On The Road Somewhere in Alabama
April 2, 2010

JCB is a case study in creative marketing.  As a privately held business, they have the flexibility to pay a little more attention to the customer instead of the shareholder, and that's probably one of the main reasons they've chosen to focus so much on the customer in their business.  It was the credo of their founder, Mr. Joseph Cyril Bamford.  Putting the customer "at the heart" of their business was really his idea.  JCB also has a history of being among the first corporate responders in times of natural disaster.  The Asian sunami, the Chinese earthquake, and now the earthquake that reduced Port-au-Prince to mostly rubble are all recent examples where the company has quickly donated equipment and money to aid in relief and recovery work.

In an effort to raise both awareness and additional money for the Haiti relief effort, JCB has put together a cross-country backhoe trip in conjunction with the American Red Cross - the first coast-to-coast trip of its kind in this country.  Through our long-standing relationship with JCB, eThree Media was lucky enough to get the call to document the trip.  We offered to produce produce short video blog entries each day showing what would be going on with the backhoe and dealer events featuring our arrival at each one.

I decided that I would be shooting the project with a Canon 5D Mark II kit.  Now, production on the road can present some unique challenges to the cinematographer.  Compound the ordinary factors by a considerable amount by throwing in an HDSLR, and you might end up asking yourself some rhetorical questions.  Not the least of which is "did I turn the audio on?" right about the time your talent has just said something really spontaneous and important.  Yes, life on the road can drive you nuts in the first place, so why make the situation ever more cumbersome by shooting with one of these newfangled cameras?  For me, the answer is simple:  results.

There is simply no approaching the image quality of what the Canon 5D Mark II gives me with any other kind of video camera near its price.  Sure, I can get shallow depth of field from a more traditional video rig with a lens adapter, but then I've got the added chore of getting that rig calibrated, and still losing some of the edges to vignetting even when I get everything "perfect."  Plus, putting a beast like that on your shoulder requires a certain masochistic trait I seem to be missing.  But, lest I prematurely convince anyone that an HDSLR camera setup is easy to put together or even to use, I invite you to return here for updates in the coming weeks highlighting the kit that i've assembled for the journey, in case you're planning a go-it-alone adventure of your own with an HDSLR any time in the near future.  In the meanwhile, check out the videos we're putting together on JCB's site for the trip:  www.JCBforHaiti.com