Things that make you go hmmm..

Why is it when you are working on something, like removing a rod rack off your truck…you take all the screws off with no problems. But then you strip a last one and a 10 minute project turns into a 2 hour job? This happens to me all the time , to the point where I think that it WILL happen ! Its maddening I tell you.

Many of you know that we have been at the shows these past few weekends. This is the first weekend when I got up at my leisure in more than 5 weeks. Between fishing shows and taking my son to colleges it’s been crazy. One result of all of us not being around is that the new issue if few days late. Have no fear, its finally here but being away definely took a lot from all of us. Because we do this after our regular jobs and weekends are a big part of it.

I knew when I started to inquire (you can read beg instead of inquire) within the Montauk surfcasting legends circles about sitting down on camera that this is going to be multi-year project. And I also knew I was over my head. Shooting video is one thing, but trying to put it together so it actually resembles something decent and holds your attention is a whole other thing. Anyone can splice few minutes of blitz footage together. Heck, even I have successfully done this once or twice.

But my problem is I really, really, really like all of these dudes. Jack Yee, Joe Bragan, Bill Wetzel, Manny Moreno, Vito Orlando, Willy Young….I can listen for hours and hours when Fred Schwab talks and never get bored. I don’t need no stinking b-roll overlay footage or fancy graphics, I just like Fred for Fred. In fact, every time I do a cutaway from Fred I feel like I am cheating him. To listed to these guys talk about competitiveness, to hear them describe what they thought first time they seen a wetsuit wearing angler. Or who was the best. Or listen to Willy Young talk about taking a train in 1944 to Montauk to go fishing is crazy. I am glad that I did the interviews, I am glad that there will be some record of what these guys have been trough over the years. But I could never do a justice to a project like this. There has to be at least 40 hours of just interviews and to me leaving anything out seems like injustice. Maybe because a part of me want to capture it all, the people, the places, who was considered best, which plugs why, who brought the first bucktail, who tossed the first needle, who skished 40 years before all the johhnycomelately did

But I cant for obvious reasons include it all. And I have done a great job avoiding doing this in last few weeks and I used that as a reason why…haha…finally I sat don’t on Friday and started to work on Part I. Do I start from 1944, or from today’s blitzes, sneakiness, competitiveness, darter, eels, wetsuit, people, north vs. south…oh brother!

Finally I decided to kind of blend two subject which I thought were connected, competitiveness and wetsuits. After all, using a wetsuit grew in large part because of competiveness. So after about 10 to 12 hours of editing I had about 16 minute thing done. Am I happy with it? I would say I need at least 5  more years and few years of camera schooling to make something that would make me happy but I tried my best. My intent always was to try to capture the history in the words of those who lived through it. I would hope that the final version of this project down the line would be more polished and with lots and lots and lots more overlay footage. But on the end of the day, this is about people, and their experiences

At 16 minutes and 3.5 GB  at 1080 P it took 6 and a half hour to upload to YouTube…..only to be told at 6 hour and 31 minute that it failed to upload.Its telling me is “too long”. Huh? I just uploaded 31 minute interview with Dennis Z the other day????  Did I tell you how even the simple things lately turn to shit? :-)..So here I am again, uploading it to YouTube this time at 720 P.     This time only took one hour. but it failed again.And again.and again.. Oh brother…now what ? The only thing I can think of is to cut it down in two pieces of about 7 minutes each and do it that way. So I did, Part 1 took about an hour and it was fine. Great, not what I planned  but sometimes YouTube can be maddening. Part two was next. After an hour it told me it was “too long” and it failed to upload. WTF? Two more tries with same results. Oh my God, I thought of taking the biggest hammer I got and smashing the Mac. Finally I give up after 14 hours at 10 pm.

Today I wanted so badly to take a day off and work on this but “working” is basically waiting to see if YouTube will accept it. I have no idea why, maybe I have a corrupt file. Like I said, I am much better of wrapping duct than this shit. But I knew my boss will throw a shitfit if i take a day off. We are so understaffed at work and so many jobs are buried already..so I took an early day to try to work on this. And I am still getting nowhere. The magazine is done, Tommy was waiting for me to upload this last video. The new issue will be  up in the next 24 hours, video or not. My time is up..not sure if I bit more than I can chew with making videos. It sure seems that way..stay tunned