Dogs, basketball, and 24-hours into my creative process
I really just wanted to share the dog pictures
Subway rides to write this: 5
I (1) filmed, (2) edited, (3) posted a recent Do You Still Hoop? (DYSH) Episode in 24 hours!
That’s record speed for me.
So in this blog, I’m sharing the BTS of how it came together.
I recommend you watch the video first to understand things better.
But I know you’re probably busy, so to give a quick overview…
The episode featured Carlo Rabadam and his dog, Django.
Every morning at 7am, Carlo goes to his local park with Django and shoots the same 24 shots (s/o Kobe).
After he gets these shots up, he walks Django over to Prospect Park for off-leash dog hours.
Now you might be asking…
How did I even meet Carlo?
Carlo works at Nike, and a few months ago, I helped the HOOPBUS with an activation at The Seaport—coincidentally located outside of the Nike office.
So we hooped together one morning at the run below.
After the games, everyone started heading to work…
…but Carlo stuck around.
He was recording himself shoot on the HOOPBUS, so I approached and asked why he was filming.
Carlo told me about his video series called “Shoot Your Shot” where he shoots a free throw whenever he visits a new basketball court.
He’s done this all over the globe—Greece, Hawaii, LA, etc.
And he’s even “shot his shot” in NBA arenas.
Usually his wife is recording him, but since she was at work, I offered to film instead.
Below is the video I helped with.
Finding the Story
After filming this “Shoot your Shot” video, Carlo shared that he also wakes up every morning at 7am to shoot at his local basketball court with his poodle, Django.
They are at the court no matter the weather conditions—rain, snow, or shine.
Hearing this, I immediately thought he would be a great person to feature on DYSH.
But I like to get to know people more before telling their story, so we simply exchanged contact info and stayed connected through Instagram.
As the months passed, Carlo would post stories of himself hooping daily with his dog, and I saw more of his “Shoot your Shot” series.
I could sense he truly loves the game, so I texted him last Friday and asked if I could film his routine the next morning.
He responded immediately and was down.
Interview Day
We met at Dean Playground in Brooklyn at 8am.
(Carlo usually shoots at 7am daily, but he didn’t want me to wake up too early haha… For the record, I would’ve been there at 7am, but having that extra hour was good since the sun wouldn’t have been up yet, and it was an hour commute from Harlem for me lol).
I got to the park a little early just to get a sense for the vibe.
It was a nice park. Nobody was on the basketball court, but there were a few people on the grass field.
I got some shots up, tested out different camera angles, and reviewed the questions & research I had prepared.
Carlo walked up shortly after.
We talked for a little bit about what to expect for the video.
I was initially planning to only interview him at the basketball court.
But as we chatted, I asked if he had a routine after getting his daily 7am shots.
Routine beyond basketball
It turns out Carlo goes to Prospect Park with Django right after…
And then goes to the Farmers Market (on Saturdays only) with his wife.
Luckily, the Farmers Market was open that day, so I asked if I could follow him around for the WHOLE 3-part routine:
Basketball
Prospect Park
Farmers Market
Knowing that I had three parts for the video, it allowed me to be strategic about when and where I asked certain questions.
Different settings make the videos more engaging because the viewer becomes curious about where the interviewee will take them.
In the end, I hung out with Carlo, his wife Chantel, and his dog Django until 10:30am…
Then, I went straight to editing the video.
(but only after stopping for a Honeycrisp apple and a cinnamon sugar donut at the Farmers Market lol).
Editing breakdown
All my DYSH videos are 90 seconds long.
Knowing this—and that the video had three unique parts (basketball, park, and farmers market)—I decided that it would ideal if the final video was broken into three 30-seconds segments.
To visualize it, here’s what my Adobe Premiere Pro screen looked like.
The setting of the interview is color coded:
Blue: Basketball Court
Pink: Walking to Prospect Park
Yellow: Prospect Park
You’ll see that I actually cut all of the Farmers Market footage and replaced it with footage of us “Walking to Prospect Park” instead.
It was too crowded to film at the Farmers Market, and I felt like including the walk to the park glued everything together.
Also, the Farmers Market isn’t an everyday thing, but the (1) basketball, (2) walk to the park, and (3) actual park time always happen.
Oh—and in case you’re curious about the other colors in my editing process
Teal: B-roll
Green: Background Music
Orange: Caption
How I edited in one day
Editing each DYSH video takes ~10 hours from start to finish.
It can feel overwhelming, but similar to how I broke down the edit itself into three parts…
…I also break down the process of making time to edit.
With this video, I went to a different coffee shop for every 30 seconds of final footage I edited.
In other words…
(1) I edited the “Basketball Court” part at one coffee shop
(2) Then, I took a break and edited the “Walking to Prospect Park” part at a different coffee shop.
(3) And then another break to edit the “Prospect Park” part.
Piece by Piece
Changing my work setting allow me to (1) explore the city and (2) work with artificial time-sensitive deadline.
Exploring the city keeps me excited about being in NYC.
There’s always a new spot to check out, and editing is my excuse to do that (and buy an overpriced iced tea).
Regarding the artificial deadline, one coffee shop I went to had a 90-minute work limit.
This forced me to avoid distractions and finish editing one part of the video in that time frame.
By the time I got to the third coffee shop, I already had much of the grunt work done.
And the built-in breaks from walking to each coffee shop balanced my energy.
This provided much needed momentum and motivation to keep going.
The lessons I learned
Change your setting to make things feel novel (inner child vibe)
Set small goals with deadlines (complete a couple of them and you’re almost done)
Apply this to anything (work, relationships, etc.)
PS—huge shoutout to Carlo. He provided so much great B-roll for me to include in the video and came to the interview prepared. He did his research on my show before meeting up, which truly made the entire experience of filming, editing, and posting feel so effortless and natural.
“Subway rides to write this” is a metric I share at the start of every blog to show that making content doesn’t need to be so difficult. You can find the time to create during everyday activities.
Each subway ride for me is ~15-30 minutes long.
Also…
Please note: some of my new blogs (started Sept’24) contain a lot of satire and should not always be taken at face value.
Expect to see typos, wordy/repetitive sentences, passive voice, and anything else you’d expect from a “D-” graded high school assignment.
Because that’s my writing ability according to my first ever hate comment back in 2018.
I can’t wait for the Django interview, he is a regular hooper too🏀🏀