SandFest

Over the weekend I went to a little event called Texas SandFest. And by little, I mean more than 100,000 people crowded the beach to look at sandcastles.

To be fair, they are more than sandcastles. Master sculptors spend hours crafting elaborate structures and whimsical scenes out of packed grains of sand. It really is unbelievable what they can do. Worth the two hours it took me to find parking? Well...

The good news is you don't have to fight the crowds or get sand all over the interior of your car to enjoy the festival. While I was there I shot a little video. Before you check it out, though, let me tell you a little bit about my inspiration for this video.

The day before I hit the beach, an editor was talking to me about shooting video at a different assignment. He suggested I don't get bogged down and keep it simple. Sunday-Morning style, he said. That really inspired me. I don't know if you watch, but CBS Sunday Morning is probably some of the best, most enjoyable TV journalism you can watch. And at the end of every episode, they show beautiful and peaceful nature footage from some scenic corner of the country. That was the kind of video my editor was referring to. Just clean, simple shots. No voice over, no story. Just set the scene and let people take it in.

Now, he proposed I do this at a track meet, which I wasn't really sure I could make work. But I thought SandFest would be a good time to try out my Sunday-Morning style video. Going in I thought this would be easier. In reality I came close to ruining the video several times. About half the things I shot had no audio because my external mic kept getting switched off (I blame the wind). Natural audio really is key. Mostly, though, having to actually think about progression and natural transitions was harder than it should have been. Knowing I couldn't just slap a voice over or insert some random talking head to break up the video was a new challenge. I should really be shooting in this mind frame already, not just getting some interview and slapping it over some random B-roll and calling it a day.

This is by no means a masterpiece, and I'm confident Charles Osgood won't be calling me anytime soon to shoot the next nature segment. Still, I think it turned out well. So with that in mind: We leave you this Sunday morning on the breezy coast of Port Aransas, Texas, where sand is king...