Calling all Expats~ Shopping for a Home Abroad? HGTV wants you for their next show!

Filed under News, Casting & Contests by on October 26, 2010 at 4:13 am {4 comments}

Will You Be Visited by House Hunters Next?

Hey Expats in Kimchi-land and beyond! Wanna give folks back home a peek into what shopping for a home in a foreign country takes?

Hit television show ‘House Hunters International‘ (currently showing on the Homes and Gardens Network in America) is casting for a new series. If you are looking for or have recently bought a home abroad, they would like to put your story on TV!

The travel show is looking for energetic people, couples and families to share their story about (more…)

Shooting Reality Food Porn at the Food Network

Filed under Glam Around the World, New York by on February 25, 2009 at 8:23 am {no comments}

8A call time and I am over at Chelsea Marketplace at 9th Ave/16 Street to shoot a Toyota sponsored Recipe Makeover Shoot for  FoodNetwork.com. Our small crew of 3 camerapersons, AP, PA and my friend and Producer, Jim G. congregate below at one of the cafes, then head up to the Food Network Kitchens to setup lights, prep, meet our talent and shoot, as Jim calls it, “Food Porn”. The host for this show is Rob Bleifer, head executive chef at the FN Kitchens for over 8 (or was it 11?) years and a surprisingly very down-to-earth guy with a mellow Chicago feel about him. He is more than compliant in lifting his arms in scarecrow so that I can mic him up to my camera each time he does a wardrobe change.

Now I didn’t know this, but the FN Kitchens is not an actual sound stage, even though its got enough wattage and stage lights to function as one. It’s an actual fully-functional kitchen where all the FN chefs (and its celebrity chefs) come to practice, test and fine tune their recipes. Think of it like a mad scientist gastronomical lab! The kitchen has 6 work stations with a small separate room on the side for the “taste testers” who are the gastro-equivalent of “the Noses” in the perfume industry. The taste testers sample the foods that the chefs make and offer suggestions to improving the flavor of the dish. (more…)

Filming ‘MTV’s True Life’ and it’s Go-Go Lives

Filed under Off-beat, Weird... Reality!, Others by on January 15, 2009 at 12:49 pm {no comments}
It’s about an hour and 45 min drive from my apartment in New York City to “Philly”. Our shoot is in the South Street district, the southern part of Phildelphia in a neighborhood characterized by a lot of 3-story residential apt buildings streets and cute nookish bars and restaurants.. Cozy and quaint, the neighborhoods in this area seem reminiscent of college towns or the West Village in NYC.  Our shoot location is a 5 min drive from our Marriott Courtyard hotel in the City Center (aka “downtown”) district which rings of Liberty Bell architecture and Americana statues.  The downtown “nut” streets like Walnut and Chestnut have a string of fusion restaurants ranging anywhere from creative, healthy, popular and fast food. There is everything from vegetarian wrap and smoothie joints, to contemporary Thai, Philly steakhouses and Dunkin Donuts. I am not without my vegetarian food options here ( if you can find street parking and can manage ultra tight east coast parallel parking!).

I am on a shoot for a MTV True Life Presents show about women and their breasts. The girl we’re shooting here is a Go-Go dancer so the peek into her life supplements for my lack of sightseeing Philadelphia proper. Sometimes, working as a camera person can be glamorous work with travel perks and sometimes, its WORK where my touristing turns solely into sightseeing into other peoples’ private lives. This shoot is the latter and while my crazy boot camp shoot schedule has currently disappointed my expectations to actually sightsee/experience Philadelphia, there is still the “privilege” of gaining access into  windows I would not normally think to scrutinize. (more…)

Iowa: Cedar Rapids & Suriving Last-Minute Business Travel

Filed under Off-beat, Weird... Reality!, Others by on December 8, 2008 at 12:30 pm {no comments}

My day began at 5:30A when my XYZ Car service picked me up at my apt to shuttle me off to La Guardia airport to meet up with my D.P. and catch a flight to Cedar Falls, Iowa for a last minute 2-day shoot for MTV’s Engaged & Underage.

Rule #1- It is NEVER advised to schedule someone on a connecting flight with only 1/2 hr leeway to get to their gate.

a) you never know how far the airport terminal of your connecting flight will be &
b) have to allow for possible delays and weather
(*especially if you’re traveling during winter!)

The connecting airport- Chicago O’Hare. CHI-O’Hare is an airport which I’ve frequented through several touchdowns and generally like. It won me over several years back with its self-cleaning plastic rotating toilet seat covers (to make me feel like they have my sanitation concerns at heart), but my one rant is that this is a big airport and the terminals can be a hike…even if your connecting flight is on the SAME airlines carrier. Hauling camera equipment on your back while running a mile to your gate with your overnight rolling duffle, because your plane got delayed in taxi due to “snow & ice” weather conditions, is not a cheerful start to getting to your shoot. Carriers these days, have gotten to touting haughty attitudes to customers and some will close their doors 10 minutes earlier than the ticketed departure (with the reprimand that you were supposed to have gotten there 2 hrs earlier!) Needless to say, we missed our flight and had to take the next one out. (more…)

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