KCBA – Traveling Cocktail Club @ BRGR Kitchen (Videography)

Now… I don’t always shoot concerts.  A little known fact is that I am formerly a bartender… and I was a pretty serious one at that.

I grew up in the restaurant industry, and pretty much bartended my way through college, as the bar manager for 4 Olives Wine Bar.  Since moving to KC, I found my way into one of the most serious cocktail programs around, bartending at Manifesto in the Crossroads.  Through that experience I met these gentlemen, and am proud to say am one of the co-founders of the Kansas City Bartenders’ Alliance.  However… Being that I am no longer a bartender, I felt this is my best contribution to the group.

The Traveling Cocktail Club is a mobile offshoot of the KCBA, and moves from bar to bar to help exhibit quality cocktail programs, and highlight good bar practices.  For this video, the TCC found its way to the new BRGR Kitchen + Bar in Prairie Village, KS (just 3 blocks from where I reside!).  BRGR is a new casual “modern” burger joint featuring some tasty food, and some equally tasty cocktails.  An all fresh-squeezed/measured bar program, with an extensive beer and wine list as well.  Enough yapping from me… video!

KCBA – Traveling Cocktail Club 2.0 – BRGR Kitchen + Bar from Brandon Cummins on Vimeo.

Some personal notes:

First off… this is to a degree a bartender’s nightmare.  Walking into a bar you’ve never worked behind, and on a PACKED busy night.  Not to mention, memorizing the BRGR cocktail menu, and trying to nail down their food, wine, and beer list as well.  Quite a daunting task.  AND… as Beau mentioned… their taps are unlabeled.  Just adds some more fun to the endeavor.

That said, these guys did (IMO) a bang-up job.  I may have enjoyed a cocktail or two myself…

Shooting wise… My goal was to get as much footage as possible before I lost sunlight.  It created a nice fill in the bar area, and complimented the warm tones and Edison-style Tungstens around the bar nicely.  My outdoor shots were around ISO 160, and f/11… indoors went to ISO 1600 and f/2.8 – f/5.6.  Unfortunately I lost my sunlight before I had a chance to interview Jason, BRGR’s resident bartender…  I made due and cranked up to ISO 5000 and stuck it out at f/2.8.  I’m still blown away at how well this camera holds up in lowlight!

This was also one of my first shoots embracing Native 24p on the Canon 5D Mark II, as well as sporting my new Zoom H4n Handy Portable Digital Recorder, and a fantastic little furball, the Redhead Windscreen!  Boy did the Redhead save me outside.  KS definitely has some intense wind, and this day was no different… in fact, at times, it was even too much for the windscreen to keep up!  You should have heard it without!

My outdoor shots were on the “Nifty Fifty” 50mm f/1.8 II, then indoors switched to the 100mm f/2.8 Macro, and the 16-35mm f/2.8L II Ultra Wide Angle Zoom Lens.

It was a real pleasure getting to “work” with the Manifesto boys again, and feel like I was part of the team (I even wore my old “vest” for the shoot).  A big thanks to them & everyone at BRGR for all they’ve done!

Cheers to all!

-  B

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 1st, 2010 at 10:57 pm and is filed under Blog, Media Related and tagged with Bartending, Beau Williams, BRGR Kitchen + Bar, canon 5d mark ii, cinematography, Jason Valentine, Kansas City, Kansas City Bartenders' Alliance, KCBA, Manifesto, Mixology, Ryan Maybee, Traveling Cocktail Club, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.