Taking Off the Helmet is My Hard Knocks

I invite everyone to visit GoDuke.com or click on the link below to see the first edition of my own version of HBO's Hard Knocks called Taking Off the Helmet: A Behind-the-Scenes look at the 2011 Duke Football Training Camp.

Taking Off The Helmet

First off I would like to say we had fewer members on our staff then HBO had makeup people but in a week's time myself, Chad Lampman and Mike Cappetto were able to piece together a pretty good show if I do say so myself. I also give special thanks to Tom Long and Adam Barkley in our football video department for working with us and letting us borrow a camera. It was great how we worked around only having one handheld video camera, one set of wireless mics and three computers to edit on. All this with our staff doing a lot of work with basketball as they get ready for this China trip. I am not going to lie, I am ready for them to leave already so we can focus on this football show.

Working on the show has been great for me. It took me some time to get used to doing video work again since I haven't shot any video or edited any since my junior year of college in the spring of 2003. It was a quick transition back after eight years as I picked things up pretty quick and started remembering bits and pieces of my classes and training. Who knows how great the show can be if I actually become halfway decent at it again.

The show is definitely our own and different than Hard Knocks. Being in a college environment we can't do the types of storylines such as position battles or coaches speaking about players individually as much. However we do have such things as guys still taking classes during camp which most people don't realize. Our coach David Cutcliffe will give us some great audio and is a gem to work with so the show was really fun to work on this first week. It almost made me forget about my real job at Duke as I was in my office for a combined 20 minutes this entire week. I did enjoy hanging out with Chad and Cappetto however.

I hope everyone likes the first show and will tune in the next two Fridays for the last two episodes. I will try to make them entertaining for all.