Sunday, November 2, 2014

NCRS Video...On the set.

So a couple times this summer at the NCRS we made a video about progress through the season. You can see the first two on the agroliquid web site at the bottom of the home page.  They are NCRS Progress Series Episodes 1 & 2.  Well now we are in field crop harvest, and that would indicate that it was time for Episode 3.  So we did just that last Thursday. Our regular crew from Creative Services was on the job once again.  So it will be good.  And of course it was cold and cloudy, this being fall and all.
I gave the welcome and related progress since Episode 2, which included the Research Field Days. There will be footage of that in Episode 3, so if you were there, check it out soon for your cameo.
One cool new feature that Creative Services has now is a video drone.  I've seen footage of what they have done with the drone previously at at the Field Days and was anxious to see it here during harvest.  Here is pilot Mike getting ready for liftoff.  That's a cell phone on the controls that serves as a camera monitor showing what the drone "sees".
Up, up and away.
I looked over Mike's shoulder to see the aerial shots of the combine and scaled grain cart working their way through the plots.  Mike is a good pilot and Episode 3 will be quite a visual extravaganza. 
I was so focused on the video images that I forgot to take a picture of the cell phone monitor.  So here is an artist's reconstruction of what I was seeing.  This artist is quite good.  It really looked like that. 
Next we went inside the farm office to show Stephanie on the job taking test weight and grain moisture measurements of the corn samples from each plot.  She did a good job on camera, having done this a time or two in the past.  Or maybe it was thousands.  Many thousands.
Couldn't do an NCRS video without a fruit and vegetable segment.  In something new, Brian gave an overview on strawberry fertility in answer to a video question from a grower.  He also talked about the massive amounts of food donated to the Mid-Michigan Food Bank over the years.  It's up to around 200,000 pounds in recent years.
So that was fun.  Look for the premier of Episode 3 coming soon to a website near you.