Here's a video clip of me in fine form while shooting on location.
Top Right: Editor At The Computer, With Assistant
I started shooting railroad videos eighteen years ago, my tapes are sold all over the world, and foure of them have won "The Canadian Rockies Railroad Museum Award for Outstanding Achievement in Railroad Video", "Tracks of the Beaver" won a Silver Telly, the highest Telly Award, and "Iron Road to the Isles" and "A Yellowhead Winter" both received Bronze Telly's. A number of my shows have been broadcast by RFD TV out of Nashville, TN.
For those of you into equipment, my new camera is a Sony DVCam DSR-450WS, which shoots in widescreen, and is capable of resolving more than 800 lines, true broadcast quality. My stealth camera, for taking overseas without getting customs agents all hot and bothered, is Sony's HDV Z1U, which also shoots in widescreen. The lens on the 450WS is a 20-1 with a doubler, making it the equivalent of about 1600mm for a 35mm camera. I edit on a Mac G5 with Final Cut Studio and dump to Betacam SP for the master. I started DVD production in early 2002 and have been astonished at both the quality (I never knew what all the fuss over DVD's was about) and the sales volume. Thank You! DVD's are replicated in house, even more for me to do!
Below: Highball Productions field crew on location in Blackpool, England. Photo by Andy Knott.
How did I get into airplane and airport videos? I was in a motel in Houston, Texas, the manager saw me lugging the gear in, and came up to the room for a chat. "Why don't you try airplane videos," he said, to which my response was "who the heck is interested in airplanes?" Well, I checked into it, seems more people are interested in planes than trains, so I decided to try it. I went up to Phoenix Sky Harbor, it being convenient, and had an interesting day. I decided I needed more reach, so I bought the doubler, and went back to Sky Harbor, where there were lots of Northwest DC10s and America West specially painted B757s, and I was hooked! As far as locomotives are concerned, I enjoy just about anything that runs on rails, but of course I have my favorites. Just so with planes, I like most of them, I'm not really enthusistic about DC9s/MD80s, I like the little Airbuses, (A318,19,20), the A340, and the B747, which to my mind is the bumblebee of aviation, no way it should be able to fly, and the big tri jets, the DC10/MD11 and the L1011. My favorite is the B757, looks like a big, predatory bird. Sadly, post 9/11, shooting airports in the USA is a thing of the past due to high security
Highball is a full time operation, it's how I keep a roof over our head. I shoot, edit, design the sleeves, do the newsletter and just about everything else, and I have a part time lady who comes in and does the packaging and shipping a couple of days a week, and keeps the orders going out while I'm away shooting.
Who are we? My name is Peter Crook, I'm a 59 year old ex Brit, I've been in the US since 1977, and I became a US citizen after 9/11, when I figured it was time to stand up and be counted. I've been married to a New Jersey girl for 34 years, and we have 3 kids and two cats. Fortunately, the kids have moved out! We moved to the sunny Southwest from the cold and snowy Northeast nine years ago, and are now living in Tucson, Arizona.
How did I get into train videos? I've been watching trains since I was a little kid, some of my earliest memories are on a station. I worked for British rail for four years before we moved over to the USA, and it took a while to get into American Railways and the distances involved. I aquired my first video camera in 1988, there was so much rubbish out there that I decided I could do better, I've upgraded the equipment constantly, and here we are.!