Friday, February 14, 2020

Latest Shoot: Crater of Diamonds

It was time to head east for our latest couple of shoots.  It's been awhile since we've shot footage in Arkansas.  We covered quartz crystal digging in Mount Ida for "RockHounds: The Movie" and have stopped by the Natural State to get some shots here and there in from time to time.  But now was the chance to "dig in" and get something we've had on our "Want List" for awhile now.

Crater of Diamonds is one of the most popular state parks in Arkansas.  Visitors can dig for actual diamonds and keep what they find.  According to the park, they average about 2 diamond finds per day.  Not a bad way to spend the afternoon.

Since many people might not have any diamond mining experience, the park offers demonstrations.  Park Interpreter Waymon Cox not only gave us a great interview, he let us shoot footage of him doing one of the demos.  The process is easy enough that first time visitors should be able to get it fairly quickly and then get on with the business of digging for diamonds.

We also interviewed park regular Dave Rhodes about his experiences digging.  Over four years of digging, he's found 33 diamonds although he said it took him about nine months to find his first one.  He gave us some great tips for digging and took us through the process.

Even though we didn't find any diamonds that day, Dave brought some of the specimens he had found earlier at the park.  So luckily we didn't have to leave without actual diamond footage. 

We got a ton of great shots out there so be on the lookout for it in upcoming EveryDay Earth missions!


Wednesday, February 5, 2020

Latest Shoot: Checking Out Some Rocks at the Library

It takes a lot of footage to make a project like EveryDay Earth.  Like all our projects, the kind of shots we typically need are of rocks.  We get plenty of footage in the field but since there's no such things as "too many rocks," we're always trying to get more.

Luckily our friends at the Oklahoma Mineral and Gem Society were kind enough to loan us some of their best specimens to shoot.  A few days before they had just taken down a display at the Metropolitan Library in downtown Oklahoma City so the timing was prefect.

We needed a space to set up and our friends at another library, the Piedmont Library, let us use some of their space (and show off some rocks).  Here's what the setup looks like...


...to get a shot of native sulfur that looks like this:


We spent several hours shooting and had access to some great specimens.  There were even several that were so big we couldn't fit them in the light box.  That didn't stop us from getting footage of them though. 


All in all, it was a very productive day and we'd like to thank everyone who helped out.  Be on the lookout for the great shots we got in EveryDay Earth!