LiquidAssets.tv Blog

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Gun Barrel City, Texas. No, this is not the location of gunfight in a Louis L’Amour novel but the location of a presentation I made on Friday. I was asked by the president of the local Rotary Club to talk about scuba diving and to show the two projects we at LiquidAssets.tv have been working on in 2008. I thought what the hell, it will be good training for the network pitch sessions and maybe I could turn someone onto scuba.

I arrived not knowing what to expect or what kind of response I would get from what I thought would be a room full of non diving, old people in a small Texas town. I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived to see a well organized function and a room full of people from every age group and gender, hell even a reporter from the local paper was there taking photos. Oh yeah, the option to gamble as soon as I arrived helped me relax a bit as well. I relaxed even more during the beginning of the meeting only to be set aback when I told the president that there was a bit of cursing in the pilots at almost the very moment the speaker asked Father O’Shea to begin the lunch with a prayer. Oh man! I was going to be flogged and run out of town. The only thing I had going was that he was Irish and Catholic and one of the videos was at least partially about drinking. Those of you who know me know what I did.

I approached the podium and looked directly at Father O’Shea and told him to please forgive the people in our shows for their foul language; he looked back and said “confessions are after the presentation son.” Disaster diverted, I asked how many divers were present and to my surprise a baker’s dozen raised their hand. Things are looking better every minute so I enthusiastically went into SCUBA, promoting liveaboard diving with Explorer Ventures and the story of LiquidAssets.tv Productions. The response to the first portion was good and I might just make it out alive.

After my shameless sales pitch promoting diving in general I dove straight into the first video and after a brief description, I hit play. This was my our control group, our first room full of people to see the trailers for our projects that I did not know and suspense was in the air, at least for me anyway. As “Into The Drink” played on and Aaron worked his magic, people began to laugh and look interested. Not to my surprise, but to my satisfaction, it was a hit. It was seemingly loved by people who had never seen a set of scuba gear in person and by divers alike. The eating penis and deflowering a virgin comment did earn a glance from Father O’Shea but the tape was still running and people were enjoying it. A few laughs and a cheer and I moved onto “The Over Under.”

People who did what we all want to do, pick up and live the life in the Caribbean is how I started my description and I found that almost everyone seemed to have had that dream. The second project trailer played and I knew we were on our way to something great!

While the GBC might not be a huge market share I thought of a story from Zig Ziglar, not that I buy into his propaganda but a story he uses to promote his ideals has made good sense to me since I read it. He spoke of a cab driver that took all the short fares to reach his goal. While all the other cab drivers passed up the short fares, he took them, one after the other, day in, day out. This cab driver worked his way to having a larger piece of the pie than the others, one small slice at a time. Gun Barrel City was a small slice of the pie that we now have and my goal is to turn everyone on to diving and to LiquidAssets.tv programming, one person at a time.

- Randy C. Harris, Executive Producer

…we’ve been here for months.

Just wanted to let everyone know that we’re about to announce - and premiere - some pretty exciting stuff in about 16 hours.  Fire up your computers, kids.  We’ve got some must-see TV for you.

We’ll be back later today.  Check your In-box….

xoxoxoxo

-Aaron

The clarity of mind that time at sea gave me and my partners provides us the vision needed to stay focused until we can bring diving to the masses through Network Television. This clarity also provided a vision of the best platform for the best production company specializing in underwater videography that anyone has ever seen.

Our webmaster is working on revamping the entire LiquidAssets.tv website, and it is focused on underwater video production and training travel … all focused on the enjoyment for all of us invested in the underwater world, live in HD.

We think that you will all be excited by the opportunities we have outlined in our plan. We are creating the best place online or anywhere to get into underwater video through training and travel all around the globe! LiquidAssets.tv wants to bring you along on location while we film, as we did for these two pilots. During the Turks & Caicos pilot trips, I found that you as video enthusiasts have a desire to make better video with what seems to be little existing opportunities. So LiquidAssets.tv will also offer some trips where you can have hands-on access to the knowledge our professional film crew has to offer.

Blogs, chatrooms, more merchandise in our store … the list goes on. Keep your eyes open as the new site unfolds, as it will provide you with a place to enjoy dive travel, video and provide the information so you can be a part of our next great adventure. We have high hopes that our pilots will open doors so that everyone can see how enjoyable and rewarding we all know diving can be. Don’t you want to be there when the LiquidAssets.tv crew decides to go Into the Drink?

-Randy C. Harris, Executive Producer

The crew said I should let you all know how I feel about the pilot shoot and this project. The words of one of my favorite people, Morris (Buddy) Hopkins, come to mind: “relax and let the world dance around you.”

Luckily, I thought of just those words when the opportunity to give up was provided by Hannah and Ike. I think you get the point, but as profound as my friend’s words were for me in that moment, it still does not express, nor do I think my words will be able to explain, how perfect and satisfying the last four weeks have been. I have never truly understood “meant to be” until I started this project with my friends. I now see clearly why that statement is a common euphemism, but it should be heard less often.

Conflict and resolution, that is what I kept hearing from our network contacts, the LiquidAssets.tv crew and anyone who I found giving me advice about what to look for while filming these pilots. I promptly scheduled all four weeks during the Caribbean hurricane season. I have to admit, I did this in hopes of a few bad weather days to add to the excitement of our show. I just knew it would offer up opportunity for some additional conflict and resolution. I also happen to think the diving is best during this season due to strange marine life behavior and warm water from the summer months … but who cares about that, right? Television shows need some action!

Shazam, my wish was her command, but not as I had envisioned it. Standing bewildered, watching the Weather Channel for weeks and days before our shoot, I began to realize that after almost a year of planning, the wish of some inclement weather might not have been a great idea. The weather I hoped for not only looked to provide us with a few bad weather days that would spice up the content, but the possibility of canceling all four weeks of this pilot shoot. Even worse, these back-to-back nightmare storms threatened some wonderful peoples’ homes and one of my favorite dive destinations in the Caribbean.

I am not foolish enough to think my hopes of a few bad weather days were the reason for this disaster, but I am the executive producer. All joking aside, who has ever seen a hurricane make a circle around an island only to be followed by its nastier big brother just days later? This is what happened, and the word coming from the islands was grim, but we soldiered on. The outcome only reinforces my belief that persistence prevails. The payoff for us was shark-crazy night dives, strange marine life behavior, manta rays, batfish, eagle rays, pilot whales, a many-toothed conger eel, and to top it all off, we had dolphins swim into the shot for the LiquidAssets.tv crew photo. If you think that is not a sign of things to come for LiquidAssets.tv production trips, then you aren’t invited to come along on the next adventure! The Ike relief crew project I created and implemented with the crew and our guest divers raised almost $1,500 for the local youth center, and was worth it in itself. This youth center, headed by Meghan, acted as Provo’s shelter for all the displaced kids from neighboring Grand Turk. Thanks to everyone who donated to our cause and our sponsors.

I would like to think that the unbelievable footage can be solely contributed to the bad ass LiquidAssets.tv production crew, but I now see that Lady Luck is on our side as well. It is apparent that this project has a set path to success, even if that path ended today. The talent is amazing, and I can feel the positivity when working with these people as we segue from the mundane toward the next generation of divers and dive TV.

I relaxed, and what a dance the world put on for us in the Turks & Caicos Islands. Mother Ocean, Mother Nature, the film crew, the boat crew and the guests of the Turks & Caicos all joined in. They ultimately provided us with some conflict and resolution, but the resolve that was shown to us all by the people of the Turks & Caicos Islands in the eye of these storms will live in my mind’s eye forever.

-Randy C. Harris, Executive Producer

It was madness. But it was a grand madness.

Four weeks of shooting, countless hours of footage, dozens of new friends and so many twists and turns along the way that we could have shot right up to the point we stepped on the ground in our respective hometowns.

When we started talking about scripting during pre-production, I have a distinct memory of telling my Liquid Assets teammates that these shows would write themselves. I believed that. What I didn’t expect was how many layers those stories would have.

From dealing with the fallout of Hurricanes Hanna & Ike to exploring brand-new, unmoored dive sites…learning how to play blackjack in a casino and taking astute advice from an 83-year old dive sage…filming the captain catching a longliner in the illegal act and putting out a boat fire simultaneously…documenting a crew dealing with each others’ vices and simultaneously depending on their strengths…capturing on tape some of the rarest and highly elusive animals in the Caribbean…two words: Dengue Fever…breaking my standing rule of absolutely-positively-no-seafood by eating conch penis on camera…being allowed into the lives of some of the finest diving professionals I have ever met…it was endless.

The people of the Turks & Caicos Islands are like nowhere in the world. I was spiritually brought to my knees many times by their sense of generosity and community. They are a people supporting each other in the toughest of times, relying on themselves and not their government to rise from the devastation of natural causes. They are a proud nation, as they should be. They truly are beautiful by nature.

Now comes the most difficult rung in the ladder – deciding which stories and threads make it to broadcast. It’s a journey that will take me from Boston to Las Vegas to Detroit and back again.

Thanks to everyone who came on board – crew, guests, all of you. Every single person played a role in this.

Late one night during the 3rd week of shooting, I was down in our makeshift studio (the crew of the TCEXII was generous enough to loan us their crew lounge for a month) and I was going over the dailies with our DP Mark Santa-Maria. It was at that moment – looking over what we had in the can even before shooting had wrapped – that I realized what groundbreaking footage we were sitting on. Tired and taxed as I was, I got a shot of adrenalin when I stewed on the notion that what we were working on – and what we had already captured – has no predecessors. I have never been so proud to be a part of a project as I have been this one.

I could go on. But I won’t. You’ll just have to wait for the final product.

-Aaron Faulls

Dear LiquidAssets.tv Divers,

As you all know by now Hurricane Ike played havoc on our playground. Luckily Provo fared OK and we did move the boat to the Dominican Republic for safety, it is due back to the Turks & Caicos mid-week. As long as the airport is open (no word yet) we will be back on track for Weeks #2, 3 and 4. My guess is that it is already open and we are doing research now.

We here at LiquidAssets.tv along with our sponsors have come up with a plan to help a great dive destination that is in need. We are all going to be there enjoying the diving and we want to give back, we hope after realizing our plan and goal that you feel the same. I have ordered 60 t-shirts with Turks & Caicos/Hurricane Ike Clean Up Crew on them and we want to ask for your help. On the normal itinerary we make two dives on Friday before returning to port; our plan is to bypass those dives and return to port after the night dive Thursday night and wake up Friday morning and hit the island to help clean up. We as divers and human beings have a responsibility to help maintain a great dive destination for generations to come and we have a golden opportunity. We will have the film crew helping on the clean up and filming it as well.

I have received approval from the Publisher of Scuba Diving Magazine to put the cleanup effort video on Scuba Diving TV to show divers that the Turks & Caicos wants and is getting ready for business and diving as usual. We will also put this on our site, YouTube and other media outlets to help promote tourism back to this great destination. You will need to bring a pair of gloves and some shoes that you don’t mind ruining and we will provide the clean up T-shirts for you all.

I know this is your holiday but we are only asking you to forgo two dives to help us help the people of the Turks & Caicos islands. Please let me know if you are want to be a part of this by the end of the day if possible. If everyone does not agree to forgo those dives we will have to make some dive plans for you but I truly hope we all do what we can to get these islands back on track. We are already there, let’s be a good ambassador for humanity and our country, we can help!

Sincerely,
Randy Harris
Executive Producer

The crew of LiquidAssets.tv would like to thank the kind and generous folks at Scubapro | UWATEC for contributing to our efforts. We encourage you to visit their web site and purchase their quality products.

Wow.

Just, wow.

For any of you who have been thinking about coming along and want to grab one of the last few spaces left, trust me on this one - week three just got a whole lot more interesting, and it was off the chain to begin with.

I don’t want to spoil it, but I will tell you it has a hell of a lot to do with the best record I bought in 1999, and certainly one of the best rock records of the last 10 years.

Trust me.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: “Under It All” - New American Shame

Hey, it’s 2008, and everybody’s got a blog. Why would we be any different? This is where you’ll need to tune in to find out all the latest on the LiquidAssets.tv crew, and what’s going on with the two pilots we’re shooting aboard the Turks & Caicos Explorer II this September and October. Stay tuned, because spots on the boat are going fast, and developments are taking place almost each and every day. Thanks for stopping by.