Great first day at the Republican National Convention, with several events and a slew of interviews. Our return path to the FORA Studio in San Francisco hit a snag when the local FedEx office decided that they do not ship on Labor Day and our Internet connection did not send back our video files overnight. Stuart somehow got the entire Marriott organization mobilized to help us create a makeshift studio, with a free high speed path back to the mothership. I haven’t seen an immediate response like that–from the hotel manager to the IT staff to the national PR official–in a long time. Thank you Marriott.
The buzz in the first day of shooting was on Sarah Palin. We have some very strong reactions including a great conversation, with the Times of London’s Gerry Baker interviewing AEI’s Norm Ornstein and Brookings’ Thomas Mann. After a Huffington Post panel, I had the opportunity to interview a number of participants and attendees, including Arianna Huffington and Roy Sekoff (HuffPost editor), Time’s Joe Klein, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, Myka Brzezinski and Tucker Carlson, Left Right and Center’s Tony Blankley, Slate’s Mickey Kaus, and Byron York of the National Review.
We used the production camera for the interviews but will continue to experiment with the Flip Video cam. My favorite from the DNC was posted on FORA’s front page last night. That will be an interesting editorial judgment over time–do you feature video shot on $100 cameras on a dark street corner when the content stands up? Here is my interview with one of the stars of the HBO series ‘The Wire.’ Wendell Pierce, who plays Bunk Moreland, is as eloquent in person as he is on camera. Wendell discusses his participation in David Simon’s lates project on Katrina, his roots in New Orleans, and his view on the essential, mandatory role of a citizen in the political process.
Loading tweets...