Today was nuts. It went a little something like this:
Day 7 – Tuesday 20th August – Death Valley and Las Vegas
07:30 – Back at Rhyolite, re-shooting all the stuff we did the night before. It looked a little nicer this time around, and it wasn’t dark by the time we’d finished:
![Alom backlit by the rising sun, Rhyolite](https://sciencedemo.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/2013-08-20-Backlight-880x495.jpg)
It still took a while, though, what with all the early flights heading out of LA steering right above us. Harrumph.
09:00 – Another link, elsewhere in Rhyolite. No, I’m not saying what it was.
09:45 – Photosynthesis demo on the bonnet of a rusty old truck:
![A truck, Rhyolite, just before it played host to a demo.](https://sciencedemo.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/2013-08-20-Truck-880x495.jpg)
10:30 – Check out of motel
11:00 – Back to Denny’s for ‘Breakfast.’
11:30 – Gag shot in Denny’s car park. Fingers crossed it makes the final cut, it tickled us no end.
12:00 – Rig Jeep thing for filming inside: pieces to camera while heading back into Death Valley.
14:00 – Badwater Basin again, for this:
![Badwater Basin: a camera films something on the bonnet of the Jeep thing.](https://sciencedemo.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/2013-08-20-Badwater_Demo-880x495.jpg)
What could that possibly be on the bonnet of the Jeep thing, I wonder?
15:00 – Check temperature in Furnace Creek: today it’s 121°F there (49.4°C). Insanely hot. We’re too addled – and too behind schedule – to repeat the shot from yesterday, though, and 112°F will have to do for that. Drat.
15:15 – Wave farewell to Death Valley, drive out heading back towards Las Vegas.
16:00 – Remember to shoot a couple of ‘Jeep thing drives past camera’ shots before we leave the desert and hit the big highway:
![The Jeep Thing has its moment of glory.](https://sciencedemo.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/2013-08-20-Jeep_thing-880x495.jpg)
Huh. Two Jeep thing pictures in succession. I must be missing it.
16:30 – Snack on jerky and utterly appalling cheese sandwiches whilst on the road. Not our finest moment.
18:30 – Arrive Vegas.
19:15 – Manage to find hotel reception (“Go through the casino, then…”), get checked in.
20:00 – Back out to find this evening’s interviewee.
20:30 – Arrive at Krystyn Lambert‘s place. Krystyn’s a magician and… well, philosopher, which is an interesting combination. She was a late addition to our schedule and we’re not 100% sure how we’re going to use her interview, but she was fascinating to talk to and tremendously generous with her time. Fingers crossed we can make it all slot together.
![Krystyn Lambert explores the differences between magic and science performance.](https://sciencedemo.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/2013-08-20-Krystyn-880x495.jpg)
It’s at times like this, incidentally, that you really wish you had a full lighting kit with you. As opposed to a couple of small LED panels and a noga arm clamped to the kitchen counter. Yay for fast lenses. Aaanyway…
23:00 – Wrap filming with Krystyn.
23:30 – GoPro shots driving up & down the Las Vegas Strip.
![Cruising down the Strip](https://sciencedemo.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/2013-08-20-Strip-1-880x495.jpg)
We only got shouted at once.
00:30 – back at the hotel. We caved in and ordered room service.
01:15 – ‘Dinner’ arrived. It was surprisingly good.
02:00 – Finish offloading and backing up the day’s rushes.
02:15 – Rig ‘B’ camera for timelapse from hotel window. What bliss to share a room with a camera with a silent shutter and a programmable start delay to the timelapse. Technology, you have to love it.
02:30 – Sleep.
So, that was a long day. But we’d covered everything we needed to in the desert, shot a couple more demos, and made it back to Vegas with a bonus interview.
Phew.
Miles travelled: 333 (total 2339)
Footage shot: 05:29:29 / 56Gb (total 11:12:48 / 112Gb)
(we ran a GoPro camera on the car for chunks of the day, and Krystyn’s interview was shot with two cameras, hence the huge number of minutes!)
I am enjoying this and curious to see the end product. But are you really on 15% of teh way through your trip?
That took me a while to work out, Michael!
No, on this day we travelled 333 miles, of our running total (to that point) of 2339 miles. There are only a few more days left, and shortly I’ll be blogging about editing. Won’t that be fun for us all.