Author: Justin Kownacki

The Baristas: Episode 17 – “Coming to a Head”

Ben and Aubrey‘s wedding budget is destroyed when Lorraine wants her pyramid scheme cash back from Ben, Gary helps Scott and Simon build a strange new phone app, and Rich and Tabitha fight over the future of Vanity Press after their author, Gloria, starts revealing people’s darkest secrets. // Filmed at the Affogato Cafe in Pittsburgh // Theme: Never Listen to Me by The Thermals

Attack of the Video Capture Gremlins?

Double uh-oh…

It seems that Affogato’s ongoing renovations aren’t the only production hurdle we have to clear this week.  Now we have a new problem: gremlins in our video system.

Somehow, our footage for this week’s episode has a problem: it’s missing something.  Like, half of every clip.  Without getting too technical, check out this pic:

This is what a folder of Baristas clips looks like in Final Cut. See all those numbers under the clip names? Those are the lengths of each video clip. We usually film each scene in multiple takes that last several minutes apiece, and then we cut in for closeups. But these clips aren’t a few minutes long; they’re a few seconds long. And what’s missing is a few seconds between each clip, which means the footage is a patchwork quilt of half-finished sentences.

That’s never happened to us before, and we’re investigating our video capture process to see where it went wrong (and to make sure it won’t happen again — otherwise, we have a real problem on our hands…).

So while we try to find the gremlins in our system — and re-digitize and re-edit this week’s episode from scratch (oh boy…) — here’s a deleted scene from our Customer Is Always Right episode to pass the time.

Holy Renovations, Coffee Lovers!

Uh oh.

Two weeks in a row when we’re going to post an episode on a Tuesday instead of a Monday?  Is it the end of the caffeinated world? How did that happen?

Simply put, anyone familiar with the Pittsburgh tech scene shouldn’t be surprised that this week’s episode is slightly delayed, because this weekend was the weekend of PodCamp Pittsburgh 6, when time stops for the city’s social media practitioners.  (Or speeds up.  I forget.  We all usually end up sleep-deprived and talking about “the future” at 3 AM…)

But there’s another reason behind our slight hiccup this week, and it’s a doozy: see these pictures? This is what Affogato (where we film the show) actually looks like right now.  Which, if you watch The Baristas, is not what the cafe looks like onscreen.

That’s because the cafe is under new ownership, and renovations are afoot.  This is very cool in the long run, but very interesting from a continuity standpoint.

So, our apologies, but please pardon us while we try to wrap our heads around how we’re going to match our shots from our last 3 episodes before the cafe totally transforms into… well, you’ll see.

And then, tomorrow, watch Rich, Chase and Lorraine to really start causing problems around the cafe…

Delayed by Dogsitting?

Rufus and Percy, 2011
Your adorable culprits, Rufus and Percy.

If you saw a somewhat cryptic tweet from me last night, you know this week’s episode is being delayed because of… dogsitting? Yup. Suffice it to say that having one dog in the house means that life is totally normal, but having two dogs means OH MY GOD TWO DOGS LOUDNESS BARKING CHASING ANARCHY!!!

And it is impossible to edit audio when you can’t hear anything.

Today seems to be MUCH calmer than yesterday, so either they’re adapting or I’m deaf.

Either way, look for a new episode later today, dogs willing…