Dallas Crew Takes on NOLA for CBS Game Changers

Eric Gordon, shooting guard for the New Orleans Pelicans.

For two weeks in a row I found myself down in the “The Big Easy”, “NOLA”, “NAWLINS”, whatever you call it… New Orleans for our clients, Assignment Desk and CBS Game Changers.

If you haven’t seen or heard of Game Changers, it’s a television show following professional athletes off the field and into their lives of giving, caring and sharing. Typically for these features, we shoot a formal sit down interview with the talent, b-roll and OTF (on the fly) interview about the charity or event that’s occurring.

Week One

Our talent was New Orleans Pelicans shooting guard, Eric Gordon. We spent the first half of the day setting up our interview in the Pelicans/Saints press room. The room didn’t yield much in terms of exciting backgrounds so I settled with an out of focus Pelicans logo, which I lit with a spot lit and some cucalorus (shadows/silhouettes) patterns around it. Overall, it yielded a pretty unique look that was simple and clean.

After our interview with Gordon, we followed him over to the Pelicans training facility where his charity delivered bags of presents to underprivileged kids. For me, this was a very touching moment to shoot and I’m glad to have been able to help tell this story.

Week Two

The subject this time was New Orleans Saints wide receiver, Brandin Cooks.  Cooks also has his own charity that helps underprivileged kids in the New Orleans area.The event we covered was called, “Strikes For The Kids”, a bowling night fundraiser.

The first thing we did upon arrival was to set up for the interview with Cooks. The area that was reserved for us to shoot had a great looking background with a wall half covered in ship-lap (thank you for all the HGTV and Fixer Upper shoots for that knowledge) and empty window frames. This gave a very warm and unique backdrop.

I utilized a variety of Kino Flo’s and Arri Tungstens to really play with the lighting and fine tune it to a look that I wanted. After the interview, we went into straight b-roll and OTF mode (see the awesome post from our DP, Roger Woodruff, about OTF’s to learn more about them). I was instructed to cover the scene as it happened, and that’s what I did, using my Sony F3 I bounced around with the variety of L-Series glass to fully cover the event.

– Nate Galluppi