"First Post!"

Well here it goes, my first post on yet another new blog...

Thank you, thank you. Please stop your applause. No, seriously. Okay..

While I've started many blogs in the last 5 years with only a couple remaining (pretty much just personal/family type blogs) I'm always a little hesitant to go all out with a new one - but having a blog on Creative Cow was really appealing to me since I have never had a blog primarily devoted to the industry I currently work in and my professional interests - and those are editing, motion graphics, directing, production, et al. Since this is Creative Cow and I'm sure none of you really care to get too in depth on my personal life (if you want to TheEscandons.com is the place to go for that stuff, but it's mostly my wife who posts) this seems like the perfect place to blog about all things broadcast/production/film related. It is my hope that I can ever start posting some tutorials, tips, tricks, and just experiences on here too. I know the fine people at Creative Cow have done amazing tutorials and podcasts to which I owe a lot to, but I'm sure there is some new and interesting stuff that I can someday add to the mix. 

Well, since you've read this far, I owe you a little back story. I'm currently a full-time editor and motion graphics designer at Outdoor Channel in Temecula, CA. I've been in this post for 2 years and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. I live close to work and it's a nice area of Southern California, I'm happy here for now. I got married in 2005 and have a 7 month old baby girl (as of April 2007) and all around life is pretty splendid right now. My job supports us so that my wife can stay at home and raise our children and that's a big priority to us, so I'm thankful for that.

Outside of the day job, I do a lot of side work when it comes. I do this under the banner "Oremus Productions" (http://www.oremusproductions.com) where I will do corporate video, wedding video, broadcast/commercials, web stuff, you name it. I set my hours and some months I chose to work harder than others, it all just depends on what I want to take on. I'm glad I have the full time gig though, for freelancing full time is really not the best thing for me right now (unless I was making a crap-ton of money and had a semi regular gig).

Other than that, I'm also producing a documentary that I also partially shot in Sri Lanka after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. A small crew spent over 4 months in Sri Lanka in 2005 and chronicled some unbelievable things. Although the event has passed and everyone has seen the news footage over and over again, the documentary is a fresh look at the corruption and scandals by the government and the NGO's that happened in the wake of the disaster, and also personal tales of triumph and victory from people who were dealt with very unfortunate situations. We shot over 160 hours and are just finishing a promo so that we can get the funds to properly finish this feature length documentary. We expose some of the biggest charity organizations around and depict tales that most American's would not believe. The promo is not online though yet, so if anyone is interested in this project they can e-mail me for more information.

Well that's my in a nutshell. Oh and for the technical things - I edit using Final Cut Pro 5 and use a healthy dose of Adove Photoshop, Adobe After Effects (still using 6.5, probably until CS3 comes out), Apple Motion/Soundtrack and have just recently started utilizing Shake 4 for some things (hopefully I'll learn a lot more about this prog in the future). I edit primarily in HD and we use Dual 2.7Ghz G5 MACs with AJA Kona Video hardware. This is probably more than I've written about myself in a very long time. If you read this blog, feel free to say hi, and I'm glad to be part of this community. Oh and I'll be making my first trip to NAB in a few weeks and am really looking forward to it. Anyone else here going?

Paul E. 
Oremus Productions
http://www.oremusproductions.com