Surgery in NYC

The month of November means big things in Indiana sports - the Colts are usually doing well (though a little more worrisome this year), the Pacers get into action, and college basketball begins as well.  Here in Central Indiana, Purdue and IU and Butler reign supreme, and we at Immediate Info always enjoy the season.  So, you can imagine our disappointment when we learned that All-Big Ten forward Robbie Hummel of Purdue went down before the year even started with yet another torn ACL.  This was a huge blow to the Purdue team, as they were ranked in the top-5 nationally in most pre-season polls.  But, with arguably their best player already done before the season even starts, the outlook seems a little less exciting.

After meeting with radio host/writer/journalist Mark Montieth about his vision for a documentary, we quickly shot some game-footage, and interview with Robbie, and booked flights and hotel to New York City to be there to tape his surgery.  Immediate Info has spent many hours inside operating rooms through different surgeries utilizing the Da Vinci robot, but this was a bit different as it was a more "hands-on" procedure.  Needless to say, our time at the Hospital for Special Surgery was very interesting and welcomed by the accommodating staff.  This was a real treat for an Indianapolis based video production crew in a new place.

The surgery involved taking a piece of Robbie's patella tendon, a tendon that is large enough through the middle of the knee to provide a chunk to serve as a new ACL.  When the sample was taken, the main surgeon continued to clean and prep the inside of Robbie's knee with a laparoscope and plenty of sterile water.  The second surgeon took the piece of patella to a sterile table to shave and cut it into the appropriate shape and size before it was reattached into Robbie's knee to serve as his new ACL tendon.

Meanwhile, through all this, I am dodging around the room with a camera in an attempt to get clean shots and interesting angles despite the group of surgeons and assistants crowded around the knee.  The surgery took about 1.5 hours and was made more enjoyable due to some narration from the main surgeon, explaining the different steps and tasks of the process.  It was further interesting to look at this beyond just shooting the surgery, but to follow Robbie all the way from the entrance of the hospital to the check-in, to the OR, and to the recovery room.  In fact, he saw my camera before he saw his own parents when he woke up!

This project has already started out very interestingly, and a feature TV documentary should be a very cool final product.  This project will be ongoing for the next year, so more updates will come about Robbie's recovery and rehab, as well as the development of this story.

Pancakes and Omelettes

With Halloween approaching, candy is a necessity not only on the 31st, but throughout the month of October for Immediate Info.  However, this October we are experiencing another kind of sweets as well - the delicious food of the Original Pancake House.  The McDermott family who owns the two Original Pancake House locations in Fishers and on the north side of Indy, are opening a third location at 146th St. and Gray Rd. in the Carmel/Westfield area.  Along with the new store, they are adding a new feature to the entrance area - a large television to showcase a looping video of the delicious eats of the restaurant.

This looks to be a particularly fun project, as after the first shoot it has become apparent that I will not be leaving the restaurant without something delicious (like strawberry waffles or chocolate-chip pancakes) in my belly.  The video is expected to be about 30 minutes long, looping, and contain close-ups of various menu items, demonstrations of how dishes are made in the kitchen, interviews with the managers, testimonials from customers, and more.  30-minutes is too long to post to our YouTube page, so when this is complete you will have to go to the restaurant to see the video... And to eat some delicious food!


                                                   

Hello October

You know Autumn is officially here when you see the Halloween candy available at the stores.  Unfortunately, this doesn't mean much in the world of video production, but personally, it is a wonderful thing to have bite-size candies abounding.

The end of September found the completion of our largest project to-date for Urology of Indiana.  Their 3rd video with us was for their biggest procedure - Da Vinci Prostatectomy.  This video was shot at various locations all around Indianapolis, and included interviews with 9 doctors, as well as one patient.  Needless to say, it was also a deal of work in the editing room, but the whole video came together nicely to explain the procedure and U of I's involvement with it for the past 5 years.  You can find this video at www.urologyin.com in their Robotic Prostatectomy section.

This video proved interesting because not only is there important information to get across to a viewer, but we also had to balance screen time for the different doctors while editing, to ensure that everyone was treated fairly.  This type of video work can be tough since not everyone interviewed explains things the same way, or totally fit as much of what they said as well as some one else.  This was an example of a video where editing WITH the customer in the room was helpful.  Most times, it is easier to just edit a rough cut and swap notes, rather than have someone looking over your shoulder.  Here however, there are so many moving pieces that it worked very well to go against our normal process.