that is voracious for premium content or prospective recruits who need to be persuaded to choose one university over another. What’s needed is a sustained approach to document the meaningful moments in collegiate sports programs, put them in context, and incorporates them into a compelling ongoing narrative that engages an audience. The filmmakers at 3 Penny Films are experienced storytellers who embed within a program to capture the moments that can make a great story come to life on the web, television or the silver screen. We’ve learned that just showing a coach’s pre-game speech or teaching moment in practice is no longer enough. In fact, any collegiate sports information director can hand a camera to an intern and tell that person to shoot those moments. The real challenge becomes identifying the context for those moments, knowing what to look for, what you have, and how it relates to a compelling story and the longer narrative of the team. Quite frankly, I learned this the hard way. Once we had the privilege of being hired by universities to document their programs, we captured plenty of authentic unscripted moments, but context was needed. That’s when I realized that all of the experience learned from 23 years of telling stories on the Sports Machine can really pay off as well as the partnership with my colleagues at 3 Penny Films. As a member of the media at NBC I was on the outside looking in as teams prepared for games. But 3 Penny Films co-founder and friend Jess Atkinson, a former NFL player (and fellow broadcaster) had been part of many teams, including the 1987 Super Bowl Champion Washington Redskins. Jess’ perspective is our gift, a keen sense and understanding of what the players and coaches are experiencing, and what those moments mean to a story. How do those stories fit in with the overall brand the university is trying to communicate? That’s when we get to lean on 3 Penny Films co-founder, Bill Kraus, the marketing executive who helped fuel the explosive growth of Under Armor. Bill understands how to build a brand, and that experience has proven valuable to our university partners. Above all, we are students of filmmaking and storytelling. Robert McKee’s book Story is like a bible to us. The works of great filmmakers inspires us. When when we are at work documenting a football season for a team like Notre Dame, Miami and the University of Maryland we share the vision of director Andrew Stanton who wrote all of the works of the Toy Story franchise: “Stories affirm who we are. We all want affirmations that our lives have meaning. And nothing does a greater affirmation than when we connect through stories. It can cross the barriers of time, past, present and future, and allow us to experience the similarities between ourselves and through others, real and imagined.”

All-Access is a Commodity, Storytelling is Treasure

When you surf the web and click on a collegiate sports website “All-Access” page, what do you get? Sometimes it is exclusive content behind a pay wall. Most of the time, it is some kind of “behind the scenes” video shot at closed practices, in the lockeroom, where perhaps you can watch a coach addressing his team. In the days before the Internet, this kind of video was considered gold. During my tenure as the Senior Producer for NBC’s syndicated George Michael Sports Machine, we’d give anything for it. But today, it has become a commodity. It begs the question, how can “all-access” content become more valuable and give a university a chance to have its story resonate with recruits and a passionate fan base. Providing “all-access” video to engage an audience is not enough to satisfy an audience on the web that is voracious for premium content or prospective recruits who need to be persuaded to choose one university over another. What’s needed is a sustained approach to document the meaningful moments in collegiate sports programs, put them in context, and incorporates them into a compelling ongoing narrative that engages an audience. The filmmakers at 3 Penny Films are experienced storytellers who embed within a program to capture the moments that can make a great story come to life on the web, television or the silver screen. We’ve learned that just showing a coach’s pre-game speech or teaching moment in practice is no longer enough. In fact, any collegiate sports information director can hand a camera to an intern and tell that person to shoot those moments. The real challenge becomes identifying the context for those moments, knowing what to look for, what you have, and how it relates to a compelling story and the longer narrative of the team. Quite frankly, I learned this the hard way. Once we had the privilege of being hired by universities to document their programs, we captured plenty of authentic unscripted moments, but context was needed. That’s when I realized that all of the experience learned from 23 years of telling stories on the Sports Machine can really pay off as well as the partnership with my colleagues at 3 Penny Films. As a member of the media at NBC I was on the outside looking in as teams prepared for games. But 3 Penny Films co-founder and friend Jess Atkinson, a former NFL player (and fellow broadcaster) had been part of many teams, including the 1987 Super Bowl Champion Washington Redskins. Jess’ perspective is our gift, a keen sense and understanding of what the players and coaches are experiencing, and what those moments mean to a story. How do those stories fit in with the overall brand the university is trying to communicate? That’s when we get to lean on 3 Penny Films co-founder, Bill Kraus, the marketing executive who helped fuel the explosive growth of Under Armor. Bill understands how to build a brand, and that experience has proven valuable to our university partners. Above all, we are students of filmmaking and storytelling. Robert McKee’s book Story is like a bible to us. The works of great filmmakers inspires us. When when we are at work documenting a football season for a team like Notre Dame, Miami and the University of Maryland we share the vision of director Andrew Stanton who wrote all of the works of the Toy Story franchise: “Stories affirm who we are. We all want affirmations that our lives have meaning. And nothing does a greater affirmation than when we connect through stories. It can cross the barriers of time, past, present and future, and allow us to experience the similarities between ourselves and through others, real and imagined.”