UW Madhatters at the Orpheum

One of the most fun parts of my job is shooting at different venues with interesting people. Sheepshead has had the pleasure of working with the UW Madhatters before, and this time around, we went bigger and better!

The Good: The Orpheum is a bit smaller than Overture Hall (where we filmed them last time around), but it makes up in style – the Hatters had the place decked out with some great lighting effects and 3 giant screens (for which we supplied live video).  I have to give Mike Jurken and his Majic Enterprises a shout-out for their excellent setup – he and his guys are fun to work with.

As far as technical points go: getting our crane positioned in a way that suitably captured exciting shots was a fun challenge, but nothing we couldn’t master during the 5+ hours of setup. Sound was great. I’ve worked with a variety of sound technicians and not all of my experiences have been that good. However, working with Conrad St. Clair proved to be great, and we were able to interface with the live sound for post pretty easily. We had 4 Sheepshead staff members working that night – and while there were a few minor blips (what production doesn’t have them?!), everything came together in the end.

The Mad: As one who has been on the a cappella scene, I appreciate everything that went in to this production, from the technical to the showmanship – it was a crazy time, and as I watch the footage and edit I hope to translate all of that energy over and do the group justice. It was also a bit “mad” since I had to leave the show early due to a previous engagement, namely a Bucks game.

The Ugly: I won’t say anything bad about the Hatters and their highly entertaining act – the ugly comes from a depressing Bucks loss I would go on to see later that night… the good news is that they are in the playoffs!

To be continued? I hope so, I wrote “Part I” in hopes of enticing one of the others to weigh in and review the actual show. We’ll see what happens…