As part of the Fluor Centennial live event, taking place on April 21, 2012, we thought it more than appropriate to literally incorporate construction into the show itself.  Using the Watchout System our concept was to use construction workers as stagehands to do things like prepare the stage and change the set and screens, all within an artificial environment.  During the over 2+ hour show, we wanted the set to feel ‘alive’ – like a living, breathing work site.. With ‘Teamwork’ – being one of Fluor’s core values, we definitely wanted it to appear that EVERYONE was helping out at the event.

After calculating the precise timings, scaling and movements we needed to capture, we gathered the necessary props and talent and headed out to MS Studios for a day-long green screen shoot.  The technical challenges were many, one being how to get a worker to seamlessly walk across the entire 3840 pixel Watchout canvas, while dealing with things like lens warping and spatial light shift.  Ultimately, these workers were placed inside a working environment and combined with original 3D animations. Below are some behind the scenes photos I took on set.  Stay tuned for a post-event look at how it all turned out.

- Ronny S.

CAMERA: ARRI Alexa

LOCATION: Microsoft Studios

SOFTWARE: C4D, After Effects, Photoshop, Final-Cut Pro.

When we sat around in early 2011 trying to figure out our overwhelming Fluor 100 travel schedule; we were presented with options from six continents.  Inhospitable places like the Sakhalin Island near Siberia and the dense jungles of the Dominican Republic were on the short list.  I remember thinking, that if I had a choice of destinations, I would put South Africa at the very top.  For some reason, it really appealed to me.  Geographically you can’t get much further away from Seattle – and the culture and history of the country was fascinating to me.  So when Johannesburg was selected by Fluor as a place to shoot, I jumped on the chance to go.

The flight is ridiculous.  21 or so total hours in the air.  David Godwin and I spend about 9 hours at the Atlanta airport on top of that.  Chick Fil-A was definitely a highlight.  Our time at TGI Fridays felt like it would never end.  You can do some serious damage if you are there for 5 hours or so.   We were informed that we would be accompanied by a bodyguard at all times when we set down in Joberg, and the guy assigned to us (Mac) couldn’t have been nicer.   A quiet, bad-ass type.  I had never been flanked by anybody packing heat, so it was kind of a weird deal.

I didn’t know what to expect.  My mind’s eye impression of this place was somewhere between the slummy District 9 depiction and the cheery World Cup ‘made for tv’ stuff.  But I was definitely thinking more District 9.  Burning tires and Aliens chugging cat food.    Naturally, Fluor put up us in a posh hotel in a VERY nice part of town, but we were instructed to not leave the hotel for ANY reason without Mac.  We didn’t need to leave, because the car rides were illuminating enough.

Out first assignment was to document the southern hemisphere’s largest Oil refinery in Secunda (about 2 hours north of Joberg).  Sasol I, II and III are very impressive – miles and miles of piping and reactors.  The place employs tens of thousands of people in the region and is one the main economic drivers in all of Africa.  We could see it in all its glory from the window of our Elvis themed hotel “Graceland”.  For any Simpsons fans, its like when they go to “America Town” when visiting Japan.  This place was seriously bizarre.  Can’t describe it any other way.

The Sasol people were pretty strict as to what we could shoot, we did most of our work at the Fluor Training Center and Sasol Fabrication Plant.  Both places offered plenty of industrial beauty.  The sweat of the craftspeople and the intense focus of the metal workers made for some very opportune shooting.  Godwin and I were the ONLY crew on the trip, Mark St. John and Kaija Jones were on a simultaneously timed trip to The Philippines and India, so DG and I were on our own.  Armed with just a couple of Canon 5Ds and a Panasonic GH2 (which I shot with), we were mobile enough to get into every available nook and cranny.  At one point I was crawling around on the dirt floor of the Fabrication Center, getting extremely tight shots of the craftwork.  I was absolutely filthy, but satisfied with the cool stuff we were getting.

Our next assignment was a complete unknown.  For the Fluor Cares series, we were challenged to find a story with emotional impact.  But as any good documentarian knows, you can’t manufacture a story.  It’s either there or it isn’t.   We were told we would be visiting a school in the middle of a bad part of Secunda.  Flour had given a large grant to build a functional school/daycare for disadvantaged children there.  In this part of Secunda, most every kid was disadvantaged.  The surrounding community had been ravaged by HIV/AIDS and a HUGE number of kids had lost their parents and were now under the care of their grandparents.  Driving into this place was downright depressing.  The burning tires that I had imagined were here, along with goats scattered in large numbers eating dirty diapers and other unsightly refuge.  This was the kind of place that you only see on TV.  People wandered aimlessly around the streets, looking generally blissful; but obviously a little confused to see a van carrying a couple of white guys with video cameras entering their neighborhood.   Stuff like this never sinks in until you see it first hand.  Needless to say, we Americans have it REALLY good.

We finally found the school after driving around in circles for 45 minutes, pulled into a large field surrounded by about a dozen colorful shipping containers.  The place seemed strangely empty.  As we started unpacking our gear, I began seeing little eyes darting about inside the containers.  It was fairly bright out, so it was hard to see what was inside these big colorful boxes, which appeared to serve as classrooms.  As we started walking around, little faces started appearing everywhere.  Giggling and pointing children had noticed that we were here.  As their attention perked throughout the school grounds, I started getting a feeling that this was going to be an amazing day.  The energy was palpable.  My hair is literally standing up on my head as I write this. Having two children of my own with a third on the way, I have a pretty big soft spot for little ones – so when I started realizing that I was being surrounded by about a hundred or so beautiful, curious children I became absolutely overwhelmed with emotion.  Moments ago we had been driving through some of the most depressing stuff I had ever seen, then all of a sudden we had landed in this absolute oasis of hope and happiness.  It was unlike any feeling I have ever had.

The kids were absolutely thrilled by our presence.  They were certainly curious about our cameras, and weren’t quite sure of what to make of them at first.   There didn’t seem to be a shy one in the bunch – they all had a very warm, self-assured demeanor.  I would have expected a lot of shyness and apprehension – but we got the exact opposite.  They sang songs for us, they danced; one little girl had written a poem for us and recited it.  I’m trying, but words cannot describe the warm feeling I had on that day.  In some of the attached pictures, you can see I’m on Cloud 9.   Frolicking around with these kids was amazingly fun and natural. There was so much hope in an otherwise bleak place.  Its like the kids didn’t know any other way, other than to be carefree and happy.  Guess that’s the magic of children.

I’m currently in the color correction process of the video over at Lightpress, and the video will be premiering on April 21^st in Dallas at the Flour 100 Event.   I can’t wait to share it with everyone when it’s complete.  I certainly have a lot of emotional investment in it.

Looking back, I feel a little sad that I was previously so desensitized to what’s going on over there. I, like some others, have seen one too many George Clooney and Angelina Jolie charity tours and had subsequently stopped paying attention to Africa.   I bought We are the World in 1984, and was done caring at the tender age of 8.  As I mentioned before, the only thing that really changes one’s perspectives on these types of issues is to experience it first hand.  It certainly makes you more reflective. I thank Fluor for providing me the opportunity to see more of the world this past year; it was certainly life changing and I feel like I’m a better person for doing it.

Cheers,

A

Ok, so I’ve been around awhile. As a high school graduation present, I received a typewriter. It wasn’t until much later that word processors came along and changed the nature of writing. With a typewriter, one had to think out the words, sentences, and story ahead of time and then put it down one keystroke at a time with the proper spelling, punctuation and spacing all correct. Today, writing is a matter pouring all the possible ideas and words into the screen and then combing through and rearranging until it all makes sense. And spell-check is there to make it make grammatical sense. I much prefer the new way to the old but there is a skill that is rapidly being lost -planning ahead.  When you have one chance to put it onto paper, you don’t start typing until your story is ready in your head and the structure well thought out. And when you do start, you tend to be more focused. I believe that pre-planning makes for a more efficient process and better story.

I’ve seen a similar evolution with TV and video production.  In the early days, cameras and recorders were very expensive and there were very few around. A single camera approach meant that every shot was planned and executed within the context of how it would be edited. Videotape editing was linear which meant that you played a shot form one tape while recording it onto another in the sequence you wanted. You started with the title and worked your way through one scene at a time. If you wanted to change a scene later, you had to go back and re-edit and re-record from the fix on. Developing a good solid script ahead of time was essential and made for a more efficient process and better story.

But the world has changed. Cheap cameras with superior images are everywhere. The cost of production is so low that it’s not unusual to see multiple cameras shooting everything in sight. Non-linear editing means that any part of the video can be changed at any time. And I haven’t even touched on the ease of electronic effects and motion graphics.

This is truly a wonderful development but what is being lost is the value of a solid script. This notion of pre-planning, thinking it out and taking a point-of-view ahead of time is being drowned out in a cacophony of choices. Perhaps this is why quite a few of today’s flashy bright shiny object videos grab my momentary attention but are unmemorable in the long term. I yearn for substance underneath the style, structure that makes sense. I yearn for story.

The script is the thing.

-Brad

Old school. Start at the bottom. Go to the top. During my years in the advertising music business at Griffiths/Gibson Productions in Vancouver B.C., we had some high-octane gas in the tank. When we built our own recording studio, Little Mountain Sound, things got interesting.

Bob Rock, Metallica producer started out in the dubbing room, then he learned sound engineering. Ultimately he became a producer extraordinaire. Not bad for a young kid with a mullet.

Local Vancouver talent David Foster co-wrote and played piano on a bunch of spots. David went on to greatness and always stopped by the office when he was in town.

Bryan Adams hung around the studio all the time. We had him sing lead vocal on a Pontiac TV spot. It rocked. The drummer on that session was Jimmy Vallance who went on to co-create with Bryan for years to come.

Aerosmith, Metallica, Bon Jovi, Loverboy and dozens of other chart busters did their thing in one studio. All the advertising guys worked in another. The ad business was 9 to 5. The rockers started showing up around 4:00.

There were some real good years at Little Mountain.

Once, not long ago while being vetted for a drug trial in State Supreme Court, the prospective jurors were asked if they had any experience around recreational drugs. I said, “Your honor. I spent the 70’s working in a rock and roll studio.” After laughing he said, “You may be excused.”

-Charlie

As part of the Fluor centennial project we’ve collectively had the opportunity to travel to 6 of the 7 continents. It’s been an incredible experience. On the trip to China we were lucky to have a little down time with our cameras. First stop – Shanghai, a diverse, bustling megacity and the center of all things modern in China – architecture, fashion, commerce, culture, technology, etc. By contrast, the area of Xinju City we stayed in was built to accommodate hoards of people who haven’t yet arrived. Our gigantic hotel loomed over an intersection of massive boulevards, parks, and unfinished developments that sat empty except at rush hour when a lone traffic cop would guide a mix of scooters, water buffalo, and trucks through the intersection. It was an oddplace with an ever-present hint of communism in the air, especially inside the hotel. I enjoyed Nanjing most, particularly the old tree-lined streets. There I found people gathered around makeshift tables playing cards in front of tiny storefronts, and more bicycles than scooters. It was a respite from the hustle and bustle, as was walking through Xuanwu Lake Park. That particular morning it seemed that everyone in Nanjing was unwinding there with their family enjoying the gardens, tree-lined paths, and boat rentals. The only strange thing was that I could hear birds chirping constantly, but I couldn’t see them. Ultimately, I realized the chirping was being piped out of little speakers! Only in China.

This is a collection of images from China taken by me and David Godwin.

- Kaija

Kickin’ It in Greenville, SC – as part of the Fluor 100 world tour.

Wing contests, minor league baseball, roadside BBQ, giant green monsters and one random guy with a real affinity for Mark!